> The long view is surely that Government provides an excellent vehicle for planning of infrastructure and allocation of large-scale funding, and independent in

> The long view is surely that Government provides an excellent vehicle for planning of infrastructure and allocation of large-scale funding, and independent institutions and private companies the best vehicles to receive that funding for R&D & actually building out infrastructure. What you mean by "long view" here? I also don't particularly see why private companies would (in principle) be better than government-run institutions. I mean, in most of the world universities are government-funded institutions, and I think they produce quite a bit of innovation? The key here is independence from the direct source of funding. There's nothing magical about private enterprise that means it'll be more "innovative". You just need independence[2]. > When a government tries to build infrastructure directly, you often get disastrous outcomes. Australia's so-called National Broadband Network is a recent and woeful example. I can't claim to know much about Australia, so can you explain what went wrong with NBN? I can tell you that e.g. Sweden is among the top[1] of the world when it comes to Internet speed, and I believe that was mostly done by government mandate. (Not sure who actually laid the fiber, but that's pretty much beside the point.) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Internet_connection_speeds https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Internet_... [2] As in: Your funding is guaranteed for X number of years, regardless of political whims, popular opinion, etc.