All of these practices ought to be considered illegal anticompetitive behavior.
Even if the PE vultures give up, it can sour areas for a while: they start a price war and force everyone to lower prices, slash staffing, etc. If they give up after a couple of years when it turns out to be harder to corner the market than they thought, the surviving businesses are still in a worse shape and have the unenviable task of trying to restore prices / service to previous levels.