I'm a greedy, self-centered consumer. I want the best of everything for a reasonable (not necessarily the lowest) price. And you know what, that makes me not even the slightest bit different from the majority of consumers.
As a consumer looking out for my own best interests, I've come to the conclusion that 1 is a sucky number indeed. 1 sucks when there is only 1 company in a market because, more often than not, its products and services start going downhill fast. The firm doesn't have the competition to spur it on to improve and innovate.
For example, I run exclusively Microsoft operating systems on our PCs here at home. Does this suggest that I want Microsoft to be the only supplier of consumer operating systems? Not hardly. In fact, I wish they had less market share than they do now so they'd be motivated to update Windows even faster and better than they have been. Another example is Firefox, the open source browser. When Internet Explorer had like 96% of the browser market, Microsoft essentially stopped improving it (apart from the requisite security hole patching). Now that Firefox has gone from 0% to nearly 10% of the browser market in under 18 months, Microsoft is all of a sudden breaking out Internet Explorer 7. Don't tell me that competition doesn't help us consumers.
ebay is another example. If you want to auction something online, ebay is pretty much the only game in town. ebay knows this and has essentially stopped trying to make significant improvements in their service. Right now, they're just raking in profits and buying other companies (e.g., Paypal). There are lots of things ebay could do to improve their auction services. But, because they basically have no significant competition, they see no reason to spend the money on making these improvements they could otherwise distribute out to shareholders. This doesn't do us consumers any good (unless we also own ebay stock).
1 is a sucky number sometimes even outside consumerism. For example, I'm not devoted to either of the two main parties, Democrats or Republicans. I've voted for both in my life, and may well possibly continue to do so. But, as we see the "balance" of power list dangerously far to the right in this country, we start to see the problems that become even more rampant when there is only one party: corruption, abuse of power, favoritism, nepotism, and a total lack of moderation. Amazingly, the political party starts acting just like the firm with monopoly power and becomes an ineffective, if not outright bad, institution. If the Democrats continue to fall further into disarray and organizational atrophy, we risk becoming a one-party nation. And we know how well those do.
Rooting for the underdog is an American tradition, so I urge my fellow countrymen to go out and support that #2 (or #3 or #4) company/party/organization they've had their eye on. Buy a Mac. Use Firefox. Vote Democrat for a change. Support the underdog and keep potential monopolies from consolidating their power. Do this because, frankly, it's simply in your own best long-term interest.
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