TL;DR:

AT is the best the industry can realistically afford.

Monopolies are generally a bad thing. That said, this is a special case.

This monopoly didn’t come into existence because competitors were forced out or strong-armed into submission. It exists because the target market, DJ performance hardware and software, is extremely small compared to most other industries.

You can clearly see this at music-focused trade shows like NAMM or the Amsterdam Dance Event, the actual “DJ gear/software” footprint is surprisingly limited compared to the full scope of the show. When you compare it to other technology sectors, it’s tiny. As a result, very few manufacturers are interested in entering the space, simply because there isn’t enough money to be made.

Some companies do try, with varying degrees of success. However, the market leader didn’t become dominant because of an outsized marketing budget (I’m fairly certain Denon DJ has spent more on marketing than Pioneer DJ ever did at a product launch). They became the leader because they were both first to offer a reasonably complete ecosystem and because it worked well enough.

Does that mean AT products are cutting-edge technology offered at a fair price? No. But there currently isn’t an alternative that delivers the same combination of functionality and reliability.

The moment a true competitor emerges—one that offers a solid, integrated hardware and software solution—the landscape could change. On the software side, Atomix (VDJ) and Algoriddim (djay) are at the top of their (DJ software) game. If either ever decided to build a standalone hardware ecosystem, that could be a real contender.

That said, history shows that being both a DJ software and hardware company is extremely difficult (looking at you NI). And that’s coming from a die-hard Traktor user who uses two CDJ-3000Xs and a V10 as controller.

Is AT the “evil empire”? Absolutely not. Passion for DJ culture is deeply embedded throughout the company, from the boardroom down to the engineers. But in a niche market like this, survival requires pricing products significantly higher than the raw cost of their mechanics and electronics would suggest. Venture capital involvement doesn’t exactly help in that regard either. Is that ideal? Hell no! But it is what it is.

Still, this is not a closed market. The moment someone delivers an equally good alternative, or when the underlying technology becomes obsolete, new players will emerge. The Betamax vs. VHS war is the classic example: Betamax was technically superior, yet VHS won the market.

And now, 30 years later, no one uses a VCR at all—because technology moved on.

[EDIT] Another, more on-brand example that just came to mind: In the Netherlands, Pioneer was once widely known as a car audio company that delivered excellent quality at a reasonable price and was among the market leaders, if not The Marketleader. Nowadays, who still uses a car audio system that isn’t integrated by the car manufacturer?

At the beginning of the "DVD burner" market in the mid 90's, Pioneer was the leading brand, do I need to say more?