Yeah, "the free market" tends to have cheerleaders with contradictory premises for how it will work. For example:

1. "With perfect price/deal information, this math shows economic actors will be super duper efficient."

2. "Since people have the freedom to make secret deals for hidden prices, this prevents cartels by allowing defection."

Unfortunately it feels like rather than addressing the contradiction, they prefer to quietly march under the same banner and in the end we get neither benefit.