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I didn't like the idea of public utilities either in my idealistically naive youth. Then later I realized that natural monopoly public utilities work amazingly

I didn't like the idea of public utilities either in my idealistically naive youth. Then later I realized that natural monopoly public utilities work amazingly well, so well in fact you almost don't even realize they're there anymore and take them completely for granted - sewer, water, electricity, garbage. All the complexity and effort of making them work is hidden from the end user, it's the ultimate UI/UX accomplishment. Then you look at what happens when the private sector gets a hold of them, be it Enron in energy or for-profit banks in the money management business (which is already a partial utility thanks to central banking), and it calls into question the libertarian dogma that everything should be privatized.

zebrafish 9y ago
My garbage is privatized and my ISP is as well (an advocate for net neutrality) and both of those work just as well as my utilities do. I don't think providing two examples is a sufficient counterpoint to rebuke free-market principles. Either way, are we calling Google, Facebook, & Amazon natural monopolies now?
- SkyMarshal 9y ago
  I suspect that natural monopolies subject to securitization, market manipulation and bubble-nomics are the ones that should remain public, as there's strong incentive for private entities to mismanage them for short term profits. I'm not sure anyone's figured out how to do that with garbage and internet access yet, hopefully never. Fwiw I'm uncomfortable with the recent push for anti-trust enforcement against the Big 5. I was around for the OS and Browser wars and thus far none of them have been as deliberately abusive as Microsoft was, who in my opinion at the time soundly deserved the threat of being split up. Interestingly though, it led to a strong open source ecosystem of alternatives, and now Linux dominates most of the server world, which is probably a far better outcome than anything the anti-trust suit could have achieved. Similar outcomes may happen to the Big 5, like the emerging decentralized/federated social networks (Mastadon) and secure email like ProtonMail and Tutanota, and privacy-respecting search like DuckDuckGo. I think it's best to hold off on any kind of legal action a while longer until we can see what happens in that respect.

zebrafish 9y ago

My garbage is privatized and my ISP is as well (an advocate for net neutrality) and both of those work just as well as my utilities do. I don't think providing two examples is a sufficient counterpoint to rebuke free-market principles. Either way, are we calling Google, Facebook, & Amazon natural monopolies now?

SkyMarshal 9y ago
I suspect that natural monopolies subject to securitization, market manipulation and bubble-nomics are the ones that should remain public, as there's strong incentive for private entities to mismanage them for short term profits. I'm not sure anyone's figured out how to do that with garbage and internet access yet, hopefully never. Fwiw I'm uncomfortable with the recent push for anti-trust enforcement against the Big 5. I was around for the OS and Browser wars and thus far none of them have been as deliberately abusive as Microsoft was, who in my opinion at the time soundly deserved the threat of being split up. Interestingly though, it led to a strong open source ecosystem of alternatives, and now Linux dominates most of the server world, which is probably a far better outcome than anything the anti-trust suit could have achieved. Similar outcomes may happen to the Big 5, like the emerging decentralized/federated social networks (Mastadon) and secure email like ProtonMail and Tutanota, and privacy-respecting search like DuckDuckGo. I think it's best to hold off on any kind of legal action a while longer until we can see what happens in that respect.