That situation enables the one having control to raise the price above the fixed prices.

Of coarse monopolies are plenty in the world markets, their disadvantage is that the consumer or the buyer has to pay the price requested by the monopoly even if it is tremendously high because there is no other source, otherwise the customer cannot obtain that product or service.

Gas is not a monopoly because it is governed and there are places that do charge different prices. Microsoft was the most recent company that was charged with being a monopoly and that is because they created software that most computer programs today need to run. They basically made a product that you HAD to have in order to run other programs on your computer.

In general monopolies are bad for consumers because the company can pretty much do as it pleases and charge any price they see fit. Prices for long distance calls have gone down because of competition for example.

sometimes they’re bad because if they raise prices on the services they provide, you have to just pay more because there aren’t any other choices to pick from.

Con Edison might be an example.

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