The late author and Harvard professor Clayton Christensen coined the phrase “the innovator’s dilemma” in his popular book by the same name. In the book he describes why some well-run companies lose their dominant market position through the entrance of a competitor with a disruptive technology.

He uses as an example  the personal computer and its smaller, slower disc drives, which  disrupted “big iron” mainframe computers by offering a cheaper solution that was good enough. 

The CME Group’s dominant market position in the U.S. futures market, which some classify as a monopoly, has spawned two separate challengers built on the model of the innovator’s dilemma. The Small Exchange and the Fair Exchange are seeking to disrupt the CME’s dominant position, or at least carve out a place of their own in the U.S. futures market landscape.