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The market process turns these tensions between suppliers and consumers into a profit opportunity for extant and would-be competitors. The sad fact is that the market process is actively interfered with by the political process.

The history of the US and Canada is one where well-meaning individuals have been duped into giving powers to politicians who in turn create "reasonable" regulations that have the effect of protecting select firms from the market process. And when the costs of these anti-competitive regulations emerge (higher prices, worse service), those same well-meaning individuals demand those same politicians to "fix" things, but only in ways that further entrench those monopolies rather than removing the source of their monopoly power at the root.

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.