So not really a leading question, just curious... why shouldn't I be OK with buying the cheap mega-supermarket brand product? As the consumer, I just want a cheap price - I personally don't really care where the money is going. If small companies can't produce a less expensive alternative, then won't breaking up the larger company just increase costs to the consumer? Thanks for your thoughts.
This comes up with predatory pricing antitrust claims, which are complex in themselves, but you shouldn't punish someone or an organization for behavior that they only have the potential to do, but have not done.
I think it's destined to happen when there is less competition. I don't think of it as punishment, but as prevention. Even if we assume a company was altruistic and kept prices artificially low, the lack of competition would at least prevent a product from getting cheaper faster due to less players innovating... and we wouldn't even be able to measure what we're missing out on.
To answer with another question: how can you tell the difference between big pseudo-monopolies truly providing the best product or service vs. smaller companies being unable to enter the market with a better one because a big company has locked them out?
Maybe pseudo-monopoly was the wrong term… I'm basically saying that if a company has enough market or lobbying power, it can distort the market by blocking entrants who might make better/cheaper products or services. For example, ISPs lobbying to ban municipal competitors.
> why shouldn't I be OK with buying the cheap mega-supermarket brand product
Just some random thoughts, in different contexts:
1. Buying the cheap mega-supermarket can lead to non-obvious degradations in your community (e.g. you find yourself in a news desert because the local paper went bankrupt, following the closure of the local stores who advertised there).
2. Competition keeps competitors honest, but if one company gets too much of a lead, it's competitors give up leaving fewer market-based checks on its behavior (even if it was fantastic and awesome in the first place). Eventually prices will go up or quality down, as the never-ending quest to provide increasing shareholder value continues.
3. The real costs may not be reflected in the sticker price. For instance, you pay for Facebook and Google with your data and privacy, not your money. A competitor that directly charges you $20/year may actually be a better deal.
Yes, and effective regulation is precisely about preventing broader emergent patterns that harm innovation, competition, and society as a whole as a result of the (inevitably) short sighted, individual actions of consumers who indeed often only care about the cheapest prices.
