This is only possible because of the incredible levels of concentration and consolidation across industries.<p>And I wonder if when checking your competitors price on real-time just require a few software engineers to keep a price crawler, it wouldn't make it easy to create some kind of emerging cartel-like behavior without the need for any kind of explicit coordination.
Try not to let these corporations know that we squishy humans need food, water, clothing, shelter, and medical care or otherwise we will each literally die forever. If they learn it then they will drive up the prices because of our inelasticity of our desire to continue our existence, while the immortal corporations calmly trade other goods amongst each other at more reasonable prices.