A diverse group of stakeholders publicly supported the Elkins Act. Citizens who supported the law hoped that reducing price discrimination would lower freight prices uniformly, and railroad interests lobbied for the passage of the Act as a means of enforcing collusive pricing. While the Act restricted preferential pricing, it did not specify what constituted a "reasonable" shipping rate; thus, railroads could use the law to entrench a system of collusive prices. Collusion is unsustainable in a market where it is easy to undercut competitors. However in industries that only have a small number of competitors (e.g. railroads, airlines, or transportation companies operating between two given cities) collusion is far more likely. The result of the Elkins Act was that railroads had a stronger mechanism to protect their collusive prices and corporate trusts were weakened in their ability to gain shipping discounts. Farmers and other railroad users, instead of benefiting from greater competition, were unaffected by the Act.