I had similar thoughts, and my conclusion is that competition is an inherently unstable state of affairs: at some point somebody wins, and they will try very hard to prevent any further competitors from arising.

Indeed, competition is undesirable for all participants involved: everybody wants to win and exploit the rest for their own gain. Note that this is the only way to make competition work and result in its temporary benefits (if nobody wants to win, nobody will compete).

So there must be a system to keep the competition going and preventing the rise of a definitive and exploitative winner, and the existence of this system has to be accepted by the competitors. But why would serious competitors accept a system that prevents them from winning?