Sure, markets are hard to beat with central control... But if the market is sufficiently consolidated, it's got a lot more in common with central control than what we would call a free market.
Markets work because people can use purchasing power to solve their problems. When you have only one (or two basically identical) players in a market, there's no ability to use purchasing power to signal that one approach or another is better for your needs. Part of the point is that the best system might involve many approaches for different kinds of end user. What we currently have in many situations is people's problems are being ignored because they don't have any real alternatives.
Simultaneously, Facebook (for example) is ultimately incentivized to solve the problems of their paying users (ad firms and political advertisers) over their non-paying users (humans). They've aggressively bought the competition which ensures that remains the reality.
Political regulation of markets exists to ensure that the interests of the polis are ultimately served by businesses, precisely because markets have MANY failure modes that prioritize other interests to the detriment of overall societal health.
Markets work because people can use purchasing power to solve their problems. When you have only one (or two basically identical) players in a market, there's no ability to use purchasing power to signal that one approach or another is better for your needs. Part of the point is that the best system might involve many approaches for different kinds of end user. What we currently have in many situations is people's problems are being ignored because they don't have any real alternatives.
Simultaneously, Facebook (for example) is ultimately incentivized to solve the problems of their paying users (ad firms and political advertisers) over their non-paying users (humans). They've aggressively bought the competition which ensures that remains the reality.
Political regulation of markets exists to ensure that the interests of the polis are ultimately served by businesses, precisely because markets have MANY failure modes that prioritize other interests to the detriment of overall societal health.