>However, their lobbyists in DC will threaten to give the other guy or gal more money than they’ll give their regular congresscritters if they don’t play ball

The difference between being able to censor whatever unilaterally and having to get a legislator to do it for you could not be more massive.

Having to play the lobbying game adds a huge amount of time, expense and outside scrutiny making it much harder to do bad things.

Sure the fact that regulatory capture is possible and doable at a certain scale is bad but it's infinitly better than bigCos being able to act unilaterally.

It's like the difference between the cops being able to kick down your door on a whim and them having to get a warrant and at least look like idiots on the official record and make other people who share no upside condone their stupidity.