More competition among protection providers decreases demand for their services

Evidence

This painful transition, however, had unexpected consequences. The substantial increase in the number of commissionari, coupled with structural changes within the trade, had the dual effect of enhancing competition and decreasing the demand for mafia services. The last episode of violence took place in 1977, when two brothers were murdered at their stand. (This murder evidently had nothing to do with the market and was apparently in retaliation for the kidnaping of a relative of the boss of Monreale; Santino and La Fiura 1990: 402). — Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Business of…, 544

Categorization

• XREF: A striking inversion of the supply-demand logic in protection markets: entry by more middlemen ate into the mafia’s rent by making the market self-regulating. Relevant to the reader’s Gambetta/Milgrom mapping — where private judges are abundant and free-entry, the state-like arbiter’s role shrinks.
• QUESTION: What were the ‘structural changes within the trade’ that reduced the demand for protection? The mechanism connecting more commissionari to less mafia demand is asserted but not elaborated.