Perhaps the BEST B1G Forum anywhere, here at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

Apple was around ~before DOS of course, in a rudimentary stage.  I saw an Apple 1 once, and used a II+ at work for a while.  It had Visicalc on it that was just incredible.  I dimly recall when the Macs came out they grabbed a "Subaru-like" following of folks claiming they were much easier to use.  I migrated back and forth as the company changed platforms.  I then found Symphony, which was Lotus 1-2-3-4-5 in effect and used that for a long time.  Then we were forced into using Word and Excel and some email thing.

As you note, the appeal of the hardware was more the software it came with.  I use a Dell, and have for ages, my wife has an Apple MacBook because she thought it was easier to use (and then took a course to learn how to use it).  

It is interesting to contemplate near duopolies.  I'll name another almost one, in disposable diapers, with KC and P&G, though private lables still exist, I think.  There is a ton of $$$ in diapers.  

This doesn’t account for advancement of technology. We would all still be in Walmart’s 90s world had Amazon not beat them at their own game with the advent of the internet.

Just one example, but Capitalism’s inevitable monopolies also face equivalently inevitable declines.

And yet another example of one of the reasons monopolies fail... Usually competitive threats from outside their core competency are dismissed and ignored... And then they fail to respond until it's too late. 

Downplay? Like others, I like nice things. We discuss here. Much of our discussions would be gone if we didn't talk about travel, cars, places to live, etc.

If not talking about those things is downplay, well, I'm not playing. And this board is probably toast.

To stretch this out a little bit, some of what you wrote points to an element of being rich that this poll isn’t considering.

you, and a lot of us, like nice things. Many of us have nice things. Based on some of the logic we have above, if you like canned tuna and grocery store bread instead of nice food and playing chess in the park instead of driving a boat, you would be closer to being rich.

but instead you forgo some element of being “rich” to have an enjoying nice things. Which in part is the value of being rich. So, I would argue, the ability to comfortably have certain nice things is a hallmark of being some degree of rich. Maybe not extremely rich, but a certain degree of rich.

To stretch this out a little bit, some of what you wrote points to an element of being rich that this poll isn’t considering.

you, and a lot of us, like nice things. Many of us have nice things. Based on some of the logic we have above, if you like canned tuna and grocery store bread instead of nice food and playing chess in the park instead of driving a boat, you would be closer to being rich.

but instead you forgo some element of being “rich” to have an enjoying nice things. Which in part is the value of being rich. So, I would argue, the ability to comfortably have certain nice things is a hallmark of being some degree of rich. Maybe not extremely rich, but a certain degree of rich.

Those are good points.

I do love canned tuna (for real).

A free public education overcharges? 
Mkay.

It's free? I wasn't aware you were not taking a salary... 

I don't see credit unions going away. We'd need @Honestbuckeye to weigh in on the rest of the dynamics.

Yeah, I'm obviously trying to think of some industry that would tend to monopoly.  Amazon strikes me as a monopoly in one sense, but we all buy stuff from other retail outlets, so they can't raise their prices without competition. 

Would Uber buy Lyft and become one?  We still have taxis here and they are cheaper than Uber from the airport.

I think it’s harder and harder to have a true monopoly, but probably much easier to have levels of vertical integration that foster anti-competitive situations.