I have literally seen a small business expand beyond my city and become regional over a couple decades. And probably will try to be national chains.
From a capitalist perspective. What’s bad about monopolization? For big businesses to be big business they need to have success. Why do you want to break success? Why do you want to pick winners and losers?
I don’t believe in any of that. I prefer distributed ownership and benefits.
If the consumers own their own stores through a consumer cooperative than they can set the prices for themselves. And hence don’t need “competition”. And since the shareholders would be the members (i.e. the consumers), in a consumer cooperative, then that means they’ll benefit. No need to have any billionaire tyrant either local nor from a big box store.