4 ms·

How much of this can just be fixed by the free market? If I feel an ISP is limiting my choices wouldn't I just switch?

cageface 9y ago
In many parts of the US there is no real choice.
charia 9y ago
It could work like that if you have a choice in ISPs in your area. Many people don't and are subject to the whims of the single ISP that serves their area.
roblabla 9y ago
In some places, you don't have a choice of which ISP you use. It's comcast or nothing. The free market doesn't automatically fix everything, because of the high cost to entry related to infrastructure.
- hughw 9y ago
  In rural Texas I am lucky to have the one choice I have, and it's 12 Mbps ADSL+. Most out here can't get that.
Neliquat 9y ago
I live in an area with one ISP. What do I do? Please do not tell me to 'start my own'.
ohthehugemanate 9y ago
Because the telcos in America have legislated the market away. If you live in a major city like New York, you probably have many options - which boil down to the big 3 telcos and their resellers. If you live in a city of under 3 million, you likely don't even get this illusion of choice.
notsrg 9y ago
More and more people are moving into condos in cities where a board picks one ISP and that's what you get. Are you really going to move just to switch ISP's?
jballanc 9y ago
How many ISPs do you have to choose from? Personally, I have two: Comcast and AT&T. Comcast has been a nightmare recently, with almost weekly outages and frequent periods of severely degraded bandwidth. AT&T (even their supposed "Fiber" offering) requires a working copper twisted-pair RJ11 outlet where the gateway is to be installed, which I don't have and which would require an electrician and multiple holes in my walls to supply. So I'm on Comcast. Reluctantly. Now what if Comcast decided to charge more for access to HN? Where's your free market god now?
- feld 9y ago
  You are choosing to not use AT&T over holes in the walls of your dwelling required for installation. The free market is working as intended in this case. Most people really don't have a choice. You're just being a prick.
  - sctb 9y ago
    You can always safely leave out the personal jeers, like the guidelines ask. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - feld 9y ago
      It wasn't a personal jeer. I was commenting on his behavior/attitude, not calling him names. There's a big difference. alternately: > You're just being (a prick | stubborn | bullheaded | rigid | perverse | unreasonable)
      - sctb 9y ago
        If there's a difference, it's one that doesn't bring the comment within the guidelines. They don't just ask us not to call people names, they ask us not to call names at all: > When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. E.g. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
ep103 9y ago
It costs a lot of money for ISPs to expand their areas of service. As such, they explicitly avoid expanding into areas where a competitor already exists (riskier rate of return). To counter this, government at all levels have provided tax subsidies or outright payment to ISPs to expand into their localities. And regularly, the ISPs simply take the money and do nothing, relying on the fact that they are large enough that they can fight it out in court. The end result is a nation of monopoly coverage.
- SimbaOnSteroids 9y ago
  Don't forget the lobbying efforts that result in local legislation that make it illegal for other companies to move in, see google fiber or any of the municipal attempts.
ajross 9y ago
For the same reason the "free market" doesn't afford you competitive choice in power or gas delivery, sewer service, trash pickup, road paving outside your driveway... Physical residential networks are, like all other civil infrastructure, natural monopolies. They don't work in a "free market" and never have. The insistence on the part of glibertarians that somehow this "regulation-free" mode will work for data when it hasn't for literally a century and a half of experience with other utilities is... frustrating.
- woah 9y ago
  You can get 540mbps wifi gear for like $50 now. Radio internet is not a natural monopoly.
  - throwaway2048 9y ago
    those speeds are not achievable anywhere outside of a perfect test condition lab. With a lot of other wifi radios in the area, you are lucky to get a usable signal at all.
giaour 9y ago
I live in a major tech hub in a neighborhood full of Amazon and Microsoft engineers, and the only available ISP is Comcast. If I had literally any other choice, I would never give Comcast another dime. Given the prohibitive cost of last mile infrastructure, I can't see how I'll ever have another option in a deregulated market.
kakarot 9y ago
Where do you live that gives you more than one choice of a decent ISP? Do you really think even if you had half a dozen good providers, they wouldn't play ball and snatch up premium data deals? Who do you think is lobbying for this change in policy to begin with? All of our ISPs, uniting against a common enemy: the savvy consumer. When you hear and agree with things like "but free market competition will save us!" you are buying directly into their propaganda campaign.
Bartweiss 9y ago
Where I live now, I have two ISP choices. There's no actual evidence of collusion, but their prices are high, eerily similar, and far different from their prices in higher-competition markets. Where I lived before this, I had one ISP choice. And the local government had given them a legal monopoly, so the free market was incapable of offering me an alternative. Even if the market arguments are sound in theory, net neutrality is happening in the world we actually have. That's a world where ISP competition is somewhere between "scarce" and "illegal".

In many parts of the US there is no real choice.

It could work like that if you have a choice in ISPs in your area. Many people don't and are subject to the whims of the single ISP that serves their area.

roblabla 9y ago

In some places, you don't have a choice of which ISP you use. It's comcast or nothing. The free market doesn't automatically fix everything, because of the high cost to entry related to infrastructure.

hughw 9y ago
In rural Texas I am lucky to have the one choice I have, and it's 12 Mbps ADSL+. Most out here can't get that.

Neliquat 9y ago

I live in an area with one ISP. What do I do? Please do not tell me to 'start my own'.

ohthehugemanate 9y ago

Because the telcos in America have legislated the market away. If you live in a major city like New York, you probably have many options - which boil down to the big 3 telcos and their resellers. If you live in a city of under 3 million, you likely don't even get this illusion of choice.

notsrg 9y ago

More and more people are moving into condos in cities where a board picks one ISP and that's what you get. Are you really going to move just to switch ISP's?

jballanc 9y ago

How many ISPs do you have to choose from? Personally, I have two: Comcast and AT&T. Comcast has been a nightmare recently, with almost weekly outages and frequent periods of severely degraded bandwidth. AT&T (even their supposed "Fiber" offering) requires a working copper twisted-pair RJ11 outlet where the gateway is to be installed, which I don't have and which would require an electrician and multiple holes in my walls to supply. So I'm on Comcast. Reluctantly. Now what if Comcast decided to charge more for access to HN? Where's your free market god now?

feld 9y ago
You are choosing to not use AT&T over holes in the walls of your dwelling required for installation. The free market is working as intended in this case. Most people really don't have a choice. You're just being a prick.
- sctb 9y ago
  You can always safely leave out the personal jeers, like the guidelines ask. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - feld 9y ago
    It wasn't a personal jeer. I was commenting on his behavior/attitude, not calling him names. There's a big difference. alternately: > You're just being (a prick | stubborn | bullheaded | rigid | perverse | unreasonable)
    - sctb 9y ago
      If there's a difference, it's one that doesn't bring the comment within the guidelines. They don't just ask us not to call people names, they ask us not to call names at all: > When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. E.g. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

ep103 9y ago

It costs a lot of money for ISPs to expand their areas of service. As such, they explicitly avoid expanding into areas where a competitor already exists (riskier rate of return). To counter this, government at all levels have provided tax subsidies or outright payment to ISPs to expand into their localities. And regularly, the ISPs simply take the money and do nothing, relying on the fact that they are large enough that they can fight it out in court. The end result is a nation of monopoly coverage.

SimbaOnSteroids 9y ago
Don't forget the lobbying efforts that result in local legislation that make it illegal for other companies to move in, see google fiber or any of the municipal attempts.

ajross 9y ago

For the same reason the "free market" doesn't afford you competitive choice in power or gas delivery, sewer service, trash pickup, road paving outside your driveway... Physical residential networks are, like all other civil infrastructure, natural monopolies. They don't work in a "free market" and never have. The insistence on the part of glibertarians that somehow this "regulation-free" mode will work for data when it hasn't for literally a century and a half of experience with other utilities is... frustrating.

woah 9y ago
You can get 540mbps wifi gear for like $50 now. Radio internet is not a natural monopoly.
- throwaway2048 9y ago
  those speeds are not achievable anywhere outside of a perfect test condition lab. With a lot of other wifi radios in the area, you are lucky to get a usable signal at all.

giaour 9y ago

I live in a major tech hub in a neighborhood full of Amazon and Microsoft engineers, and the only available ISP is Comcast. If I had literally any other choice, I would never give Comcast another dime. Given the prohibitive cost of last mile infrastructure, I can't see how I'll ever have another option in a deregulated market.

kakarot 9y ago

Where do you live that gives you more than one choice of a decent ISP? Do you really think even if you had half a dozen good providers, they wouldn't play ball and snatch up premium data deals? Who do you think is lobbying for this change in policy to begin with? All of our ISPs, uniting against a common enemy: the savvy consumer. When you hear and agree with things like "but free market competition will save us!" you are buying directly into their propaganda campaign.

Bartweiss 9y ago

Where I live now, I have two ISP choices. There's no actual evidence of collusion, but their prices are high, eerily similar, and far different from their prices in higher-competition markets. Where I lived before this, I had one ISP choice. And the local government had given them a legal monopoly, so the free market was incapable of offering me an alternative. Even if the market arguments are sound in theory, net neutrality is happening in the world we actually have. That's a world where ISP competition is somewhere between "scarce" and "illegal".