Quote:
Originally Posted by ApK
I disagree, at least in this case.
The "good of society" in this case appears to be "financial gain" for smaller businesses.
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Which in turn maintains a larger diversity of competitors, and a wider spread of local options. When you can't compete on selling price, then you have more flexibility to compete on location and quality of service.
My company sells crop insurance. It's a government program, so we can't charge a different price than our competitors, nor are we allowed to decline anyone. Our marketshare comes from farmers being happy with our agents, and with our claims handling, rather from being $10 cheaper than somebody else.
There's something to be said for being able to stop in at a store down the street instead of having to plan for a 45 minute drive to the other side of town, whether it's to browse for a book, grab a dozen eggs, or to buy a box of framing nails.
It's a quality of life issue, so I can see where countries might want to encourage that, rather than making success dependent on who can have the best economies of scale or thinnest expense structure.