Buying a company for its customer base is rarely good for the customers, though. That's the main point, I think. Why should society allow someone to take control productive entity simply so they can extract more value from it? There needs to be some value for the customer or the public as a whole for that to be a good thing.
If I build a company I should be able to sell it to whoever I want for any reason. It’s my company
A "company" is a legal framework that we, society, has decided is allowed to exist. That also means that we are allowed to put any requirements and restrictions on it that we like. The health of our society is what matters, not the wealth of any particular founder.
Yes and in our democracy I can advocate for stronger property rights including over ownership of companies
Yes, but a lot of society will advocate against that.
"your company" is an abstract idea in a social framework forming the interactions of many other people. Many decisions are delegated to you by that framework, but it is not a fundamental absolute.
I accept we live in a society which decides at some arbitrary point that my property becomes the collective’s. However I philosophically disagree with this present state of affairs
Ownership is a useful framework for sure, but if it comes at the expense of destroying competition, I think we can agree that's not healthy for the economy and society as a whole.
I disagree with the concept of “monopoly” or rent seeking in a free market. And the only way a market becomes non-free is with government regulation
The world has never, ever seen a free market, and probably never will.
The idea that completely unencumbered markets would actually give good outcomes for society is a complete fantasy.
It appears to me that wherever we allow market forces to exist we get better results
If companies get large enough, you no longer have a free market. You simply have a company so dominate and powerful, they can undercut any new company or product. Not on merit or offering a better product. Purely based on size and its entrenched position.
Let's say company A is monopolizing a market. New company B finds a way to make company A's product providing exactly the same value, except half as expensive. A healthy market would reward company B and consumers both by allowing that innovation to spread, providing a return for those that invented it and a cheaper product for consumers, leading to greater prosperity for society. However, in the market you speak of, company A can simply use their orders of magnitude more wealth to undercut company B for a time until they go bust.
What incentive is there to innovate, to improve, in a market that doesn't reward it?