Comment by Spooky23

A free market is maximally competitive. The giant corporations of today are planned economies run to maximize returns to shareholders by eliminating competition.

Shareholder return is not a free market function, in fact for most businesses it’s in the interest of the shareholder to have zero competition, as competitive forces require expenditure in labor and dollars to improve the product at lower margin.

Apple is the best consumer example of this. In segments where there are no competitive forces, say Mac displays, they ship high margin, mediocre products for an extended lifecycle. You can buy a shitty LG for half the price of a mediocre Apple model. The same thing happened in the pre-retina cheap MacBook Air - that thing lived 3 years too long because where else are you gonna go?