Too big to succeed

What’s the tipping point between successful and overbearingly dominating? It’s human nature to cheer on the former, but to resent and resist the latter… where does one stop and the next start?

Somebody opens a hamburger stand or convenience store in their hometown and the locals are proud of that success… but once it’s McDonalds or Walmart, it’s no longer “hometown kid makes good.” At what moment in time did Whole Foods go from being a cool indie health food store in Austin, TX that was thriving enough to move out of Austin… to a huge upscale chain that devours other  (smaller, still-only-locally-owned) health food stores? At what point will Trader Joe’s be considered a similar phenomenon? Remember when Amazon.com was just a cool alternative way to buy books, and didn’t even turn a profit for 7 years?

I wish I better understood where the threshold lies, and why the Collective Conscious seems to change its attitude when that threshold is crossed.