No. Flat out no. There is no competition and they're literally providing what they are capable of to take care of the others' need. Mutual aid is not a marketplace and the fact you instinctually thought of it that way tells me you need a book on capitalist realism.
Yeha, but they are showing an instance of nature in which things work one way and ask "why can't humans XYZ if even a mushroom can? ", but there are also plenty of instances in which nature is savage.
There is a constant war in the roots of trees, does that mean humans should be in constant war?
Plus, there IS a profit incentive. Those mushrooms are trading. What they get in return is the profit incentive.
Trading for food to eat is now "profit incentive"? How is there profit if you consume what you take?
Edit: and don't get me started on the violence used in our own market systems. Thankfully Mushrooms learned long ago to eat the rich, because "surplus profit" are just resources that aren't being used.
Because consuming more than what you can use or need is not a competitive advantage. The mushroom that trades that surplus instead of wastefully consuming it will have a more resilient support structure. It's a different perspective where you view the fitness of an individual in regards to how well it embeds itself in the system by making itself useful to others, not by how well it can "extract profit" from its surroundings (like a cancer or obesity).
You're assuming it only consumes exactly what it needs to survive and not even a small amount more than that. You'll have to prove that. Pretty sure they probably keep some buffer or give priority to their own species or certain species, making the network their own buffer. Would that be mushroom racism? I don't want to learn anything from racist mushrooms man.
Yes, but there are likely factors produced by both parties in the symbiotic relationship that keep each other in check. Otherwise one of the parties could become parasitic instead.
This whole conversation comparing evolutionary mechanisms that are complex enough to include self sacrifice just to have more "you", is a poor analogy anyways. While humans evolved their social dynamics, i'd like to think we can operate beyond what's best for our species.
There likely could be other benefits to them sharing such as:
when there is more than they can use, particularly that the mushroom does not like in their environment
producing more leaves is likely highly beneficial for the mushroom, for shade both living and fallen, nutrients and cover with fallen leaves.
Similar for the tree, but also mushrooms are recycling minerals from dead material.
I don't know if there'd be "stingy" trees (aside from vastly different nutrient needs), I could see it more of miscommunication or having too much difference with language/biologic pathways. EDIT: Also I gotta imagine that giant trees don't even bother counting it for mushrooms so long as they aren't stressed. Sugar water is in the grid, take as much as you want.
At first, I read that as you accusing them of being a stingy asshole chestnut tree and I was about to inform you that you were in fact talking to a lemon, not a tree 😄
Trees that rely on myco networks usually only get giant because of previous myco networking bonds, which funnel excess nutrients between not just the fungi but also other trees within the system. And depending on the involved species, this sometimes includes multiple plant species exchanging nutrients.