In a price war, each of multiple suppliers of highly competitive products and services repeatedly lowers its price to avoid being undercut and thereby losing sales and customers to its competitors. Due to these competitive pressures, the companies involved generally reduce their prices far more than they otherwise would, even to the point where none of the companies is able to make a profit on sales. A price war is usually detrimental to all companies involved, who will profit from reasonable but higher costs, but at the same time a company cannot always afford to let a competitor lower price without matching or lowering beyond that price.
Assuming that none of the competitors can be knocked out of the market, it should be expected that _______________.