6 ms·

Shareholders are also people. Some shareholders are large and rich. Some are small. Some are pension funds that want their members to receive dividends and retu

Shareholders are also people. Some shareholders are large and rich. Some are small. Some are pension funds that want their members to receive dividends and returns. And maybe I am a pessimist, but I haven't seen that many examples of government run enterprises that can be said to be well-run. And how are we ever able to know whether they are run well when they are tax financed?

rectang 8y ago
> Shareholders are also people. Shareholders are also miles away from any negative impact that their companies have on the communities in which they operate -- unlike small business owners who interact directly with their customers. Public corporations are thus more inclined to behave solely according to profit motives, making them less like people and more like undomesticated wildlife, indifferent to humanity.
- vuln 8y ago
  > Shareholders are also miles away from any negative impact that their companies have on the communities in which they operate -- unlike small business owners who interact directly with their customers. If you own 1 share of a company you are a share holder. Employees are also given stock as bonuses and have the ability to buy stock at a lower cost. These are shareholders and I am sure these people are in the local economy. I'd be willing to bet a large portion of the american public is actually invested in these ISPs whether they know it or not (Most people do not know how or what their pension / retirement funds are invested in) and depend on these companies to do well so they can have a nice retirement.
- patricius 8y ago
  If a company behaves badly enough towards its customers it will start losing customers and revenue, so the incentives are aligned with providing customers - no matter how far removed shareholders are from the communities you mention - a service they want to pay for. Of course, there are cases where certain legislation makes it difficult for competition to arise, in effect giving an existing company monopoly for delivering Internet in a certain way. So I don't exactly disagree with what you are saying, although I don't interpret profits negatively.
  - Brockenstein 8y ago
    >If a company behaves badly enough towards its customers it will start losing customers and revenue, so the incentives are aligned with providing customers That makes sense... if the company is small enough where any dip in customers is significant. When you have something like Comcast, serving tens of millions of people you're losing and gaining thousands of customers a day just from people moving. Additionally your service is so large that people in Cincinnati who are having problems with the service doesn't equate with the whole rest of the nation, as the quality of service isn't uniform. And then in cases where Comcast is a virtual monopoly people might want to ditch them, but what choice do they have? And they'd rather have (crummy) internet than no internet. Comcast's customer base is so large that you're never going to organize a significant percentage of them to meaningful action. It's too many people. And on top of all that big ISPs/big cable companies are among the most hated companies in the U.S. and have been for 15-20 years... so when are they going to start losing customers and revenue in a meaningful way to be incentivized to clean up their acts? I mean I understand the formula you're using and the cause an effect you're suggesting. But the reality suggests it's a bit more complicated than that.
  - rectang 8y ago
    I don't see the profit motive as negative, either: it's amoral, not evil. Like fire. Where I imagine we part ways is on how much power corporations should exercise within society, relative to individual citizens. I draw straight lines connecting the Citizens United decision giving corporations vastly increased power to buy our politicians, to AT&T actually buying our politicians (consider the headlines today), to the FCC ignoring overwhelming public sentiment and rigging the ISP market in favor of the existing players.
  - s73v3r_ 8y ago
    "If a company behaves badly enough towards its customers it will start losing customers and revenue" Comcast says hi, and thanks for using the same worn-out, disproven trope again.
arthur_pryor 8y ago
> Shareholders are also people. Some shareholders are large and rich. Some are small. Some are pension funds that want their members to receive dividends and returns. right. i didn't say i'm happy that shareholders will lose money. just that i found the trade-off acceptable. presumably most of them will get out of for-profit ISP stocks and not totally lose their shirt over it, should things start going downhill. then others will decline to invest in the first place. if e.g. comcast were to go out of business, then that would suck, because a bunch of people would have to look for other work. i'd hope that competition would just make those sorts of companies into better citizens, and then they could stay in business, and provide a better product at a fairer price. > And maybe I am a pessimist, but I haven't seen that many examples of government run enterprises that can be said to be well-run. i've read many articles on arstechnica where people have extolled the quality of their municipal ISP, and bemoaned the ISP-led legislation that banned their municipal ISP. note that i'm not saying we should outlaw private ISPs. but my strong opinion, based on all the evidence i've read, and my own personal experience, is that national ISPs (comcast, at&t, etc) use their monopoly power to the fullest extent that they can. they have terrible service, they provide a product inferior to what other countries provide municipally for less money, and they do nothing but complain to congress about how they're hurting while bragging to shareholders about how well they're doing. in short, i think they're bad actors, and i'd rather see the thing they provide treated like a public utility, which i firmly believe it is at this point. > I haven't seen that many examples of government run enterprises that can be said to be well-run ARPA-E is a fine example of a current government project that is well run and highly lauded. it would also be good to remember that you wouldn't have the internet were it not for "government run enterprise" (it was ARPAnet before it was "the internet").
- vuln 8y ago
  What about the large percent of the population that is invested in these ISPs without actually knowing they are? There is a large portion of the american public that has zero clue where their pension / retirement fund is being invested. What about all the employees stock that they might have purchased or were awarded as a bonus?
  - 8y ago
shkkmo 8y ago
> I haven't seen that many examples of government run enterprises that can be said to be well-run. And how are we ever able to know whether they are run well when they are tax financed? You also must not have read the article. It clearly discusses EPB, a municipality-owned company that operates profitably and was the first company to offer gigabit speeds in the US. They also have annual financial reports available on their website if you have questions about how well run they are.
- patricius 8y ago
  But aside from being municipality-owned, it looks like it operates like a private company. I would guess, though, that if they become unprofitable, there will be tax dollars there to save them giving them an unfair advantage to private players.

rectang 8y ago

> Shareholders are also people. Shareholders are also miles away from any negative impact that their companies have on the communities in which they operate -- unlike small business owners who interact directly with their customers. Public corporations are thus more inclined to behave solely according to profit motives, making them less like people and more like undomesticated wildlife, indifferent to humanity.

vuln 8y ago
> Shareholders are also miles away from any negative impact that their companies have on the communities in which they operate -- unlike small business owners who interact directly with their customers. If you own 1 share of a company you are a share holder. Employees are also given stock as bonuses and have the ability to buy stock at a lower cost. These are shareholders and I am sure these people are in the local economy. I'd be willing to bet a large portion of the american public is actually invested in these ISPs whether they know it or not (Most people do not know how or what their pension / retirement funds are invested in) and depend on these companies to do well so they can have a nice retirement.
patricius 8y ago
If a company behaves badly enough towards its customers it will start losing customers and revenue, so the incentives are aligned with providing customers - no matter how far removed shareholders are from the communities you mention - a service they want to pay for. Of course, there are cases where certain legislation makes it difficult for competition to arise, in effect giving an existing company monopoly for delivering Internet in a certain way. So I don't exactly disagree with what you are saying, although I don't interpret profits negatively.
- Brockenstein 8y ago
  >If a company behaves badly enough towards its customers it will start losing customers and revenue, so the incentives are aligned with providing customers That makes sense... if the company is small enough where any dip in customers is significant. When you have something like Comcast, serving tens of millions of people you're losing and gaining thousands of customers a day just from people moving. Additionally your service is so large that people in Cincinnati who are having problems with the service doesn't equate with the whole rest of the nation, as the quality of service isn't uniform. And then in cases where Comcast is a virtual monopoly people might want to ditch them, but what choice do they have? And they'd rather have (crummy) internet than no internet. Comcast's customer base is so large that you're never going to organize a significant percentage of them to meaningful action. It's too many people. And on top of all that big ISPs/big cable companies are among the most hated companies in the U.S. and have been for 15-20 years... so when are they going to start losing customers and revenue in a meaningful way to be incentivized to clean up their acts? I mean I understand the formula you're using and the cause an effect you're suggesting. But the reality suggests it's a bit more complicated than that.
- rectang 8y ago
  I don't see the profit motive as negative, either: it's amoral, not evil. Like fire. Where I imagine we part ways is on how much power corporations should exercise within society, relative to individual citizens. I draw straight lines connecting the Citizens United decision giving corporations vastly increased power to buy our politicians, to AT&T actually buying our politicians (consider the headlines today), to the FCC ignoring overwhelming public sentiment and rigging the ISP market in favor of the existing players.
- s73v3r_ 8y ago
  "If a company behaves badly enough towards its customers it will start losing customers and revenue" Comcast says hi, and thanks for using the same worn-out, disproven trope again.

arthur_pryor 8y ago

> Shareholders are also people. Some shareholders are large and rich. Some are small. Some are pension funds that want their members to receive dividends and returns. right. i didn't say i'm happy that shareholders will lose money. just that i found the trade-off acceptable. presumably most of them will get out of for-profit ISP stocks and not totally lose their shirt over it, should things start going downhill. then others will decline to invest in the first place. if e.g. comcast were to go out of business, then that would suck, because a bunch of people would have to look for other work. i'd hope that competition would just make those sorts of companies into better citizens, and then they could stay in business, and provide a better product at a fairer price. > And maybe I am a pessimist, but I haven't seen that many examples of government run enterprises that can be said to be well-run. i've read many articles on arstechnica where people have extolled the quality of their municipal ISP, and bemoaned the ISP-led legislation that banned their municipal ISP. note that i'm not saying we should outlaw private ISPs. but my strong opinion, based on all the evidence i've read, and my own personal experience, is that national ISPs (comcast, at&t, etc) use their monopoly power to the fullest extent that they can. they have terrible service, they provide a product inferior to what other countries provide municipally for less money, and they do nothing but complain to congress about how they're hurting while bragging to shareholders about how well they're doing. in short, i think they're bad actors, and i'd rather see the thing they provide treated like a public utility, which i firmly believe it is at this point. > I haven't seen that many examples of government run enterprises that can be said to be well-run ARPA-E is a fine example of a current government project that is well run and highly lauded. it would also be good to remember that you wouldn't have the internet were it not for "government run enterprise" (it was ARPAnet before it was "the internet").

vuln 8y ago
What about the large percent of the population that is invested in these ISPs without actually knowing they are? There is a large portion of the american public that has zero clue where their pension / retirement fund is being invested. What about all the employees stock that they might have purchased or were awarded as a bonus?
- 8y ago

shkkmo 8y ago

> I haven't seen that many examples of government run enterprises that can be said to be well-run. And how are we ever able to know whether they are run well when they are tax financed? You also must not have read the article. It clearly discusses EPB, a municipality-owned company that operates profitably and was the first company to offer gigabit speeds in the US. They also have annual financial reports available on their website if you have questions about how well run they are.

patricius 8y ago
But aside from being municipality-owned, it looks like it operates like a private company. I would guess, though, that if they become unprofitable, there will be tax dollars there to save them giving them an unfair advantage to private players.