That and free parking doesn't pay anything. Number of houses/hotels is also limited to the number that came with the game.

Play by the rules and the game will actually come to an end.

And the person who originally chose to not buy it can bid on it. Potentially buying it for less than list price!

On the subject of monopoly, it's also interesting that it's roots are in a game created to teach the negative aspects of monopolies. The original game that modern monopoly is based on had two sets of rules, one that rewarded all players for wealth creation, and a second with the goal of creating a monopoly to crush opponents.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_(game)

Not following this rule is also almost singularly responsible for Monopoly's reputation as an extremely long game.

How can you have an auction when there is only one other player?

The aim of monopoly is not to gather money / property, it is to bankrupt your opponents as quickly as possible. Any rule that increases money supply in the game (paying extra for landing on free parking or Go, for example) makes the game longer and worse.

It's a pretty terrible game - something about the psychology of it makes you hate everyone else playing, but it's somehow addictive, you think you like playing it but you don't. I think it's done a huge disservice to board games in general - other board games are so much better, but people think board games are boring because they played monopoly as a child.

NPR recently aired a story on the history of monopoly which was fascinating!

https://www.npr.org/2023/01/25/1151367036/story-monopoly-ame...