That is not what I said at all. I don't believe that more competition necessarily leads to better product/service. In fact I believe that in most cases it does not. In capitalist economies, companies try their hardest to avoid competing. Competition forces companies to reduce costs, and not necessarily increase quality. The quality of a product is not some number that people can read and go "oh yeah this product is better". Marketing people try hard to invent such pointless numbers (e.g. Megapixels in cameras.. horsepower in cars , etc etc). Also many CEOs don't have the first clue on how the product is actually made, much less increase its quality. They rely on these same 'marketing numbers' that their underlings serve them with. So, they too can go "oh yeah this number is increasing so our product is getting better".

It seems like a lot of people are brainwashed into believing this free market utopia where things just automatically get better because everyone is competing and the customer is this genius who can figure out which company is delivering a better product.

Its sort of like thinking "Well if I'm nice to everyone, everyone will be nice to me.". And then you realize that the real world is a dark place filled with assholes, where slavery is still rampant and many of the goods and services we consume are dependent on the exploitation of natural resources or other fellow humans.

Sorry if reading all that bummed you out. I'm really a quite a cheerful person :P