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Because I always have a choice with companies: they cannot be monopolies unless helped by governments. Startups and competitors will swiftly punish any bad play

by nickpp 9y ago

Because I always have a choice with companies: they cannot be monopolies unless helped by governments. Startups and competitors will swiftly punish any bad player in a free market, thus compelling players to behave. The proof is all around me: everything good comes from companies: cars, computers, my house, my heating furnace, restaurant food, hotels, etc. Everything crappy and bad is related one way or another with govts: bureaucracy, dmv, borders, postal service, state hospitals, state schools.

takeda 9y ago
First Title II doesn't make the government start offering Internet service, it is similar to FDA preventing companies to include poison in our food to cut cost (and you can be sure that especially the public companies would do that if they could. This happens when individual people are not liable and #1 goal of a public company is to improve earnings every quarter). I have an exercise for you right now. Let say you are pissed at your current ISP and don't want to use them anymore, who would you switch to? If you have 1 extra choice of high speed internet, congratulations you're one of very small percentage of people. If you don't have other choices (like me) perhaps now you see the problem.
- nickpp 9y ago
  The lack of choice in ISP marked is due to heavy govt regulation. They then added more regulation to fix the problem they created. Which is my original point: keep increasing that power...
  - takeda 9y ago
    It's not. I don't know how old you are, but I remember it was very different ~20 years ago. Previously Internet was classified as a telecommunication service, and was following the same regulations. Any company could easily enter the market and provide a service. Until FCC deregulated it in 2002 and 2005. First was reclassification from telecommunication service to information service, the second was removing requirement to lease the infrastructure to others at reasonable price. Now in order to enter the market each company will need to lay its own infrastructure, but it is even worse than that. If a company wants to run its own fiber cables (like Google Fiber was doing) they need to get incumbent ISPs to move their wires to make space. And those incumbent ISPs purposefully are delaying the process. In Nashville Google managed to convince city to pass a legislation which would not require incumbent ISPs action, and moving existing wires could be done while lying the new ones (it's done by the same technicians that incumbent ISP would sent anyway). And of course the city was sued by incumbent ISPs. This shows how fucked this situation really is, because even Google is giving up on their Google Fiber project, and if they can't who else can enter. Oh and nice bonus, is that Title II requires pole sharing, once it is repealed that requirement won't apply as well. That means any new ISP entering the area will have to deal with constructing new poles or new wells which is even more expensive. So in short if this is repealed we will be in even more fucked up situation right now. Oh yeah, also Ajit wants to make sure that individual states won't be able to impose their rules overriding it.
    - cptskippy 9y ago
      You forgot the part where the government paid for the incumbent's infrastructure that they no longer have to share.
cptskippy 9y ago
> they cannot be monopolies unless helped by governments. So natural monopolies aren't a thing? How did Google, Microsoft, US Steel and Standard Oil benefit or receive government support?
croon 9y ago
How many water pipes do you have running to your house? How many electricity lines? Do you want 5 different ones of each, so you can have market choices? What if there's a really good 6th contender, you mind digging up your yard once again so you can get their service? Oh, you only have one of each, but still have a choice between providers? That's a great "natural free market", I must hear more about how it came to be. Do please tell. You need community owned, or privately owned but regulated last mile access, so that multiple ISPs can access you as a customer, for there to be a working market. That means government involvement. I might also add a constant fact: You are the government.

by nickpp 9y ago

takeda 9y ago

First Title II doesn't make the government start offering Internet service, it is similar to FDA preventing companies to include poison in our food to cut cost (and you can be sure that especially the public companies would do that if they could. This happens when individual people are not liable and #1 goal of a public company is to improve earnings every quarter). I have an exercise for you right now. Let say you are pissed at your current ISP and don't want to use them anymore, who would you switch to? If you have 1 extra choice of high speed internet, congratulations you're one of very small percentage of people. If you don't have other choices (like me) perhaps now you see the problem.

nickpp 9y ago
The lack of choice in ISP marked is due to heavy govt regulation. They then added more regulation to fix the problem they created. Which is my original point: keep increasing that power...
- takeda 9y ago
  It's not. I don't know how old you are, but I remember it was very different ~20 years ago. Previously Internet was classified as a telecommunication service, and was following the same regulations. Any company could easily enter the market and provide a service. Until FCC deregulated it in 2002 and 2005. First was reclassification from telecommunication service to information service, the second was removing requirement to lease the infrastructure to others at reasonable price. Now in order to enter the market each company will need to lay its own infrastructure, but it is even worse than that. If a company wants to run its own fiber cables (like Google Fiber was doing) they need to get incumbent ISPs to move their wires to make space. And those incumbent ISPs purposefully are delaying the process. In Nashville Google managed to convince city to pass a legislation which would not require incumbent ISPs action, and moving existing wires could be done while lying the new ones (it's done by the same technicians that incumbent ISP would sent anyway). And of course the city was sued by incumbent ISPs. This shows how fucked this situation really is, because even Google is giving up on their Google Fiber project, and if they can't who else can enter. Oh and nice bonus, is that Title II requires pole sharing, once it is repealed that requirement won't apply as well. That means any new ISP entering the area will have to deal with constructing new poles or new wells which is even more expensive. So in short if this is repealed we will be in even more fucked up situation right now. Oh yeah, also Ajit wants to make sure that individual states won't be able to impose their rules overriding it.
  - cptskippy 9y ago
    You forgot the part where the government paid for the incumbent's infrastructure that they no longer have to share.

cptskippy 9y ago

> they cannot be monopolies unless helped by governments. So natural monopolies aren't a thing? How did Google, Microsoft, US Steel and Standard Oil benefit or receive government support?

croon 9y ago

How many water pipes do you have running to your house? How many electricity lines? Do you want 5 different ones of each, so you can have market choices? What if there's a really good 6th contender, you mind digging up your yard once again so you can get their service? Oh, you only have one of each, but still have a choice between providers? That's a great "natural free market", I must hear more about how it came to be. Do please tell. You need community owned, or privately owned but regulated last mile access, so that multiple ISPs can access you as a customer, for there to be a working market. That means government involvement. I might also add a constant fact: You are the government.