I think the question you ask has it backwards. Why should society allow a critical industry to become so concentrated that it has enough pricing power to cause harm?
It shouldn’t. But the post I responded to claims that the industry already has pricing power, and already is using it to cause harm, contrary to the data.
I see. Thanks for the clarification. If enough large companies are able to merge then we will end up in a situation where regionally there is too little competition. This is what has happened with producers of food products. A few companies control too high a percentage of the products. I think this naturally leads to cartel pricing.