Right, but the nature of veterinary practice don’t lend themselves to monopoly, nor is the excess cash even close to artificially achieving that. This is just w

Right, but the nature of veterinary practice don’t lend themselves to monopoly, nor is the excess cash even close to artificially achieving that. This is just what you see in an irrational market as well. All this stops when PE won’t overbid on practices, or when the vet pay is low enough that it makes sense to open your own practice. Many forms of software do favor monopoly. Rolling up all of the gov tech startups has network effects in addition to being an industry that operates on large fixed costs and low variable costs. Vets aren’t like that, one vet has a limit to the number of dogs they can see in a day. I think it is mostly PE trying to mimic their success with doctors offices (which have massive network effects via insurance), and assuming that it will work the same. It is very hard to have any monopoly power in an industry where there is no barrier to entry for your most valuable employees, and where, as you pointed out, customers are sensitive to price.