You seem to know what you are talking about, so this is for those who don’t, the “illusion of competition” has become such a staple in the modern world. In the US (and much of the world as I understand it) eyeglass sellers are all owned by the same company. Pearl Vision, LensCrafters, and I think even the Walmart vision centers are all owned and operated by Luxottica. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luxottica
It is a vertical monopoly that controls everything from materials acquisition to sales, directly “competes” with itself, and lies to customers every day to make them think they are actually in control.
Then you have companies like 3M, or Nestle, who control most of the entire industries. A good 85% of all food on the shelves in the USA is produced by one of 4 or 5 companies that definitely collude to fix prices and use aggressive tactics to protect their position. They also follow the “compete with yourself” model to make you think you are actually making a decision with your money. You aren’t.
Then there is the big Ag companies. In Ohio they have actually gotten laws on the books that make it illegal to do Farm Shares, where you purchase a share of the crops they produce for the year and for about 8 months a year you get a big basket of fresh produce delivered to you. An ex and I got to do it for a year before we split and it was amazing. It was a ton of food and only cost us about $150 for the half-share we purchased. It would be amazing right now with prices and it would help local private farms, which is precisely why they pushed it out.
I can rant for hours… So I cut here. This whole topic just infuriates me to no end.
Wait, this is unpopular? Well shit, I’m right there with you. I was already not liking Epic for many reasons, but the Satisfactory exclusivity deal seared them to a cinder for me. At least Valve is not publicly traded and the owner never has any intent on doing so. He is able to base his decisions on what he wants and is able to treat employees, customers, and content creators more fairly, even if it hurts his bottom line. Honestly, that is all I need to know about the man. He could go public and make billions, but he doesn’t. He wants the control and wants the closed company. In the modern world it is rare and, to me, laudable.