The "Free Market" does do a far better job of rapidly and semi-accurately allocating resources and labor than central planning.
However, the "Free Market" is absolutely horrible at solving other problems, starting with the Commons Problem, and including the tendency towards monopolies, which are the problem here. It is a near-mathematical certainty in a 'free market' that the big get bigger, and weild that power to crush any upstarts. Even if there is massive demand for something new, the entrenched monopoly/near-monopoly/cartel players will crush it. This is the case here. Also, in regulated markets (i.e., all of them, see next paragraph), the large players will often succeed at regulatory capture, which further enables them.
Also note that the "free market" is an absolute fiction. It does not exist. Every market has rules, spoken or tacit.
The only question is what are the rules and how are they enforced. Wise governments will set rules that minimize the tendency towards monopoly, and protect their institutions and citizens from regulatory capture. This is a step in that direction.
Another tack to answer your question is to observe what actually happens in these "free" markets. There has been enormous demand for this, with pressure provoking legislatures to attempt to act for decades, yet no competitor has arisen. Similarly, it took literally most of a century, and major legislation to get car companies to even start installing safety gear like collapsible steering columns (replacing the ones that impaled the drivers in small collisions), seat belts, airbags, etc. Plenty of demand, but a cartel-ish industry fails to meet it.
Re-examine your libertarian tendencies more closely. I also used to find it an attractive concept, but it is full of glib answers that are not actually realizable in the real world (and often not even in toy models). Actually working through the consequences of many of the concepts shows that they are just a mirage, and sticking to those ideas simply enables monopolists and oligarchs to thrive.