Let's say I'm legally required to use 80% of my salary on cupcakes. My wife makes a cupcake, and I purchase it for $100k. Do we think this was the likely intended result of the legislation?
You’re using hypotheticals when we have actual numbers. (And more-consolidated competitors with higher customer satisfaction rates.)
You have a solid hypothesis. The cross ownership exists. But the hypothesised effect—margin expansion—isn’t observed. The best we can say is they tried to juice margins but failed to, which is neither here nor there, and pins administrative incompetence—not greed—as the culprit.
