Indeed! It's rare a merger results in more choice and better service. If you have less competitors, there is less incentive to be competitive, meaning you can s

Indeed! It's rare a merger results in more choice and better service. If you have less competitors, there is less incentive to be competitive, meaning you can step on customers without penalty: they can't go anywhere, and the one "other guy" is probably also playing the same oligopoly game, giving you a choice between Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum. Why is the government usually inefficient? Because they have no competition. If a corporation's competitors go away, they become more government-like. Sometimes they are even worse than gov't because they can get profit by being deceptive, while gov't employees generally have no monetary incentive to earn a profit. The gov't workers may be indifferent to "customers", but have little reason to rip them off. For example, any extra fees collected don't go to a given gov't employee because fee incentive programs are not allowed. But customer sign-on bonuses are common at telecoms. I can tell you personal stories of "ghost fees" appearing on my telecom bill.