That’s called deliberately “running down” a service so it can be sold off on the cheap to your friends. Same thing happened with water and rail privatisation in the UK. When the railways were finally privatised there were several fatal train disasters that lead to the rail network being re-nationalised as Network Rail with the train “operators” now working under a franchise model. These usually make a huge loss that is then subsidised by the government. The franchises are sometimes owned by foreign governments and used as a way to subsidise foreign rail services. Sometimes the franchises are re-nationalised again, such as in the case of services on the East Coast Mainline, and then are suddenly profitable again under public ownership.

It all makes me wonder whether natural monopolies that provide essential public services can ever be run better by a profit making company with little to no democratic oversight.