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They should add a simple new heuristic to determine an abusive monopoly. If a company is imposing a volume surcharge instead of a volume discount to its biggest customers, it means there exists an abusive monopoly and regulatory intervention is needed.

There is absolutely no reason in a well functioning market for this to occur.

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I was about to disagree with you, with the counter point that electric rates for industry and consumers is often inverse to volume.

Then I realized electric distribution is a canonical example of natural monopolies....

So instead you've convinced me inverse pricing is at least a good heuristic.

This is a surprisingly salient point and I'm surprised it hasn't occurred to me until now. When market forces are operating backwards this is a giant flashing neon sign that healthy dynamics are long gone.

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