Kinda, but this is also how the free market dies—happens little by little. A change here, a law there that helps the people, oops, now the law makes it harder for competition to get in, and so on and so forth.
And competitors that already do that get an uplift (over time, but still).
It's almost as if the best (or rather: least-worst) option we have lies somewhere in-between laissez faire capitalism and mandatory state-ownership of all industry...
Yes, which describes both the US and Europe. It just comes down to where to fall on that spectrum.