Apples v. Oranges; Exploring a Loophole in (Kinda) Competing Business Models

Some time ago, I posted about Chevron's strategic acquisition and how that affected the future of electric vehicles to this day. There is nothing new about their strategy, not at all. John D. Rockefeller, probably prompted by Henry Ford's decision to make the original Model T a flex-fuel vehicle designed to run either on gasoline or alcohol, spread his wealth and influence into the USDA and the prohibition movement, moves that precipitated the Prohibition and thus ended home-grown competition for his emerging dominance in petroleum fuels. Likewise, William Randolph Hearst protected his vast forest and paper mill holdings by joining others in the movement to criminalize hemp.

For years I've been angry about this type of strategy, where the leaders of established companies use their wealth and influence to quash competition from tangental areas. I'm not the only one angry, of course. Many are. How many have died so that inferior products and business practices continue essential monopolies? How can society in general make any progress toward greater efficiencies without eliminated or at least marginalizing technologies that have reached their nadir and need to be retired completely?

( Just the other day I realized how whiny and bitchy I sounded. )