Memes

And that’s why we have barriers to entry stifling competition lobbied for by the big players in said industry?

Yes. That's how capitalism operates. There is nothing in capitalist system that prevents monopolies from happening, in fact they kind of encouraged. And patent system is as capitalist as it gets. It was born as an answer to a question "how do we collectively insure that companies can own everything they want to own", and the government exists to enforce the rules that rich people and companies want to have (getting back to lobbying). If you get rid of the government, you will get cyberpunk corporate wars, and then when people will get tired of that, they will come up with the same government-like structure.