>> gives massive efficency over the small scale - it is why the megacompanies can retain dominance I don't buy this argument at all, especially when you consid

>> gives massive efficency over the small scale - it is why the megacompanies can retain dominance I don't buy this argument at all, especially when you consider that history has shown that they need to get bailed out every 10 years or so. They're successful because they're all running on free credit - Either credit that they took themselves against their own collateral or credit taken out by other entities who fund them (either as investors or as customers). It's very simple. Entities which have capital can use that capital as collateral to receive bank loans which they can use to multiply their profits. There is a nice interview on YouTube where Steven Schwarzman from The Blackstone Group (with assets of $500 billion) explains how this works (and has worked for 30 years as he openly brags): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kThTbLUQdU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kThTbLUQdU Basically whatever capital you have to invest, you can go a bank and take a loan against it and double how much of the underlying asset you can buy with the same base capital... Effectively this allows you to supercharge your ROI... Your $1 million which would have given you a ROI of 10% can be used as collateral to secure an additional $1 million loan so that you end up holding twice as much of the asset and 20% ROI (relative to your original 1 million). You just hold the asset for a year or two, then dump and repeat. Can small business without any capital compete against that? No because they're on a different playing field; one where 20% returns are simply not possible. You could argue that these people are taking a risk, but guess who the Federal Reserve Bank chose to execute the bailout for the covid19 financial crisis? A group called 'Blackrock' https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/25/business/blackrock-federal-reserve.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/25/business/blackrock-federa... - If that company sounds like 'Blackstone', it's no coincidence, the two companies share a common history. Search for 'Blackrock' in the Wikipedia article about 'The Blackstone group': https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blackstone_Group https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blackstone_Group When you consider that this credit is printed by banks out of thin air, it's no mystery why the rich get richer. The surplus ROI which they derive from access to free credit is basically just free money.