Who captures the surplus is dependent on how competitive the market is.
In highly competitive markets, any substantial profits get competed away, and captured by the consumer.
In monopolistic / uncompetitive markets, profits are captured by the monopolist.
Of course, this is a spectrum not a dichotomy. Last I tried to quantify this, I got numbers like 50-60% of the US economy is at least somewhat uncompetitive. But I’d like better numbers. (It’s easy to come up with examples on both sides, IMO)
However for most goods/services there is variability in multiple dimensions. And we are irrational buyers and we poorly measure our +ve/-ve utility on multiple dimensions into dollars. And we poorly choose between different options. Plus there is variation.
I would love to meet a rational consumer - their purchasing habits would be interestingly abnormal!
The only thing that seems to protect us from corporate abuse currently is the information gap - we poorly measure our preferences and lack product/service knowledge so producers struggle to measure our preferences and so they struggle to discriminate. If those information asymmetries decrease (especially if they know us better than we know ourselves) then we are in trouble.
In highly competitive markets, any substantial profits get competed away, and captured by the consumer.
In monopolistic / uncompetitive markets, profits are captured by the monopolist.
Of course, this is a spectrum not a dichotomy. Last I tried to quantify this, I got numbers like 50-60% of the US economy is at least somewhat uncompetitive. But I’d like better numbers. (It’s easy to come up with examples on both sides, IMO)