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Groups funded by the Koch brothers are campaigning against municipal broadband

346 points by xbmcuser 9y ago

parasitius 9y ago
Another Koch brothers smear piece, yawn. Everybody who liked these dudes’ facebook feed know they’re about the only two people in the country really fighting for America instead of irrationally allying along party lines, and pushing a specific party agenda when it is irrational
AlphaWeaver 9y ago
That's pretty terrible, that outside political interest groups took it upon themselves to meddle in a local community's little vote...
ikeboy 9y ago
Why was the city able to get it at cost and private companies weren't?
- Johnny555 9y ago
  Because the city is a government agency while a private company is not. Conduit space is a limited resource, so the state can't afford to let every interested company piggy back on an existing project. So instead they opened it up to other government agencies who, presumably, would use the fiber to provide some services to the public. There may even be laws preventing the state from allowing private companies to share their infrastructure.
  - ikeboy 9y ago
    So wouldn't everybody win if the city sold the rights to private company for say $1 million on condition they build out this network?
    - Johnny555 9y ago
      That's a much harder decision for the state to make -- the state has to evaluate business plans, determine the financial health of bidders, oversee implementation and monitor the business forever to ensure it's meeting the terms of the deal. While if they give access to local governments, the state only needs to install the fiber -- it's up to the local government to determine how to use it to best serve the public. And in this case, the local government intends to lease the infrastructure to private businesses: the city would build the infrastructure and lease capacity to private internet-service providers
    - scarface74 9y ago
      Who would you suggest? AT&T? https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/06/att-makes-the-same-promises-every-time-it-buys-a-new-company/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/06/att-m... Verizon? https://www.fiercetelecom.com/telecom/verizon-sued-by-new-york-city-over-fios-build-out-commitment-claims https://www.fiercetelecom.com/telecom/verizon-sued-by-new-yo... Comcast? https://qz.com/213995/comcast-promised-poor-americans-cheap-internet-but-most-of-them-didnt-get-it/ https://qz.com/213995/comcast-promised-poor-americans-cheap-...
caseysoftware 9y ago
So the point of this is that a small number of super rich people exert massive influence through a series of shell organizations, media campaigns, and think tanks. If that is true - which it appears to be - are the Koch brothers the only ones?
- guelo 9y ago
  No. There are a bunch of billionaires pushing their various agendas. Billionaire pet-causes is pretty much the only way things change in this country anymore. Democracy is dead, all we have left is billionaires fighting each other.
  - brandnewlow 9y ago
    Citation needed. Also, is there any reason to believe this isn't how it's always been throughout history? Those with lots of capital set things into motion that impact everyone else?
    - mikeyouse 9y ago
      Corruption at the scale we're currently seeing was pretty much illegal until the Citizen's United ruling. Dark Money groups spent $600 million on senate races in 2016. The Koch brothers alone were planning on spending nearly $1 billion to influence the election. It's no wonder that congress is racing to pass an historically unpopular tax bill that almost exclusively benefits these very same donors. Hell, Lindsey Graham gave away the game in a response a few weeks ago when asked what would happen if they didn't pass the bill: > "The party fractures, most incumbents in 2018 will get a severe primary challenge, a lot of them will probably lose, the base will fracture, the financial contributions will stop, other than that it'll be fine!"
      - xapata 9y ago
        Ever heard of United Fruit? Read more history and you'll find plenty of examples of the government taking action on behalf of one or a handful of corporations or individuals.
exabrial 9y ago
What if a taxpayer could care less? Is it fair to take their money to build something they don't want/need? If the network build-out was completely supported by people that were going to buy service I think that's awesome. I think in the case where it's subsidized by non-participants or non-subscribers there are some moral and ethical issues about using taxpayer money.
- Johnny555 9y ago
  The city does a lot of things I don't really care about and doesn't directly affect me. Is it fair to use my tax money to provide library services when I haven't stepped foot in a library in decades? If the library was completely supported by people that use it, that would be awesome. (substitute "library" with any service the city provides that you don't use directly)
  - isostatic 9y ago
    > (substitute "library" with any service the city provides that you don't use directly) The military
  - briffle 9y ago
    I have yet to have the fire department assist me in either an accident, or fire.. We should turn them into a private company! (hint, that is how fire departments started out, and it caused so many problems, the cities took them over!)
    - Johnny555 9y ago
      Even with government sponsored services you can get into situations where firefighters will watch your house burn down (and protect neighboring houses from catching on fire from your house) if you don't pay their fire protection fee: http://www.nbcnews.com/id/39516346/ns/us_news-life/t/no-pay-no-spray-firefighters-let-home-burn/ http://www.nbcnews.com/id/39516346/ns/us_news-life/t/no-pay-...
- scarface74 9y ago
smsm42 9y ago
Correct title would be "A non-profit, financed among others by Koch brothers, opposes all kinds of government spending and meddling with private economics, including, in one case, spending on municipal internet".
fastball 9y ago
Do people really believe that infrastructure is not the purview of the government? Roads, water, electrical, internet, etc. should all be built out first on a municipal level, then the state should connect those municipalities, then the federal government should connect those states. The various levels of government do not need to (should not?) be the ones to operate this infrastructure, but I absolutely believe that to foster competition they should build it out and lease it to others (and such an operational lease should never be exclusive / too long-term) Is there a good argument against this? Who doesn't think the US Highway System has been great for our economy? Who doesn't think a US Internet System would be great for our economy too?
- sitepodmatt 9y ago
  Yes, what you are describing is basically the UK railway. Network rail (government) subcontract out maintainence and build to the private companies (Alstom etc..) and then lease track access to private companies (Virgin trains etc...). The UK has possibly the most overpriced railway in the world, at least in this instance it fair to say 'it didnt work' unless you want to pay 300usd to get from london to glasgow in economy.
  - pjc50 9y ago
    Note that the system was fully private for a while (Railtrack PLC), until they went bankrupt. I think it's going to be expensive whether it's public or private, for complex reasons probably related to "legacy" hardware. If it was fully deregulated then the operators would immediately shut down all the tracks within 100 miles of London to build houses on them. I believe all European countries are required to have separate track and train operators for railways with some structure for competition in rail. It's just that most of them manage it better than the UK. The UK telecoms industry was privatised and has ended up with BT Openreach operating most of the wires, leased out with local loop unbundling (LLU) to a variety of broadband providers. It works OK although not brilliantly.
    - RobertoG 9y ago
      "I believe all European countries are required to have separate track and train operators for railways with some structure for competition in rail." Not really, in some countries the railway and train operators is the same company, strongly controlled by the government and operating without big problems. It's my understanding that the problems in the UK started when they stopped using that model.
stuaxo 9y ago
They are a barrier to further civilisation.
simasj 9y ago
As a libertarian I think that government should not do commercial projects like this fiber optical network. But then I raise a question - why private companies do not make such fiber networks? And it is obvious that it is not about cost. Google has plenty of money to invest (is YouTube already profitable or still burning 1 million USD a day?), but still they struggle with their fiber network. I have a live example I live in Lithuania. Until 1998 Lithuania had one monopolist telecommunication company owned by government. But in 1998 our government sold this monopole company (about 95% of shares) to Swedish company Telia, but at the same time they passed the laws to liberalize telecommunication market. Theoretically Telecom was obligated to allow usage part of their communication infrastructure to other competitors, but as monopoly they set such high prices, that for other companies it was cheaper to build their own networks. And laws allowed to build network for everyone. And that's where libertarian dream came true - even monopoly could not limit expansion of private networks when there laws allowed that. Soon there appeared many amateur networks that used simple UTP cables or wi-fi to connect to each other, some of them joined forces together and become companies who sold internet connection to neighborhood homes. That's how suddenly there appeared lots of small ISP's. Soon they understood that they cannot rely on UTP cables or wi-fi, so they started building fiber cable networks in largest cities. And keep in mind, that in 1998 - 2000 when those companies have appeared, the Lithuania was quite poor country who has just escaped USSR. It had a GDP only of 11 billion USD; average salary was about 150 USD/month, so you can imagine that average customer could not pay for internet a lot. That small fiber optical ISPs didn't had big investors behind their back, tons of money to invest, but still they managed to buy equipment on word prices and expand their networks. And now here in Lithuania we have plenty of ISP's who offers 100 - 300 mbps fiber connection to almost every home that needs it. So I think real problem in USA is not about the money, it's about the laws that limit competition. And building government network would not solve this issue - building municipal networks is just the fight against the consequences, not the causes. P.S. Lithuanian capital Vilnius has population of 650 000, so it is quite similar to the case described in this article.
- vturner 9y ago
  When I read your story, something jumped out to me: willingness to take on risk. Whoever was building all those lines was willing to take on a lot of financial and other risk to themselves, right? Why they were willing to do so, I'm not sure, but in the US we are facing the problem of having fewer and fewer people like that. There was a report recently that entrepreneurship has been falling for some time here, and I think it's due to risk. Where I live, there is a single Internet provider (besides dial up of course!), and I have dreamed of starting up an alternative (funny as my grandfather was Lithuanian :). The risk involved though makes it not worth it, my desk job is too comfortable.
kebman 9y ago
Yes! More freedom for the rich! Meanwhile, except Comcast or Verizon to give you your former freedom with at a premium. What you don't know, is what you don't get to see.
ferongr 9y ago
This whole thing sound like a leftist twist on the right-wing Soros conspiracy theory.
gigatexal 9y ago
This strikes me as anti-American. Sure, I wouldn't go about building myself my own highway (to me the internet (access to) is to infrastructure as roads are to infrastructure). But... co-operatives can work in some cases and if a community wants to get together to build infrastructure and save the government money and do it better than both the feds and private institutions why not let them be FREE to do so?
ThrowawayKoch 9y ago
A lot of left-wing and media groups attribute a lot of influence to the Koch brothers. But honestly, their efforts are often ineffective or outright counter-productive to their stated goals. It's funny to see them portrayed as boogeymen when you know how bad they actually are at wielding influence. I've worked with the Charles Koch Institute before, and it's a mad house. Their other orgs are about the same. But don't take my word for it--check out their Glassdoor reviews[1] to see for yourself how many current and former employees feel about them. (Read the negative ones; many of the positive ones were posted because HR told people to do it.) [1] https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Charles-Koch-Institute-and-Charles-Koch-Foundation-Reviews-E446388.htm https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Charles-Koch-Institute-and...
- acqq 9y ago
  > their efforts are often ineffective or outright counter-productive to their stated goals. The fact that the employees complain doesn't mean that the money they invest isn't effective for the goals they have: to increase doubt in the facts that they don't like and therefore prevent or even just slow down possible actions against their interests. Then, what is the support for your claim that they are ineffective?
- gech 9y ago
  I think the Koch brothers are more active and problematic than the other side's boogeyman, George Soros.
- soundwave106 9y ago
  The main issue with groups pushing single boogiemen is that life isn't that neat: there are, as alluded to in other places, multiple people (mostly billionaires these days, but not always) with major influence pushing multiple opinions. I am also not surprised that life behind the scenes at one of these advocacy groups is as Dilbertesque as any corporate environment tends to be. I think the main issue here is that, with decisions like Citizen United in particular, political power does seem to have shifted towards those who can spend the most money even more than usual. Often, their priorities are out of whack with what the priorities of the common citizen are. I do not get the impression, for instance, that tax cuts aimed largely at corporations and high earners were the top priority of most who voted in last year's election (certainly the polling on the tax cut seems to reflect that). Yet this appears to be the single issue that the national GOP unifies itself on. Go figure. Paradoxically, I think the very messiness that you are talking about might actually contribute to this particular issue. Instinctively, the Koch corporate interests shouldn't care about muni broadband much. Koch is largely resource extraction, meaning a lot of operation in rural areas. Given the current state of broadband (quasi-monopolistic), some rural communities miss out on good broadband because, quite simply, rural broadband isn't profitable enough for the current broadband monopolies [1]. Frankly, good broadband makes a given location that much more attractive to potential employees and other people living in the area. It would seem like the Kochs would at best simply keep mum about a muni broadband fight, even if it didn't necessarily gel with core beliefs. Instead, my best guess is that their "libertarian oriented" cause funding got tied into the network of old school broadband monoplies' desire to restrict competition by legal decree (not exactly a libertarian thought, but currently aligned with Republicans). Voila, via the magic of political coalitions, the Koch brothers now "provide" some of the funding for anti-muni broadband campaigns. [1] http://www.roanoke.com/opinion/editorials/editorial-minnesota-offers-virginia-a-lesson-on-rural-broadband/article_1bce113b-9a0d-554e-9219-a4b6a1bd8754.html http://www.roanoke.com/opinion/editorials/editorial-minnesot...
kabanossen 9y ago
The Private depends on the Public - https://georgelakoff.com/2017/11/26/protect-internet-freedom/ https://georgelakoff.com/2017/11/26/protect-internet-freedom...
jernfrost 9y ago
I am all for municapal internet in the US, but really it is a bandaid. The fundamental problem is how competition is regulated in the US. Most European countries I know of did not achieve high speed internet by making it municpal. Rather we did it by forcing competition. Cell phone and broadband infrastructure owners in Europe typicall have to let competition offer services on their hardware. Same with power. Here in Norway companies owning the power cables going into my house are not allowed to exclude competitors from using their lines to send power to me. You, need struct regulation of natural monpolies and that is what the US lacks. That is why Americans ironically end up with government solutions. See the same with so many things. Government mandated minimum eages because unions are so weak. In Nordic countries, Germany etc there has never been a need for go ernment to provide this as unions have solved the problem with exploitative wages. Ironically by fighting government regulation you just end up with more government.
- ihsw2 9y ago
  How do you reconcile that with the fact that competition is by all means opposed? Sections of the country are carved up into fiefdoms where rent-seeking is the norm.
gozur88 9y ago
The Koch brothers fund libertarian groups, so it shouldn't be surprising to find these groups are against ISPs funded through tax dollars.
ajr0 9y ago
exciting to see opportunities [0] popping up for community based networks, it would be interesting to see a rewards based approach to hosting access points for others. [0] https://nycmesh.net/ https://nycmesh.net/

346 points by xbmcuser 9y ago

Another Koch brothers smear piece, yawn. Everybody who liked these dudes’ facebook feed know they’re about the only two people in the country really fighting for America instead of irrationally allying along party lines, and pushing a specific party agenda when it is irrational

AlphaWeaver 9y ago

That's pretty terrible, that outside political interest groups took it upon themselves to meddle in a local community's little vote...

ikeboy 9y ago

Why was the city able to get it at cost and private companies weren't?

Johnny555 9y ago
Because the city is a government agency while a private company is not. Conduit space is a limited resource, so the state can't afford to let every interested company piggy back on an existing project. So instead they opened it up to other government agencies who, presumably, would use the fiber to provide some services to the public. There may even be laws preventing the state from allowing private companies to share their infrastructure.
- ikeboy 9y ago
  So wouldn't everybody win if the city sold the rights to private company for say $1 million on condition they build out this network?
  - Johnny555 9y ago
    That's a much harder decision for the state to make -- the state has to evaluate business plans, determine the financial health of bidders, oversee implementation and monitor the business forever to ensure it's meeting the terms of the deal. While if they give access to local governments, the state only needs to install the fiber -- it's up to the local government to determine how to use it to best serve the public. And in this case, the local government intends to lease the infrastructure to private businesses: the city would build the infrastructure and lease capacity to private internet-service providers
  - scarface74 9y ago
    Who would you suggest? AT&T? https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/06/att-makes-the-same-promises-every-time-it-buys-a-new-company/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/06/att-m... Verizon? https://www.fiercetelecom.com/telecom/verizon-sued-by-new-york-city-over-fios-build-out-commitment-claims https://www.fiercetelecom.com/telecom/verizon-sued-by-new-yo... Comcast? https://qz.com/213995/comcast-promised-poor-americans-cheap-internet-but-most-of-them-didnt-get-it/ https://qz.com/213995/comcast-promised-poor-americans-cheap-...

caseysoftware 9y ago

So the point of this is that a small number of super rich people exert massive influence through a series of shell organizations, media campaigns, and think tanks. If that is true - which it appears to be - are the Koch brothers the only ones?

guelo 9y ago
No. There are a bunch of billionaires pushing their various agendas. Billionaire pet-causes is pretty much the only way things change in this country anymore. Democracy is dead, all we have left is billionaires fighting each other.
- brandnewlow 9y ago
  Citation needed. Also, is there any reason to believe this isn't how it's always been throughout history? Those with lots of capital set things into motion that impact everyone else?
  - mikeyouse 9y ago
    Corruption at the scale we're currently seeing was pretty much illegal until the Citizen's United ruling. Dark Money groups spent $600 million on senate races in 2016. The Koch brothers alone were planning on spending nearly $1 billion to influence the election. It's no wonder that congress is racing to pass an historically unpopular tax bill that almost exclusively benefits these very same donors. Hell, Lindsey Graham gave away the game in a response a few weeks ago when asked what would happen if they didn't pass the bill: > "The party fractures, most incumbents in 2018 will get a severe primary challenge, a lot of them will probably lose, the base will fracture, the financial contributions will stop, other than that it'll be fine!"
    - xapata 9y ago
      Ever heard of United Fruit? Read more history and you'll find plenty of examples of the government taking action on behalf of one or a handful of corporations or individuals.

exabrial 9y ago

What if a taxpayer could care less? Is it fair to take their money to build something they don't want/need? If the network build-out was completely supported by people that were going to buy service I think that's awesome. I think in the case where it's subsidized by non-participants or non-subscribers there are some moral and ethical issues about using taxpayer money.

Johnny555 9y ago
The city does a lot of things I don't really care about and doesn't directly affect me. Is it fair to use my tax money to provide library services when I haven't stepped foot in a library in decades? If the library was completely supported by people that use it, that would be awesome. (substitute "library" with any service the city provides that you don't use directly)
- isostatic 9y ago
  > (substitute "library" with any service the city provides that you don't use directly) The military
- briffle 9y ago
  I have yet to have the fire department assist me in either an accident, or fire.. We should turn them into a private company! (hint, that is how fire departments started out, and it caused so many problems, the cities took them over!)
  - Johnny555 9y ago
    Even with government sponsored services you can get into situations where firefighters will watch your house burn down (and protect neighboring houses from catching on fire from your house) if you don't pay their fire protection fee: http://www.nbcnews.com/id/39516346/ns/us_news-life/t/no-pay-no-spray-firefighters-let-home-burn/ http://www.nbcnews.com/id/39516346/ns/us_news-life/t/no-pay-...
scarface74 9y ago

smsm42 9y ago

Correct title would be "A non-profit, financed among others by Koch brothers, opposes all kinds of government spending and meddling with private economics, including, in one case, spending on municipal internet".

fastball 9y ago

Do people really believe that infrastructure is not the purview of the government? Roads, water, electrical, internet, etc. should all be built out first on a municipal level, then the state should connect those municipalities, then the federal government should connect those states. The various levels of government do not need to (should not?) be the ones to operate this infrastructure, but I absolutely believe that to foster competition they should build it out and lease it to others (and such an operational lease should never be exclusive / too long-term) Is there a good argument against this? Who doesn't think the US Highway System has been great for our economy? Who doesn't think a US Internet System would be great for our economy too?

sitepodmatt 9y ago
Yes, what you are describing is basically the UK railway. Network rail (government) subcontract out maintainence and build to the private companies (Alstom etc..) and then lease track access to private companies (Virgin trains etc...). The UK has possibly the most overpriced railway in the world, at least in this instance it fair to say 'it didnt work' unless you want to pay 300usd to get from london to glasgow in economy.
- pjc50 9y ago
  Note that the system was fully private for a while (Railtrack PLC), until they went bankrupt. I think it's going to be expensive whether it's public or private, for complex reasons probably related to "legacy" hardware. If it was fully deregulated then the operators would immediately shut down all the tracks within 100 miles of London to build houses on them. I believe all European countries are required to have separate track and train operators for railways with some structure for competition in rail. It's just that most of them manage it better than the UK. The UK telecoms industry was privatised and has ended up with BT Openreach operating most of the wires, leased out with local loop unbundling (LLU) to a variety of broadband providers. It works OK although not brilliantly.
  - RobertoG 9y ago
    "I believe all European countries are required to have separate track and train operators for railways with some structure for competition in rail." Not really, in some countries the railway and train operators is the same company, strongly controlled by the government and operating without big problems. It's my understanding that the problems in the UK started when they stopped using that model.

stuaxo 9y ago

They are a barrier to further civilisation.

simasj 9y ago

As a libertarian I think that government should not do commercial projects like this fiber optical network. But then I raise a question - why private companies do not make such fiber networks? And it is obvious that it is not about cost. Google has plenty of money to invest (is YouTube already profitable or still burning 1 million USD a day?), but still they struggle with their fiber network. I have a live example I live in Lithuania. Until 1998 Lithuania had one monopolist telecommunication company owned by government. But in 1998 our government sold this monopole company (about 95% of shares) to Swedish company Telia, but at the same time they passed the laws to liberalize telecommunication market. Theoretically Telecom was obligated to allow usage part of their communication infrastructure to other competitors, but as monopoly they set such high prices, that for other companies it was cheaper to build their own networks. And laws allowed to build network for everyone. And that's where libertarian dream came true - even monopoly could not limit expansion of private networks when there laws allowed that. Soon there appeared many amateur networks that used simple UTP cables or wi-fi to connect to each other, some of them joined forces together and become companies who sold internet connection to neighborhood homes. That's how suddenly there appeared lots of small ISP's. Soon they understood that they cannot rely on UTP cables or wi-fi, so they started building fiber cable networks in largest cities. And keep in mind, that in 1998 - 2000 when those companies have appeared, the Lithuania was quite poor country who has just escaped USSR. It had a GDP only of 11 billion USD; average salary was about 150 USD/month, so you can imagine that average customer could not pay for internet a lot. That small fiber optical ISPs didn't had big investors behind their back, tons of money to invest, but still they managed to buy equipment on word prices and expand their networks. And now here in Lithuania we have plenty of ISP's who offers 100 - 300 mbps fiber connection to almost every home that needs it. So I think real problem in USA is not about the money, it's about the laws that limit competition. And building government network would not solve this issue - building municipal networks is just the fight against the consequences, not the causes. P.S. Lithuanian capital Vilnius has population of 650 000, so it is quite similar to the case described in this article.

vturner 9y ago
When I read your story, something jumped out to me: willingness to take on risk. Whoever was building all those lines was willing to take on a lot of financial and other risk to themselves, right? Why they were willing to do so, I'm not sure, but in the US we are facing the problem of having fewer and fewer people like that. There was a report recently that entrepreneurship has been falling for some time here, and I think it's due to risk. Where I live, there is a single Internet provider (besides dial up of course!), and I have dreamed of starting up an alternative (funny as my grandfather was Lithuanian :). The risk involved though makes it not worth it, my desk job is too comfortable.

kebman 9y ago

Yes! More freedom for the rich! Meanwhile, except Comcast or Verizon to give you your former freedom with at a premium. What you don't know, is what you don't get to see.

ferongr 9y ago

This whole thing sound like a leftist twist on the right-wing Soros conspiracy theory.

gigatexal 9y ago

This strikes me as anti-American. Sure, I wouldn't go about building myself my own highway (to me the internet (access to) is to infrastructure as roads are to infrastructure). But... co-operatives can work in some cases and if a community wants to get together to build infrastructure and save the government money and do it better than both the feds and private institutions why not let them be FREE to do so?

ThrowawayKoch 9y ago

A lot of left-wing and media groups attribute a lot of influence to the Koch brothers. But honestly, their efforts are often ineffective or outright counter-productive to their stated goals. It's funny to see them portrayed as boogeymen when you know how bad they actually are at wielding influence. I've worked with the Charles Koch Institute before, and it's a mad house. Their other orgs are about the same. But don't take my word for it--check out their Glassdoor reviews[1] to see for yourself how many current and former employees feel about them. (Read the negative ones; many of the positive ones were posted because HR told people to do it.) [1] https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Charles-Koch-Institute-and-Charles-Koch-Foundation-Reviews-E446388.htm https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Charles-Koch-Institute-and...

acqq 9y ago
> their efforts are often ineffective or outright counter-productive to their stated goals. The fact that the employees complain doesn't mean that the money they invest isn't effective for the goals they have: to increase doubt in the facts that they don't like and therefore prevent or even just slow down possible actions against their interests. Then, what is the support for your claim that they are ineffective?
gech 9y ago
I think the Koch brothers are more active and problematic than the other side's boogeyman, George Soros.
soundwave106 9y ago
The main issue with groups pushing single boogiemen is that life isn't that neat: there are, as alluded to in other places, multiple people (mostly billionaires these days, but not always) with major influence pushing multiple opinions. I am also not surprised that life behind the scenes at one of these advocacy groups is as Dilbertesque as any corporate environment tends to be. I think the main issue here is that, with decisions like Citizen United in particular, political power does seem to have shifted towards those who can spend the most money even more than usual. Often, their priorities are out of whack with what the priorities of the common citizen are. I do not get the impression, for instance, that tax cuts aimed largely at corporations and high earners were the top priority of most who voted in last year's election (certainly the polling on the tax cut seems to reflect that). Yet this appears to be the single issue that the national GOP unifies itself on. Go figure. Paradoxically, I think the very messiness that you are talking about might actually contribute to this particular issue. Instinctively, the Koch corporate interests shouldn't care about muni broadband much. Koch is largely resource extraction, meaning a lot of operation in rural areas. Given the current state of broadband (quasi-monopolistic), some rural communities miss out on good broadband because, quite simply, rural broadband isn't profitable enough for the current broadband monopolies [1]. Frankly, good broadband makes a given location that much more attractive to potential employees and other people living in the area. It would seem like the Kochs would at best simply keep mum about a muni broadband fight, even if it didn't necessarily gel with core beliefs. Instead, my best guess is that their "libertarian oriented" cause funding got tied into the network of old school broadband monoplies' desire to restrict competition by legal decree (not exactly a libertarian thought, but currently aligned with Republicans). Voila, via the magic of political coalitions, the Koch brothers now "provide" some of the funding for anti-muni broadband campaigns. [1] http://www.roanoke.com/opinion/editorials/editorial-minnesota-offers-virginia-a-lesson-on-rural-broadband/article_1bce113b-9a0d-554e-9219-a4b6a1bd8754.html http://www.roanoke.com/opinion/editorials/editorial-minnesot...

kabanossen 9y ago

The Private depends on the Public - https://georgelakoff.com/2017/11/26/protect-internet-freedom/ https://georgelakoff.com/2017/11/26/protect-internet-freedom...

jernfrost 9y ago

I am all for municapal internet in the US, but really it is a bandaid. The fundamental problem is how competition is regulated in the US. Most European countries I know of did not achieve high speed internet by making it municpal. Rather we did it by forcing competition. Cell phone and broadband infrastructure owners in Europe typicall have to let competition offer services on their hardware. Same with power. Here in Norway companies owning the power cables going into my house are not allowed to exclude competitors from using their lines to send power to me. You, need struct regulation of natural monpolies and that is what the US lacks. That is why Americans ironically end up with government solutions. See the same with so many things. Government mandated minimum eages because unions are so weak. In Nordic countries, Germany etc there has never been a need for go ernment to provide this as unions have solved the problem with exploitative wages. Ironically by fighting government regulation you just end up with more government.

ihsw2 9y ago
How do you reconcile that with the fact that competition is by all means opposed? Sections of the country are carved up into fiefdoms where rent-seeking is the norm.

gozur88 9y ago

The Koch brothers fund libertarian groups, so it shouldn't be surprising to find these groups are against ISPs funded through tax dollars.

ajr0 9y ago

exciting to see opportunities [0] popping up for community based networks, it would be interesting to see a rewards based approach to hosting access points for others. [0] https://nycmesh.net/ https://nycmesh.net/