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I was curious about the idea of the Internet as a public utility several years ago, so I did some research. Specifically I looked into just how something is de

I was curious about the idea of the Internet as a public utility several years ago, so I did some research. Specifically I looked into just how something is determined to be a "public utility" in the first place. Why is my water line regulated and the price of the water pegged to the cost of providing the service? Why do I get a letter explaining any proposed rate increase with a (required) explanation of how it arises from an actual increase in the cost of providing the service? Surely it wasn't always that way, not for water or electricity or anything else. So how did they go from being private services controlled by companies to public utilities generally either run by municipalities or privately owned utility companies answerable to a public utilities commission? It turns out the answer is fairly simple. Although each utility followed its own path historically, it all boiled down to one question: Is the benefit society as a whole would derive from the cheap, ubiquitous availability of the thing greater than the damage which would be done to society by the elimination of competition and extraction of profit from the thing? I think that question is a very easy one to answer for Internet access. The benefit to society would be incalculably greater than the damage done by eliminating the profit of Comcast and AT&T and Time Warner and whatnot. Just for one, we could close every physical government office in the nation and save billions by permitting the workers from there to work from home while citizens access everything via the Internet. So long as Internet access is a luxury, you can't do that. Then you have businesses. We don't charge restaurants 100x as much for water because they make soup with it, and "business connections" that transfer no more data than a home with a few teenagers shouldn't cost any more either. And if the cost was based on the cost of providing the service, then like everything in tech it would shrink with amazing rapidity.

slumberlust 9y ago
I agree, but how?
jbob2000 9y ago
I don't disagree with you, but I want to play devil's advocate. Unlike water and electricity, the internet is still kind of a luxury. If the electricity cuts out for a couple of days, all of our food rots, and we starve and die. If the water cuts out, we get dehydrated and die. If the internet cuts out for a few days... well.. It'll suck. But nobody will die. If I recall correctly, 60% of the internet's traffic is Netflix, with the remaining diced up between Youtube, streaming, and social media. The internet, as it stands right now, is a global entertainment system. I know we do business on it, and it's a boon for communications, but it's not a life or death thing. Aside from that, I'm actually still on the fence philosophically on whether or not the internet is "good" for humanity. It's allowed huge amounts of misinformation to spread. I think you could pin the spread of anti-vax ideas on the internet. We waste millions of hours playing video games and streaming videos. I am currently bored at work browsing hacker news, so instead of allowing that boredom to force me into improving our app, I'll just sit here quietly until somebody adds a ticket into my queue.

slumberlust 9y ago

I agree, but how?

jbob2000 9y ago

I don't disagree with you, but I want to play devil's advocate. Unlike water and electricity, the internet is still kind of a luxury. If the electricity cuts out for a couple of days, all of our food rots, and we starve and die. If the water cuts out, we get dehydrated and die. If the internet cuts out for a few days... well.. It'll suck. But nobody will die. If I recall correctly, 60% of the internet's traffic is Netflix, with the remaining diced up between Youtube, streaming, and social media. The internet, as it stands right now, is a global entertainment system. I know we do business on it, and it's a boon for communications, but it's not a life or death thing. Aside from that, I'm actually still on the fence philosophically on whether or not the internet is "good" for humanity. It's allowed huge amounts of misinformation to spread. I think you could pin the spread of anti-vax ideas on the internet. We waste millions of hours playing video games and streaming videos. I am currently bored at work browsing hacker news, so instead of allowing that boredom to force me into improving our app, I'll just sit here quietly until somebody adds a ticket into my queue.