Been using free Spotify for about 9 months on my phone and laptop. Occasional ads aren't very intrusive (mute or accept ads.) Pandora free has ads about every 5 minutes- too frequent for my liking. (But it's free so they can set the rules until customers leave like I did.)
I also listen to various internet radio stations on my computer. Many are good quality and few ads. I have a device that streams those stations (and music on network drives) direct to my hifi using my wifi. Works well with very good quality and no subscription fees.
I'm working with a friend to manufacture (in USA) a hi-fi tube preamp for sale later this year that will likely include wi-fi connectivity and built in DAC. Great quality and reasonable price coming soon;^)

I suspect actually that Sirius has some sort of FCC granted monopoly. NOt sure about that. though.

Sirius is a pain in the ass really. I routinely cancel service, and then take their $5 a month retention deal (for years now !!). Its not worth the $18 a month regular price. They have commercials for sirius radio constantly on their supposedly commercial free music stations. LIARS they are.

They dont very good service. choice of music is not good, and the rest of the stations are replete with commercials. Might as well listem to regular FM radio.

Right. Proving you can’t maintain a monopoly on popular products and services forever. Without the use of force, competition will eventually swoop in and the monopoly will become more and more narrow until it eventually disappears.

Still, Sirius XM had maintained a monopoly on various services for years. Just to maintain a monopoly on the Howard Stern show costed them hundreds of millions.

There is "sirius" competition from streaming services, so much that Sirius is investing in Pandora (which is declining itself) hoping to get subscribers from Pandora's base who are defecting in droves to other free streaming services.
I can't imagine paying to listen to talk radio in my car. Probably causes an increase in high blood pressure and road rage ;^)

Sirius (XM) satellite comes to mind. They’ve maintained a monopoly on public satellite radio listening for years. They had built custom satellites just for this purpose. Sirius XM continues to be the only choice for listening to satellite radio in cars in most areas.

I think you are missing the situation where one company could during a period of time could in fact provide whatever the market wanted in terms of some product or service to such an extent that no other company chose to waste their resources challenging it.

Don't tell me what I am "trying" to say. Nothing is "forever". A "stage" when a new product is first introduced is not maintaining a monopoly.

That kind of rationalistic imagined "theoretical" is unrelated to the problem. The "possible" is not what you can imagine with "if conditions". Maintaining a monopoly is meaningless if no one challenges it. The economy is not static. No one is immune from competition with any alternatives in a changing economy without force to prevent it.

Why would you state that its impossible to sustain a monopoly. I agree it would take a lot of work and determination, but I really doubt its impossible. "theoretical possibility" means that if certain conditions are met, it CAN happen. In this case, the real question would be if someone or group of people even wanted to go through the work of maintaining a monopoly position over a long period of time, but I stick to my position that its theoretically possible.

Maybe I need to understand WHY you take the position that force is REQUIRED. I would agree that force is HELPFUL for sure to maintain a monopoly,

I’ll repost that last part [with some clarification],

“A monopoly cannot be maintained without force.”
Sometimes something comes to market that is unique [that people want]. That business [which created it] may start out as a monopoly. A monopoly that could be maintained as long as the completion can not duplicate a similar product at a similar value.
No force needed during this stage.

If you are trying to say, “A monopoly cannot be maintained forever without force.”, you would, by default, be correct.

That "theoretical possibility" is word manipulation typical of academics who do not connect concepts to the facts that give rise to them. It is meaningless and irrelevant. Whatever you imagine someone "theoretically" doing while imagining no one else does anything about it, they cannot sustain a monopoly against a challenge without force.

Yes, it is very good, contrary to those who think in terms of floating abstractions with their notions of "perfect competition" as an end in itself. But such superior creations -- whose proper market protection is based on property rights regardless of demands to "protect" a false notion of free market -- do not last and cannot be used to maintain a monopoly without force.

Over time someone always comes up with a newer creation as an alternative. In real markets everything takes a finite period of time to develop. Accusations of a sustained "monopoly" because competition is not instantaneous are another form of floating abstractions misusing concepts outside of their meaning in reality.

It is theoretically possible to maintain a stable monopoly position without losing money. Or relying on force

You rejected the principle that "A monopoly cannot be maintained without force". The rest is discussion of why, including as one part the fact that private property that happens to be unique is not monopoly.

That is not a "dark side to competition". Is the way some people behave with or without a market. In a free market such arrangements do not last.

A black market is not a market without rules. It is illegal.

You stated that, “Private property is not "monopoly" and must not be banned.“
I agree with both points yet they were not any part of my last argument or any of my arguments, but you counter argued as if they were. So I stopped after that first sentence, well above, and called it a strawman. Everything after that I pretty much ignored.
My last argument is either valid or invalid but it seemed to have been just ignored.

They package rights with entitlements. Calling them individual rights will not stop them. They corrupt the use of all important concepts. The reason to emphasize rights of the individual is to explain and defend the proper concept against altruist and collectivist philosophy. "Shoving it in their face" as a word-slogan will not help.

Yes, prohibiting weapons of mass destruction has nothing to do with regulating trade. They can't be owned at all. That which is not owned cannot be traded.

"Sometimes something comes to market that is unique."
Peter Thiel's Zero to One is about this. He says we generally think of competition as good, but what's really good is creating something no one can compete with. It's a quick read and worthwhile.

It is not a strawman. You rejected the principle that "A monopoly cannot be maintained without force". The "stage" of a new idea that was not previously available is not monopoly. A new idea that is suddenly available is not sustained monopoly, immune from any competition: As soon as someone else creates an alternative he can compete unless he is prevented by force. To equate anything unique and still unchallenged that someone does with his own private property for any period of time with "monopoly" maintained without force obliterates the meaning and purpose of the concept.

Anyone is free to compete at any time and cannot be stopped except by force. If something is so permanently unimportant and undesired that no one ever bothers to offer any alternative then no one is dependent on it and no one cares. To say that here in reality a monopoly cannot be maintained means that someone is challenging it. Fantasizing someone permanently operating at a loss to provide everyone what he wants for the sake of not having anyone else provide it or an alternative is word games, not reality.

Utilitarianism is a well known and unfortunately influential ethical position in philosophy due primarily to Bentham and Mill, not just a "label". The "greatest good or the greatest number" is the collectivist version. Not only is the premise false, it is impossible to implement.

I am not "ok" with violating private property rights for the sake of the collective. Lumping bribery and a vague "shutting out" with market dominance is another invalid package deal exploited here for government controls ambiguously passed off as "some guidelines". Protecting the rights of the individual, especially private property rights, in the market is "real competition". Government coercion violating freedom while claiming to provide "free flow" and "opportunity" in a rationalized floating abstraction of a "market" is not.

Yep. My point is that it is a lot harder for them to corrupt the term, “individual rights.” And that’s why they avoid it like the plague. And that’s why we should be shoving it in their face.

true. none of those are really rights that are owed to any human. its an abortion of the language actually.