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Notes -
It happens quite often in government contracting that the contracts are designed for a particular bidder. Starlink might have the cheapest rural broadband, but are their curtains the right shade of purple? Then the primary contractor who wins sublets the work out to whoever really had the best bid.
One company I worked for told me that my job would be very safe with them, because the owner was Puerto Rican and so we always "got primary" for being minority-owned. Another company I worked for was very happy when they got rejected for a contract but told their bid was the best -- great progress!
That's my suspicion, yeah -- individual government workers are often lazy (shocked, shocked I say) and just get proponents they've worked with in the past to essentially write their bid documents for them.
It's a form of corruption, but nobody seems to care that much with the possible exception of large military contracts. (which of course have other more obvious issues)
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