In Scott Adams' The Dilbert Future (1997), he introduced the word confusopoly. The word is a portmanteau of confusion and monopoly (or rather oligopoly), defining it as "a group of companies with similar products who intentionally confuse customers instead of competing on price". Examples of industries in which confusopolies exist (according to Adams) include telephone service, insurance, mortgage loans, banking, and financial services. [from wiki]
The central idea is that if companies made it easy to compare their products, then those companies would be forced in to a detrimental competition on price. So instead, if each company offers a slightly different package, with different feautres and prices, then simple comparison doesn't exist.
This is still the spirit of collusion, and is prone to defectors. There should be large incentives for one company to leave the cartel, make a simple service, and sell it at the same price of their competitors. They would save money by reducing their own internal complexity, and would gain money by winning over customers.
In Scott Adams' The Dilbert Future (1997), he introduced the word confusopoly. The word is a portmanteau of confusion and monopoly (or rather oligopoly), defining it as "a group of companies with similar products who intentionally confuse customers instead of competing on price". Examples of industries in which confusopolies exist (according to Adams) include telephone service, insurance, mortgage loans, banking, and financial services. [from wiki]
The central idea is that if companies made it easy to compare their products, then those companies would be forced in to a detrimental competition on price. So instead, if each company offers a slightly different package, with different feautres and prices, then simple comparison doesn't exist.