M&A reduces diversity. Bundling schemes then emerge to give the appearance of having the improved efficiency of consolidation in the form of having a better, more readily apparent choice.
The bundling scheme is a structural inducement.
Technically, according to the UCC, bundling is an illegal business practice because it is coercive. It lacks natural legitimacy because it lacks proper diversity, inducing people to buy things they don’t want or need to get what they really want. Instead of the model of efficiency it is actually the model of inefficiency.
The last financial crisis was a function of bundling securitized debt, for example. Without bundling, to make the market more efficient, the pricing mechanism would have indicated the actual risk far in advance of the real crisis proportion.
When it comes to technological innovation, it’s a jungle out there. The legitimacy of merging Time-Warner with Comcast is an efficiency measure allowing us to cut through the jungle utilizing the bundle. Of course, the cost is to control for content, violating Internet Neutrality (the free market) in the name of higher efficiency (synergies), using bundling schemes in the name of forming a natural utility that the Uniform Commercial Code says violates the legitimacy (the natural diversity) of the free market.
