It feels like everywhere at all times, people are playing dirty to protect their cash flows, doing anything they can get away with to keep new entrants out of markets. They even weaponize it against other giants, too (eg JEDI, or wielding the EPA against SpaceX).
This doesn’t seem like a failure of capitalism to me, but a failure of government. Not that the government failed to regulate, no; that they were explicitly captured in such a way that results in regulation that ensures nobody except the existing, connected players can participate.
If you want to have even a tiny chance to edge in, you have to be backed by immense capital and be connected with someone who can put in a word with the right people. In tech, VCs like YC or a16z or the so-called PayPal mafia come to mind.
Innovation, but only via undocumented, preapproved channels.
It’s illegal or effectively illegal to make new pharmaceutical factories, or new retail pharmacies, or new hospitals, or new financial services and payment systems, or new banks, or new safe deposit boxes, or transit services, or ISPs, or schools, or any myriad other verticals that have been regulated to oblivion for entrants in the name of “consumer safety”. If search engines or public libraries were invented today they’d be shut down in days, perhaps hours. Even Tesla fought the biggest uphill battle to be able to sell cars direct to consumers, as it was outlawed in many states.
I really want to see orders of magnitude more new small businesses, but the American population seems to be regarded as a resource to be harvested rather than an economic talent pool to be developed.
Everyone wants more mom-and-pops, except the existing ownership class, because they aren’t on SecondMarket.