This is not a competition, but a distribution of profits. In such a case, both factories are exactly the same. which is ok too, since it again simulates the sector and not a single factory, just in a different way.
What I mean is that one way or another the micro level is not being simulated. And on the macro level, the individual decisions are of no interest. It doesn't destroy the immersion just because the player sets the factory instead of the RNG. In the longer article it is described that depending on the type of economy, different funds are used and different groups benefit. In the case of a free economy one might get access to the budget of the capitalists to build the "factory", but most of the profits come back to the capitalists. If the market isn't protected, they'll pay the losses for a while before going broke. With a state economy, you can see the profits and losses directly in the state budget and also pay for the construction of the factory from the state pocket.
Which is not really Capitalism anyway, even if the game simulated laissez-faire capitalism. The different industries producing the same categories of goods with limited demand should attempt to compete with one another, hoping to take market shares by cutting costs or seeking higher prices to increase their profits. Some would become bigger and more powerful, while the others would either hold minority market shares, close down, be bought off, or find a niche market that they would dominate. Only when demand for particular goods was so large, cooperation between owners would become beneficial - with the non-capitalistic consequences it would lead to: price- and cost-fixing, cartels, monopolies, insider tradings.
In Victoria 2 (and most games simulating that era), we do not have that - all industries serve the State and whatever the State asks that the demand should be filled. If we need ciment, we'll build ciment factories. Which is far, far from free capitalism. In real-life almost all business owners of that time saw the State as something to benefit them, serving to create winning conditions to support businesses, create opportunities, and maximize profits. What was produced was controled by the "invisible hand of the market", save for a select few industries. In fact, capitalist interest groups would strongly dislike to see the State create its own companies, rather than go through procurement orders.
Example: Railways. Even in Czarist Russia it wasn't the Russian State who built the Trans-Siberian Railways and created the companies, but private companies (which were indeed encouraged and, sometimes, even under the silent private ownership of Sergei Witte, with the hope to create a larger capitalist class in Russia). While the State brought the money and contracted the orders, it was the private companies who provided the actual service of building the rails - and their owners who gained the profits.
Ideally in Vic3, my opinion is POPs demand should feed the AI's attempts to create their own businesses through their amassed capital. Unless a governing party has an ideology of State Capitalism, instead I would like to see the player place procurement orders. rather than build factories: I need x amount of that strategic good in my Strategic Reserve, I order that amount and the business class creates ventures to fulfill that demand - and different conditions and costs. Those who constantly make a profit thrive, and those who do not... disappear or change production. And the harder it is to fulfull that ask... the higher the price.
