Powell to Resign from the FCC

[Gn2Dlnd]

Say Frito-Lay saw my product as a threat somehow. Frito-Lay buys my company (of course I'm not obliged to sell, but let's pretend they backed a dumptruck full of money to my door) and as part of the deal I sign a non-compete agreement. Frito-lay then stops making my product because it isn't profitable enough for them. Now my product is no longer available to the public. Where was the consumer ever given an option in the matter? The product was profitable to me, because I'm a small company. I don't need a lot of customers to be profitable. The product wasn't profitable to Frito-Lay because 5 or 10.000 customers is nothing to a huge multinational conglomerate.
We've seen it happen in our own Disney theme parks. An attraction that's not as popular as another is shuttered or altered, disappointing 10s of thousands of guests. A smaller company appreciates these numbers, a larger company does not.
How does a small specialty store stay in business on Elm Street when a Wal-Mart opens on the outskirts of town? They usually don't. Not because they don't carry quality products, but because the leviathan offers substitutes manufactured at a cut rate.
Monopolies don't enhance communities.
As we've seen in this little experiment, specialized communities have a lot (ahem, I mean a "LoT") to offer to specialized voices. Larger communities become a bit more homogenized, until they get so large that they might as well be served in a frosty cold glass next to a stack of pancakes.