I think you’re conflating a “free market” with a “perfectly competitive market”. By and large, the US is a free market with your obvious government regulations

I think you’re conflating a “free market” with a “perfectly competitive market”. By and large, the US is a free market with your obvious government regulations. However, it’s not a perfectly competitive market because of the things you mentioned. Because a true “perfectly competitive market” is almost impossible to achieve, no nation’s economy is, but some are closer to it than others. Perfect competition benefits the consumers most, while network effects, exclusivity contracts, and monopolies obviously benefit the companies more. One of the biggest goals of US government economic regulations (at least ideally) is to steer the market as close to a perfectly competitive market as possible. Companies optimize in the other direction, and try to make their market less competitive despite those regulations. This dynamic doesn’t mean it’s not a free market, it just means that we need regulations to counteract the forces of companies and keep it competitive. This is why I find it misguided when people want a totally libertarian system with no regulations, because that will inevitably lead to a less competitive/efficient market.