Both, when you have two or more businesses competing within the same market for a similar customer base there is always going to be competition to own market share and mindshare.
Sports Teams
Tech companies Apple / MS / Google-Alphabet / Facebook-Meta
AT&T vs Verizon vs T-Mobile
Car Industry
It’s just going to happen, there’s a limited number of consumers, and the goal is to get the consumers to invest into your brand, that’s just business / sales / and as a result reality.
It becomes a social construct due to preference and implicate bias. The issue is, with too much bias, tribalism takes place and common sense and logic go out the window as people begin to associate their being/identity with a brand and people devolve into an illogical mess, spending hours of their day in forums / YouTube comments / etc… campaigning/shilling for brands that don’t even know their names and wouldn’t attend their funeral.
