Lack of competition a good thing?

It's been a while since I have posted to the blog, and I had not noticed that when blogger stopped working over here for a day or so, it copied a post 4 times. so, ignore the last three posts.

Anyway, I was working on some thoughts for my educational tech class, and my brain happened across this idea which I posted in a discussion board there.

One of the most valuable features of the internet is the fact that new technologies can be implemented and spread so rapidly. Also, it is set up in such a way that a small company can become huge if they develop the proper tool at the right time. However, this quickness in change and development is one of the greatest weaknesses in the design--you always have to learn something new and abandon your old tools to stay up to date. Now that there are a few larger comanies such as Google, we see certain tools being adopted more universally. Not just because the tech is stable, but because since they are already huge, you can be somewhat certain that people from other companies and schools are using the same tech. We can teach Google Docs and other Google apps because it is actually being used in the real world. But as more and more people adopt these tools, the more difficult it will be for new tech and new tools to become popular. It's not just one or two people that have to change or adopt a new technology, it is the whole world at this point. Think of the evolution of social network websites. The first popular one was Friendster. It was usd mostly by college and high school kids. Then people moved to Myspace. The same kind of people used Myspace that used friendster, but it was easier to use and had many more features. But then came Facebook, and there is now almost universal adoption of this technology/website. Each social network improved on the last, but there was not a huge adoption of the tech until Facebook came. Now, can you imagine how hard it would be for a new social network to become as popular. I can't think of a new social network replacing Facebook. Facebook will just have to change and adapt over time. It's become its own upgradeable platform. The only thing I see overthrowing it would be a new kind of technology that replaces social networks entirely.

Now, as Google Apps and Google docs become more widely used, the more difficult it will be for a new competing website or tool to become popular. There is less and less competition, and in ways that is bad for technology and its advancement as a whole, but it is kind of good for schools that need stable tools that they can count on being used for more than 2 years.

What do you think? Is a lack of competition actually a good thing for schools? Is it good in the short term, but bad in the long term future?