@Rosey

Exactly this..

" it is consistent with the behavior of many dominant middlemen firms in our economy, from pharmacy benefit managers to Amazon to big banks securitizing mortgages in the financial crisis"

The model is to get firmly wedged in the middle of a type of transaction and then leverage that in novel ways.

And it is everywhere.

Exclusivity deals with big box vendors to shut down specialty vendors comes to mind in my recent experience.