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> If they're good, then great, if they're bad then too bad -- no other choice. If they're bad elect folks to government for whom fixing the ISP is a high prior

> If they're good, then great, if they're bad then too bad -- no other choice. If they're bad elect folks to government for whom fixing the ISP is a high priority... > Same as dealing with Comcast. Not exactly. If you're not happy with your municipal ISP you have some recourse to get people in there who align with your ideals. Yeah it's not an overnight solution, but it's an option you don't have as a single customer being serviced by a nationwide ISP like Comcast.

jaredklewis 8y ago
> If they're bad elect folks to government for whom fixing the ISP is a high priority... That hasn't been my experience with American democracy. For one thing, outside of Maine, the US uses first past the poll style elections which invariably lead to elections with only 2 viable candidates. That means the issue of ISP management will be wrapped up with all kinds of other things. For example, let's say I have an opinion on intervention in Syria and the one of the two available parties supports that view. Well, that's great, unless of course I have an opinion on anything else. Excepting that there just so happens to be a candidate that perfectly represents my views on Syria, free trade, the environment, abortion, education, infrastructure investment, military spending, the debt, and everything else, then I will be making compromises. Same at the local level. I will have to weigh any candidates ideas on reforming a badly performing municipal ISP against their ideas on recycling, NIMBY/YIMBYism, and so on. And the above situation is actually the good case. The bad (and much more likely case) case is that both parties, realizing that promising improved performance for a municipal ISP is a difficult endeavor, will not campaign on the issue at all. Instead both parties will focus on easy partisan issues, which are more likely to draw in voters than a nuanced governance issue.

jaredklewis 8y ago

> If they're bad elect folks to government for whom fixing the ISP is a high priority... That hasn't been my experience with American democracy. For one thing, outside of Maine, the US uses first past the poll style elections which invariably lead to elections with only 2 viable candidates. That means the issue of ISP management will be wrapped up with all kinds of other things. For example, let's say I have an opinion on intervention in Syria and the one of the two available parties supports that view. Well, that's great, unless of course I have an opinion on anything else. Excepting that there just so happens to be a candidate that perfectly represents my views on Syria, free trade, the environment, abortion, education, infrastructure investment, military spending, the debt, and everything else, then I will be making compromises. Same at the local level. I will have to weigh any candidates ideas on reforming a badly performing municipal ISP against their ideas on recycling, NIMBY/YIMBYism, and so on. And the above situation is actually the good case. The bad (and much more likely case) case is that both parties, realizing that promising improved performance for a municipal ISP is a difficult endeavor, will not campaign on the issue at all. Instead both parties will focus on easy partisan issues, which are more likely to draw in voters than a nuanced governance issue.