I am 100% always, always, always against mega corporations. Lack of choice, lack of options, lack of competition is always, always, always a negative thing.
I'll give you an example here in The Great White North... In the vast, flat wasteland that is Saskatchewan (as is the case in most provinces) we have ONE power provider, SaskPower. Now they have a plus side to them in that they are what is called a Crow Corporation, meaning they are owned by the provincial government, which in turns means I own a piece of them. The down side is that they are still run like a business.
I moved from a house in Regina to an apartment in Weyburn in July of 2010. In my HOUSE (4 bedroom, den, living room, two baths) I paid $75 monthly for my power bill. I also had three other people living with me at the time, we were all super dorks and everyone had a gaming computer, laptop, TV in their room, and console of choice. Not to mention the cell phone chargers plugged in, amount of laundry being done, etc, etc, etc.
NOW in my apartment in Weyburn I pay $100 monthly. There is one computer, two laptops (not always plugged in mind you), two cell phone chargers, two tv's (instead of 6), etc, etc. Long story short, a LOT less electronic devices constantly drawing power.
I called SaskPower to inquire as to why I paid $75 in a house and $100 in an apartment. They said things can be different. I said like what things. They didn't have an answer. So the guy directed me to their website where they have an estimator for your fees. Said try that. We did it together and it said I should be paying around $40 monthly. I asked him to explain the $60 difference and he said "Well it's just an estimate". I got pretty annoyed considering that he directed me there in an effort to show me the charges were in line.
We had a long song and dance about it, I spoke to several different people. And over the course of two weeks I never got angry about anything, all I ever asked was for someone to explain my bill and how it was possible that I paid less living in a house with more electronic things going on then in an apartment with far less.
Each and every time I asked someone to explain the bill (including a couple supervisors) all I got was, "Well sir, the bill is accurate and you will have to pay the charges". To which I would reply that I'm not disputing the charges and have already paid them, I just want to understand what I'm being charged for. No one could ever explain it.
ONE kid (sounded like a young lad anyways) did say it could be an issue with the meter HOWEVER if it turned out the meter was accurate I would have to cover the cost of the service call and that was billed at $500 for the initial call PLUS an additional $250 per half hour of labour... Long story short, the estimate for that was $1,000...
So I finally got mad, I asked them for a list of their competitors (in Canada you are legally obligated to provide a list of your competitors if asked), and they couldn't provide me any... Because, dum, dum, dum, there is only one power provider in the province...
So I'm stuck paying a bill that I'm sure is higher than it should be, was given in my opinion the run around and poor customer service (c'mon, seriously you can't explain your own billing system?).
That is the kinda crap that happens to consumers when companies merge, form mega corporations, and have little to no competition.
So yes, this merger is a horrible thing for you poor sods in the US...