What Taylor Swift and the United States Postal Service Can Teach Us about Monopolies

Reason’s Peter Suderman recently penned a very clever article, Is It Time To Trust-Bust Taylor Swift? In his piece, Suderman uses the Taylor Swift phenomenon to delightfully poke fun at antitrust theory, where big is always bad. 

The author compares the beloved Taylor Swift’s “too big to fail” position in the music industry to that of Amazon’s in the marketplace, the latter of which being the enemy of antitrust cheerleaders who believe the company’s power takes advantage of unassuming consumers. Suderman then hilariously suggests that if the Federal Trade Commision (FTC) plans on continuing their crusade to rein in Amazon’s empire, they might also want to rein in Swift’s as well.

The article got me thinking a lot about the public’s understanding of monopolies and specifically, what harmful monopolies are and what they are not.

Love her or hate her, there is no denying that Swift’s success in the music industry is not only admirable, but unmatched. 

Some might even say she has a “monopoly” on pop music and maybe even pop culture as a whole. But is Swift’s too big to fail success as problematic as Amazon’s? It’s a trick question, because truthfully neither entity represents the type of monopoly of which we should be wary. 

Yet, while the FTC targets Amazon, it turns a blind eye to one of the most infamous monopolies of the last 248 years: The United States Postal Service (USPS).

A Tale of Two Monopolies

It is a fact that Amazon has immense power in the marketplace. Its low prices, variety of products, and two-day shipping has revolutionized the way the world shops. But they didn’t get that way because of corporate abuse or exploitation. Amazon grew so powerful because it offered products and services people wanted. Consumer choice is what made Amazon the company it is today. 

On the other hand, consumer choice has absolutely nothing to do with the monopoly the USPS has over the mail. 

Have you ever walked out of the post office and thought to yourself, “Wow! What great customer service!”? Unless those words were uttered in sarcasm, it’s likely that no one in human history has ever felt this way. And why should they? The USPS is almost comically incompetent not to mention vastly outdated, and exorbitantly expensive. In fact, the USPS recently revealed that it lost $6.5 billion in the last fiscal year alone. 

And yet, if you want to send a letter, the USPS is your only option. Why? Because the government says so. No matter how many times it loses your mail or provides epically horrible customer service, you are still forced to fund its existence with your tax dollars. This is a harmful monopoly at its finest. 

When the government makes an entity too big to fail, choice is eliminated and with it any incentive to innovate or keep customers happy. 

If Amazon offered the same “quality” of services offered by the Post Office, they would lose customers and thus their power in the marketplace. Should this happen, there would also be an opportunity for a competing company to swoop in and offer consumers a better option. 

The USPS, however, is protected from competition by the government. Considering these facts, which entity poses a bigger threat to consumers: the company that consumers have voluntarily chosen time again? Or the one that only stays in business because the government won’t allow it to fail?

Taylor Swift and Natural Monopolies

Contrary to the government-protected USPS, Amazon’s unprecedented success is an example of a natural monopoly, which is created through voluntary consumer choice. We see the same type of natural monopoly when we look at Miss Swift’s success.

In less than 24 hours, Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour sold over two million tickets, breaking the record for most tickets ever sold in one day. A year later, Swift broke records once again when her Eras Tour concert film was released in AMC theaters. 

Swift’s list of awards includes 12 Grammy Awards, 14 MTV Video Music Awards, and 100 Guinness World Records. Her relationships are front page news, her outfits are copied by women all over the world, and her music can be heard just about anywhere from coffee shops, to dentist offices, and clubs. 

How did she do it? By winning the love and loyalty of her fans. It’s not just her music. Swift has an incredible work ethic which she has used to build a brand and an empire–all of which have only been possible because, like Amazon, consumers have made it so. 

At the risk of angering Swifties, the truth is TSwift is not the best singer. She’s not the most talented songwriter either. But she resonates with her fans in a way that is incomparable to anyone else in the industry–past or present. 

For many of her fans, her music serves as the soundtrack to their lives. Whether they are falling in or out of love, Swift captures every emotion they have felt forming a deep connection between her and her fans. I’d say the role she plays in her fans’ lives is priceless, but given the thousands of dollars people were willing to spend on her Eras Tour, I guess you can put a price on it. 

Even though it’s almost anticlimactic now to learn that Swift has won yet another award or has another #1 hit, as Suderman points out, Swift has used her ever growing influence in the industry to give her fans more and more of what they want. Amazon is the same way. The bigger they get, the more they have to offer. 

In fact, the company has recently introduced telehealth and pharmacy services at competitive rates.

Like Amazon, Swift is a perfect example of a natural monopoly. If the FTC was consistent, they would go after Swift for exploiting her fan’s emotions to sell concert tickets just like it goes after Amazon. But of course, as is the premise of the Reason article, that would be absurd and beyond FTC consideration, as would the decision to go after the USPS.

Not all monopolies are created equal. The only monopolies to fear are those that use government force to achieve what can only be described as artificial success. 

Taylor Swift and Amazon earned their place in their respective industries by creating value for loyal fans who keep coming back for more. The government monopolies, on the other hand, have earned nothing. 

Criticisms aside, I admire Swift and I long for the day that letters can be sent via Amazon Prime, so I can send a postcard to the USPS telling them that we are never, ever, getting back together.