So much is paid for by taxpayers anyway. Like cell towers.

The gov't subsidized cell towers but doesn't own them and can't dictate cost. So why did tax payers cover it?

Problem being is it's hard to write laws appropriately.

A huge difference in government and private enterprise is that government is 100% inflexible. Doesn't matter how stupid the results of the law are, nor how damaging. The workers have to follow the letter of the law until the state or federal Congress changes it. Government workers have no incentive to make sure you're satisfied. What are you gonna do? Not come back?

My pet theory is that conservatives hate government because they've encountered this, don't understand this is how it has to be. This is also why they want to privatize everything because "government stupid". No, you don't want government bending rules, unlike...

Private concerns can instantly say, "This is fucking stupid and we're changing tack." If a customer finds themselves victim of a stupid edge case, the company can work around it for them. They're motivated to keep customers happy.

There are cases for both sorts of ownership. Tag offices in Oklahoma were privately owned nightmares with some of the highest rates in the nation. Here in Florida we can not only get tags, but a myriad of other services at the county tax office. Cheap too! OTOH, tags were a SecState thing in Illinois and it was a total nightmare. Boss knew if you had to renew tags you were taking no less than half a day off.

I'd be interested in seeing how more public/private combos work. Our power company was such a thing, elected board members and all. We had stupid cheap power until, guess what, it was sold to a private power company. Some people's rates doubled and most of us saw 40% increases.

To your examples, in order:

• Private grocery chains because I want them in competition, but break up and deny the monopolistic companies.

• Power companies, government. Nobody has a choice anyway, only one set of infrastructure, simple enough to legislate.

• Gas stations, private. Again, I want them competing and it's not like they're gouging us on gas prices. The margin is a few pennies per gallon, not enough to keep them in business without selling other goods.

• Real estate/landlords, private, but with serious fucking guard rails and renter protections. How the hell is there a legal app for them to collude on prices?!

And YES, these monsters should be split back up. We've become so used to megacorps we're not remembering what the past was like. If you brought anyone, even a Republican, in from the 80s, they'd fucking scream over the state of mergers.

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