[cogman10]

In the long run for who is the question.

It's worked great for walmart for several decades now.

And the venture capitalists continue to use the plunder from prior pillaging to continue the exploit train.

And further when a company achieves monopoly or near monopoly status, it becomes nearly impossible for a competitor to knock them off their perch.

The unfortunate thing is for the people engaged in exploitation this is a great long term strategy. A CEO that does this can almost always land another job as a CEO for another company to rinse and repeat the process. See Mark Hurd.