None of the industries I listed are operating in a free market, so I am not sure why you brought that concept up as a scapegoat.

All of the large incumbents in those industries in western countries are protected by laws paid for, engineered, and often literally written by those industries. Places where this is not the case are the exception, not the rule.

> The natural state of most markets is monopoly or oligopoly due to efficiencies of scale and collusion.

The monopolies are held in place by government license or other regulations used to suppress competition. It's not a natural state.

This is a conjecture held as axiomatic by some economists and not by others. There's no strong evidence for it and there's been a lack of opportunities to observe natural experiments (we have not seen advanced economies exist outside the scope of interventionist states). But there's plenty of examples of private economic power tending toward concentration (cartels, etc.) when permitted.