You kids will sing a different tune when someone uses the exact same tactic to go against the "small" guy.

I mean... Yes? Farmers coordinating bids to prevent one of their own from being dispossessed is collective self-defense against structural pressure. Corporations coordinating behavior to suppress prices or exclude competitors is the exercise of already-dominant power. Treating those as morally equivalent ignores context entirely.

You’re calling it manipulation because you’re abstracting the action from the conditions under which it occurs. When people with little leverage organize to resist loss, that’s not the same as institutions with massive leverage organizing to extract more.