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[quote user="nanaimo73"][quote user="futuremodal"]  Do some research on this forum - I've referenced the triopoly theory many times. [/quote]Who would be the experts on that theory ? Could you please post a link to some of their work ?[/quote]Okay, slight problem here.....The main link I had to the theory of triopoly was a USDA study from 1998 that compared monopoly rates to duopoly rates to tripoly rates for a specific ag move.  Unfortunately, the link to the study has been removed (probably by the evil Bush Administration [;)])...<a href="http://www.ams.usda.gov/stb.htm">http://www.ams.usda.gov/stb.htm</a>....so the best you can get is the search engine blurb as follows:"... monopoly to a duopoly in a corn market 75 miles from water reduces rates by 17.4 percent, and moving further to a triopoly reduces rates another 15.2 percent; ..."Other search results are not as forthcoming as they were even last year when I searched.  The only other link I can come up with is not even a study, but simply a news item on some new air carrier in Hawaii....<a href="http://www.usatoday.com/travel/flights/2006-06-05-hawaii-fare-war_x.htm">http://www.usatoday.com/travel/flights/2006-06-05-hawaii-fare-war_x.htm</a>Quote of note:  "There's the word 'monopoly.' There's the word 'duopoly.' But there's no word 'triopoly,'" said Jonathan Ornstein, Mesa's president and chief executive. "With a third carrier in the market now, it's sort of forcing this level of competition, which is clearly good for the consumer." Okay, so Mr. Ornstein doesn't get out much if he thinks there is no word "triopoly", but from what we can glean from the gist of the article, the introduction of Mesa into the Hawaiian air market did cause a 50% reduction in introductory rates across the board from what the rates were with two carriers..."Mesa introduced $39 promotional one-way rates in March. Aloha and Hawaiian quickly followed suit. That's nearly half of usual airfares in Hawaii. Mesa also recently announced a special $59 round-trip weekday rate, and that was also matched."The points mentioned in this article do back up the theory as postulated, e.g. that introducing a third entity into a duopolistic market forces down rates to a level that nearly emulates perfect competition.  And since dominant industries tend toward consolidation to eliminate competition, there is a need for government oversight of some kind to make sure the consumer maintains access to the lower pricing, which is ostensibly why we have anti-trust laws.Wait!  Here's one econ study that might show what I'm talking about, although I'll have to explain it to the non econ types.... <a href="http://www.iaee.org/documents/p03bunn1.pdf">http://www.iaee.org/documents/p03bunn1.pdf</a>"Evaluating the Effects of Crossholdings and Information on Wholesale Energy Prices" by Derek W. Bunn and Augusto Ruperez Micola; London School of Economics.Go to page 14; "Theorectical Valuations" and "Nash Prices" Monopoly = 100Duopoly = 66Triopoly = 50So when P = 200, demand side valuation (e.g. value or worth of the transaction to the consumer) is 100 for monopoly, 134 for duopoly, and 150 for triopoly.Thus, the consumer gets a 50% increase in the value of the market transaction when he is dealing with three supply side providers as opposed to one supply side provider, and a 16% increase in transaction valuation when dealing with the three over two providers.  You'lll note that the 16% difference is remarkable close to the 17% difference in the USDA study.
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