Consumers make monopolies don’t they? Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production - Adam Smith. Consumers decide what businesses thrive, what products get sold, and at what prices. They decide how many jobs in an economy and what those jobs are. Who, for example, decided DVD and put VCR out of business? Who made a one-man, Mail-order book seller operating out of a garage, into the Amazon we know and hate to love? Consumers are the market regulation, the monopoly-makers. How does a business become dominant? Isn’t it because more consumers like its products/prices v competitors? Nobody is forced to buy. Well run businesses with products consumers want become market dominant, not badly run ones who sell crap. Buying out a competitor happens, but has a cost. Easier/cheaper (why do businesses contribute to campaign funds?) to connive with Government to introduce new safety standards for widgets which puts up your costs or which you do not have the resources to implement. And in any case that still doesn’t stop another competitor entering the market. My point is in a free market monopolies are contestable, regulation makes them non-contestable because of the barriers they put up against new market entrants, or costs they put on smaller businesses which lack the money and resources to implement them.