I used to describe this situation as “late stage capitalism” and lay the blame at capitalism’s feet. I’ve recently done a 180 on that.
The tangling of Copyright, Trademark, and Patent law into the mega-legal structure of “intellectual property” law has had devastating effects IMO.
The government creates and protects monopolies, and then allows those monopolies to be bought and sold like playing cards. It’s not surprising that pools of money result in the concentration of these government created monopolies.
This is most evident to me in healthcare. The pattern in the late 2000s and 2010s was to purchase up drug companies for their IP, gut the R&D, and jack up drug prices since the government would enforce their monopoly - and consumers had no choice since they needed the drugs. Yes this is GREED, but this isn’t capitalism. Capitalism would _solve_ this - but government actively stands in the way of letting market pressures fix that market.