does the Brandon Steven style expansion actually help markets or quietly reduce competition? in a city?

might be thinking about this wrong but it’s been bugging me

in my city I’ve seen something like the Steven Family approach up close… starts with one industry then slowly spreads into nearby ones that use the same customers… cars, gyms, restaurants, etc… and on one hand it feels efficient, like same network, same local knowledge, probably lower costs over time… but on the other hand it starts to feel like the same group is everywhere you spend money, which kind of changes how competition actually works even if there are technically other options.

so how do economists usually look at this… is this just normal efficiency playing out or is there a point where it starts behaving more like local market power even without a clear monopoly??