The biggest natural monopoly I know of is airlines, and even they have enough competition naturally that their biggest problems are artificial restrictions.

As far as I can tell, voters and politicians and bureaucrats don't make decisions based on what is best for the industry and producers/consumers/laborers/entrepreneurs but based on how they feel or what directly lines their individual pockets. Airlines just *seems* like something that needs a bunch of regulations to most people, so it gets a bunch of regulations, which have distorted the industry significantly and caused loads of problems and greater costs.

Other industries get very little artificial restrictions because they just don't seem like they need them, yet those industries can still have very big natural monopoly attributes while still having robust competition and servicing of the customer's desires. Smart phones are a good example of that.

My point here is basically that most people think they apply their preferences for regulation in different areas based on reason, but I'm saying they don't and instead it's more about familiarity or false intuition. Why do people think government should own roads? Probably because that's what people are used to. Why do people think government shouldnt own farms? Probably because that's what people are used to.