Why can companies access and share information more easily than consumers?

I get about a dozen fliers in the mail every week advertising deals that are surely loss leaders for the grocer. Then there's extreme couponing forums.

Have you worked in a large organization? I can't imagine it's easy to coordinate much less have someone make actual decisions.

When I was at that tender age when many nerdy boys read and fall to Atlas Shrugged I read The Pearl by Steinbeck. Which has a passage I never forgot.

“It was supposed that the pearl buyers were individuals acting alone, bidding against one another for the pearls the fishermen brought in. And once it had been so. But this was a wasteful method, for often, in the excitement of bidding for a fine pearl, too great a price had been paid to the fisherman. This was extravagant and not to be countenanced. Now there was only one pearl buyer with many hands"

When the government actively decides the price of goods and services, it becomes more and more like communism. The government should instead uphold the free market and proactively prevent collusion and monopolies that threaten the free market, this is harder to do in the US because of lobbying though.