Free market does not exist when market players make their purchasing decisions based on metrics that have no correlation to price or value of the product or service.
However true power comes when you can control social narratives that define those metrics and if you can bet on players acting in a particular way because of those social pressures created by metrics you have achieved ultimate power to predictably generate piles of money, hmmm ... wait this is how media-WallStreet symbiosis works.