More local monopolies deserve limits on the right to deny service
One of the rights shared by corporations and individuals is the right to choose when and with whom to enter into contracts, to whom to provide services, etc. You, an individual person, can decide not to sell me your grain or your smart phones, or not to hire out your labor to me to cut my trees or program my computers. A corporation can generally do the same, reserving the right to “fire a customer” and stop doing business with me or with you.
However, this right is not absolute. We have laws that apply to “public callings” and “public accommodations”, requiring businesses (whether run by an individual or a corporation) to provide services without discrimination. You're probably already aware that most businesses are generally not allowed to discriminate based on race or religion, or to make their facility inaccessible to wheelchairs. Some of these laws apply to all businesses, and some become more broad or strict the more necessary and monopolistic the nature of the business.
Even further than discrimination, the most critical of such callings and accommodations are restricted from denying a customer unless that customer violates specific reasonable rules that apply to all customers. This is most notably the case for public utilities; e.g. your electric company is (at least in most of the United States) forbidden from declining to provide you service just because they don't like you or don't want to or even have suffered some loss in previous dealings with you. Our society has decided that it would be bad for us all if the water company could shut off water to any vendor that refuses to sell them cheap parts or to any employee that refuses to provide cheap labor.
I believe that this restriction should apply to most local monopolies, and even more so when that monopoly has previously displaced its competitors. When there are a dozen places to buy an apple in your town, you lose little by one of them choosing not to sell you their apples, and each has little power in their ability to deny you. However, when there is only one apple store in town, they have much more power in that ability, and can pressure you much farther than if they had local competitors. We already recognize that their ability to raise prices is a monopolistic abuse that should be constrained in some ways. However, currently there are no restrictions on their ability to fire a customer.
This gap has a chilling effect on individuals seeking to enforce their rights against such a business. If you charge back a credit card purchase against Walmart, make a noise complaint against Simon Property Group (who own the most malls in America), or take your local Amazon store to small claims court, you risk losing access to the only source of many products and services in your neighborhood or city or possibly anywhere. Most people would never consider taking any such action against any of these businesses that they rely on, in any scenario less egregious than physical bodily harm.
That state of affairs is bad for our society and needs to be rectified. Those local monopolies need to have restrictions similar to a utility company, more so the more closely their monopoly approaches absolute. Factors in the closeness of that approach might include the physical, financial, and legal barriers to competition, i.e. how hard would it be for someone else to provide similar competing service? If anyone can open an apple stand in their front yard, the local apple monopoly might be quite weak. If, however, there are years of permits and approvals required, no land available on which to build, million or billion dollar investments required, etc then the restrictions should be near those applied to utilities.
This post reflects hundreds of my own experiences and thousands I have heard about. It was most immediately prompted by a friend posting something like “Uber stole some money from me but I can't demand it back or else I might lose access to the only car hire service in town since they put the taxis out of business”. Maybe I'll link back to this when I see posts like this in the future. I'm not the right person to push this cause, but perhaps I can inspire someone else. I dream of seeing some city or state give this idea the force of law in my lifetime.