What are some similarities and differences between a pure monopoly and oligopoly? What would be a good example of a company in a monopoly and one company in an oligopoly for comparison?

Monopolies are companies that tend to have complete dominance over a certain industry. The competitors of a monopoly tend to share a smaller percentage of the total market.

Oligopolies, in contrast, are companies that form some kind of unsaid union to dominate a particular industry. They ensure that their prices are almost always in sync to prevent one of them from appealing more to the customer. This way, they are always a limited choice for the consumer who has no choice but to go with one of them.

The main similarity between these two types of organizations is the fact that both of them tend to have the largest share of the market and all the other competitors are left to share the smaller percentage of the market.

The main difference between these two, however, is the fact that while a monopoly is a single firm, an oligopoly is a group of firms that come together for the sole purpose of dominating the industry.

An example of a monopoly is Facebook in the social networking industry, while an example of an oligopoly is Google's Android and Apple's iOS in the mobile phone operating system industry.