Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Twitter is an infrastructure on top of which thousands of services are run. It's a notification service, it's a messaging server, it's an authentication/identify verification service, it's a news dissemination and discussion service, etc. It's all of these, except private. It's a privately run notification/messaging/authentication/identity/verification service. Just one that is widely used. That doesn't make it "pu…
You're talking past each other. OP was framing Twitter as a "natural monopoly": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_monopoly The barrier to creating a new social network once network effects have locked in a few major players is enormous. In this situation, the market is more efficient when the large incumbents are granted a highly-regulated monopoly status. That's how power companies work. You don't have new power…
A natural monopoly is one that arises due to the high costs of entering the market and other barriers to entry that make it difficult for competitors to establish a footing.
Utilities are natural monopolies because it is very expensive to place pipes, transmission lines, etc., over large geographic areas. Consequently, a company must either have large starting capital or the ability to grab a large enough portion of the market to pay for the costs of the initial infrastructure outlay.
The barrier to entry for the short form messaging market? Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Any programmer can recreate the functional parts of Twitter in under a day, scaling aside. And there are already several Twitter competitors. They're simply not very popular because they're difficult to use.