I agree generally, I'm sure an actual solution is more nuanced but coming from the angle of no M&A seems like a good ideal. My personal issues with business aft

I agree generally, I'm sure an actual solution is more nuanced but coming from the angle of no M&A seems like a good ideal. My personal issues with business after having worked in it for awhile as an employee and not a capitalist: 1) building a business with a goal of being acquired often builds lazy unsustainable businesses built only to be cashed out, often at the expense of employees. 2) buying good businesses seems frequently to do what you said: they get absorbed and lost and the social cost is a lost source of jobs, innovation, and competition. I know the companies I worked for acquired wonderful smaller companies doing decent things, made happy speeches about their future, then they were gradually pushed out and shut down. Would they have failed anyway? Maybe, but I'd like to see more businesses rise and fall rather than cannibalize each other. I'm not a smart man, so I don't know what to do specifically, but I definitely see the problem this solution is getting at - I hope some day society has figured out a good answer.