“Privatization” versus “Oligopolization”
Back when Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos were experiencing real success with their personal spaceflight programs, people were crying that it was the “privatization of spaceflight”.
I’d never heard the word before, and I should have known better than to take this crowd at their word when I assumed they knew what it meant.
"Privatization" means one of two different things. In both cases, a citizen (a private individual) buys something; either public property from a government, or a corporate company from its investors (with the corporation becoming a private company).
Since the United States government didn’t sell NASA to either man, spaceflight wasn’t being privatized in the slightest.
What I thought the word meant was that private citizens were breaking a government monopoly through entrepreneurship.
The proper word would have been oligopolization; like monopolization, but in reverse. A transition from a monopoly (one provider) into an oligopoly (few providers).
Generally, oligopolies aren’t much better than monopolies, but it’s definitely a step towards democratization of services rather than away from it. And realistically, no one but governments or billionaires is going to have the kind of wealth necessary to start such an enterprise.