They must think we’re idiots
What is it with incumbent monopolists that the best they can say to welcome new competitors is “we welcome competition”? Do they think we’re idiots?
Telkom said so back in 2001, in anticipation of May 2002 when its legal monopoly was meant to end. It didn’t get competition, so it must indeed have loved it. When the second national operator, Neotel, was finally licenced three years later, Telkom again said it welcomed the competition. It’s not exactly taken the market by storm, so Telkom is undoubtedly still loving it.
Now it’s Multichoice’s turn, since several competing pay-TV operators have been awarded licences. “We welcome competition,” it says, and we’re supposed to smile and nod and feel all warm and gooey about its magnanimity. Sister company Media24 runs the story, gushing about just how welcome competition will be.
Here’s another one: SAA “welcomes competition” from Comair on the Johannesburg to London route. Of course you do. It’s only encroaching on your most profitable route, after all.
Do they take us for fools? Nobody in their right mind welcomes competition. Consumers might, because it could lead to more choice, higher quality or lower prices. But suppliers only ever welcome competition on rare occasions, when a new market needs to build legitimacy, credibility and scale. They never welcome competition in an established market, because it has a negative impact on both revenue and profit margins. The only way they might mean “we welcome competition” is as an insult to competitors: “You’ll be useless, bring it on!”
If they were honest, they’d just come out and say that. It sadly tends to be true when a monopolised industry sector is opened for the first time to limited competition, especially when that competition is chosen by the very government that protected the monopoly incumbent in the first place. Multichoice is being just as disingenuous as Telkom and SAA. Perhaps all that state protection addles the brain. They sure insult the intelligence of both their new competitors and their customers. Multichoice’s inept spin gives a whole new perspective to the phrase “idiot box“.
