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I was with you until you mentioned the Libertarian ideology. Comcast's position is not aided by the "free market". If there was a free market, there would be a

by mtgx 10y ago

I was with you until you mentioned the Libertarian ideology. Comcast's position is not aided by the "free market". If there was a free market, there would be a ton of other competitors that wouldn't be willing to do this and people could switch over to them. Comcast has its monopoly position because most cities and states give them local monopoly - which is like the opposite of what a libertarian would allow.

Keverw 10y ago
Yeah, only one cable company per area. The only option is a 3G/4G hotspot which charges per GB and is outrageous, then slower DSL. Some people are lucky to have Fiber offered. Cell phone carriers, there's only 4 I think nationwide than all the other "carriers" just resell them as a white label. I never got why 1GB is $10 a gig, when with a VPS I can buy bandwidth for like 10 cents a GB. Why a 100x price increase for just making the bandwidth wireless?
- talmand 10y ago
  >> Why a 100x price increase for just making the bandwidth wireless? Because they can and will continue to do so as long as they can.
- y4mi 10y ago
  urm, it does make sense to have a massive increase in price for wireless traffic though. there is a finite amount of data you can carry over wireless technology per m^2 (and its significantly less than you'd expect). this limit doesn't exist with wires, as you can always add another cable.
antisthenes 10y ago
Capitalist free markets inevitably lead to consolidation of capital and monopolies/oligopolies that influence policy to promote their own rent-seeking. It's sorta why all the monopolies were broken up before and why some mergers are blocked (not nearly enough to promote healthy competition, though). "Free" libertopia markets don't stay free forever. They are self-destructive. This is especially evident in the hardware IT market. Look, for example, at all the hard drive and SSD manufacturers that existed between 1990 and today. Eventually, they all consolidated back to Seagate & WD. And every smaller SSD company folded or got bought by the people who actually manufacture flash memory. > which is like the opposite of what a libertarian would allow. Allowing something assumes you have power to restrict it, which, in the market with consolidated capital you don't, unless you are part of the government, which can overrule an individual corporate mandate.

by mtgx 10y ago

Keverw 10y ago

Yeah, only one cable company per area. The only option is a 3G/4G hotspot which charges per GB and is outrageous, then slower DSL. Some people are lucky to have Fiber offered. Cell phone carriers, there's only 4 I think nationwide than all the other "carriers" just resell them as a white label. I never got why 1GB is $10 a gig, when with a VPS I can buy bandwidth for like 10 cents a GB. Why a 100x price increase for just making the bandwidth wireless?

talmand 10y ago
>> Why a 100x price increase for just making the bandwidth wireless? Because they can and will continue to do so as long as they can.
y4mi 10y ago
urm, it does make sense to have a massive increase in price for wireless traffic though. there is a finite amount of data you can carry over wireless technology per m^2 (and its significantly less than you'd expect). this limit doesn't exist with wires, as you can always add another cable.

antisthenes 10y ago

Capitalist free markets inevitably lead to consolidation of capital and monopolies/oligopolies that influence policy to promote their own rent-seeking. It's sorta why all the monopolies were broken up before and why some mergers are blocked (not nearly enough to promote healthy competition, though). "Free" libertopia markets don't stay free forever. They are self-destructive. This is especially evident in the hardware IT market. Look, for example, at all the hard drive and SSD manufacturers that existed between 1990 and today. Eventually, they all consolidated back to Seagate & WD. And every smaller SSD company folded or got bought by the people who actually manufacture flash memory. > which is like the opposite of what a libertarian would allow. Allowing something assumes you have power to restrict it, which, in the market with consolidated capital you don't, unless you are part of the government, which can overrule an individual corporate mandate.