Exhibit A: freedom of speech. Public institutions have a very high bar they have to meet to ensure freedom of speech. The private sector has nothing of the sort.
You can be banned or censored for just about anything in the private sector. So when we move really important stuff to the private sector, that can be a problem.
In action: payment processors, which provide essentially public infrastructure, censoring immoral or profane content, such as pornography.
Mostly the police and military, not the companies.
Even then, if the government is weak than the ‘more power over you’ is simply false. Maybe the magnitude of the power is more for a government, but companies apply their power with much more frequency.
> the ostensible motive of the government is to serve its people
But also, there are plenty of governments that do not even pretend to serve its people. They are completely self-serving and transparent about that fact. You never know when one is going to turn into the other but often going from ostensibly benevolent to explicitly malevolent is relatively mild, but gaining back freedom usually requires a lot of bloodshed. There's always exceptions, but this is common. The wort part is that people frequently vote in the malevolent leaders. Democracies can turn into autocracies without spilling a single drop of blood. I'm unaware of the reverse ever happening.
That's a very load-bearing word there.
I see your history teachers did a poor job. My condolences.