alt Hacker NewsI know exactly how they work, but they have a single entry point, as a customer you don't really care that the system is global, and they also have a single control plane, etc. Decisions are efficient if they need to be taken only once. The underlying architecture is irrelevant for the end user.
Why do you think they're a monopoly in the first place? Obviously because they were more efficient than the competition and network effects took care of the rest. Having to make choices is a cost for the consumer - IOW consumers are lazy - so winners have staying power, too. It's a perfect storm for a winner-takes-all centralization since a good centralized service is the most efficient utility-wise ('I know I'm getting what I need') and decision-cost-wise ('I don't need to search for alternatives') for consumers until it switches to rent seeking, which is where the anti-monopoly laws should kick in.
> Decisions are efficient if they need to be taken only once.
In other words, open source decentralized systems are the most efficient because you don't have to reduplicate a competitor's effort when you can just use the same code.
> Obviously because they were more efficient than the competition and network effects took care of the rest.
In most cases it's just the network effect, and whether it was a proprietary or open system in any given case is no more than the historical accident of which one happened to gain traction first.
> Having to make choices is a cost for the consumer
If you want an email address you can choose between a few huge providers and a thousand smaller ones, but that doesn't seem to prevent anyone from using it.
> until it switches to rent seeking
If it wasn't an open system from the beginning then that was always the end state and there is no point in waiting for someone to lock the door before trying to remove yourself from the cage.