5 ms·

> what happens if your service is cut in error. Do you trust ATT to have a fair, easy appeals process? This is where many of the arguments against government r

by eiaoa 8y ago

> what happens if your service is cut in error. Do you trust ATT to have a fair, easy appeals process? This is where many of the arguments against government regulation break down. If you take government out of the picture, you're still left dealing with massive institutions and bureaucratic regulations. The main difference is that those institutions are even less accountable to the average person than the government, and they have obvious interests in tilting every table to advantage themselves. Dealing with a corporate bureaucracy is dealing with a regulatory body that's been totally captured by that corporation.

sbov 8y ago
But if AT&T unfairly cuts you off from the internet, you could just go to a competitor!
- msbarnett 8y ago
  > But if AT&T unfairly cuts you off from the internet, you could just go to a competitor! If we pretend geographic monopolies don't exist, maybe
- gbear605 8y ago
  Not in many areas
- jrnichols 8y ago
  I detect the sarcasm there. and you're right! you can totally bail and go to the competition... like HughesNet. They're just the same, right? (also more sarcasm)
mdpopescu 8y ago
Yep. We need government, because without government nobody would save us from the abuses of copyright law, enforced by the government! And let's not forget, there is no competition - because the ISP has a legal monopoly, also enforced by the government. Yep, government regulation sounds great. /s
- pavel_lishin 8y ago
  This story is very specifically about a corporation enforcing those laws.
- eiaoa 8y ago
  > Yep. We need government, because without government nobody would save us from the abuses of copyright law, enforced by the government! That's an entirely different issue from what I was commenting on. > And let's not forget, there is no competition - because the ISP has a legal monopoly, also enforced by the government. You're forgetting that ISPs are natural monopolies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_monopoly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_monopoly: >> "A natural monopoly is a monopoly in an industry in which high infrastructural costs and other barriers to entry relative to the size of the market give the largest supplier in an industry, often the first supplier in a market, an overwhelming advantage over potential competitors. This frequently occurs in industries where capital costs predominate, creating economies of scale that are large in relation to the size of the market; examples include public utilities such as water services and electricity.[1] Natural monopolies were discussed as a potential source of market failure by John Stuart Mill, who advocated government regulation to make them serve the public good." > Yep, government regulation sounds great. /s You're right, it does sound great; especially when you remove the blinders of misunderstanding. Admittedly, it's not entirely without it's own problems, but those problems are best solved without re-introducing the problems that regulation successfully mitigates.
- ctoth 8y ago
  Please do educate me as to how the government enforces a geographic monopoly.
  - zzzcpan 8y ago
    Despite popular belief, ISPs are not geographical monopolies at all. When they are monopolies, they are purely artificially formed ones, like in the US.
AnthonyMouse 8y ago
> This is where many of the arguments against government regulation break down. If you take government out of the picture, you're still left dealing with massive institutions and bureaucratic regulations. This is only true of uncompetitive markets. If Target refused to sell you clothes because someone made a false copyright infringement claim against you, you would laugh in their face and go shop at any of a thousand other stores. And for exactly that reason they don't even attempt to do things like that. Moreover, in many cases the regulations are what make markets uncompetitive. Providing internet service to urban areas is highly lucrative and has relatively low costs -- if you could pull $40/month from each of a hundred people just for wiring a single high rise, companies would be lining up left and right to do that. But you aren't allowed to do that without also providing service to an area covering hundreds of square miles, including random farmhouses that are ten miles apart from one another. A competent government would instead solve that problem through direct subsidies to providers who expand into rural areas (or leave it to the market to figure out how to connect sparse farmhouses with some kind of medium-speed directional wireless or similar), and then there would be more competition. But we haven't got that. Moreover, even when there are actual natural monopolies (like roads or rural internet) that can justify government involvement, what works best in those cases is often for the government to just provide the thing directly rather than trying to regulate some independent private entity with a 96% chance of capturing the regulators.
- clairity 8y ago
  > "This is only true of uncompetitive markets. If Target refused to sell you clothes because someone made a false copyright infringement claim against you, you would laugh in their face and go shop at any of a thousand other stores. And for exactly that reason they don't even attempt to do things like that." what you say would be true of (increasingly rare) mom-and-pop shops, but the relationship you use is highly asymmetric and favorable to the large bureaucratic organization, no matter the competitive dynamics of the market. target would be the one laughing in your face, not the customer. the false dichotomy of preferring one bureaucracy over another because one is private and the other public is silly (in case it's unclear, you should prefer neither). the rest of what you said is reasonable however. direct provision, direct subsidies, or removal of regulatory barriers in rural access would be better than the convoluted compromise we have now.

by eiaoa 8y ago

sbov 8y ago

But if AT&T unfairly cuts you off from the internet, you could just go to a competitor!

msbarnett 8y ago
> But if AT&T unfairly cuts you off from the internet, you could just go to a competitor! If we pretend geographic monopolies don't exist, maybe
gbear605 8y ago
Not in many areas
jrnichols 8y ago
I detect the sarcasm there. and you're right! you can totally bail and go to the competition... like HughesNet. They're just the same, right? (also more sarcasm)

mdpopescu 8y ago

Yep. We need government, because without government nobody would save us from the abuses of copyright law, enforced by the government! And let's not forget, there is no competition - because the ISP has a legal monopoly, also enforced by the government. Yep, government regulation sounds great. /s

pavel_lishin 8y ago
This story is very specifically about a corporation enforcing those laws.
eiaoa 8y ago
> Yep. We need government, because without government nobody would save us from the abuses of copyright law, enforced by the government! That's an entirely different issue from what I was commenting on. > And let's not forget, there is no competition - because the ISP has a legal monopoly, also enforced by the government. You're forgetting that ISPs are natural monopolies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_monopoly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_monopoly: >> "A natural monopoly is a monopoly in an industry in which high infrastructural costs and other barriers to entry relative to the size of the market give the largest supplier in an industry, often the first supplier in a market, an overwhelming advantage over potential competitors. This frequently occurs in industries where capital costs predominate, creating economies of scale that are large in relation to the size of the market; examples include public utilities such as water services and electricity.[1] Natural monopolies were discussed as a potential source of market failure by John Stuart Mill, who advocated government regulation to make them serve the public good." > Yep, government regulation sounds great. /s You're right, it does sound great; especially when you remove the blinders of misunderstanding. Admittedly, it's not entirely without it's own problems, but those problems are best solved without re-introducing the problems that regulation successfully mitigates.
ctoth 8y ago
Please do educate me as to how the government enforces a geographic monopoly.
- zzzcpan 8y ago
  Despite popular belief, ISPs are not geographical monopolies at all. When they are monopolies, they are purely artificially formed ones, like in the US.

AnthonyMouse 8y ago

> This is where many of the arguments against government regulation break down. If you take government out of the picture, you're still left dealing with massive institutions and bureaucratic regulations. This is only true of uncompetitive markets. If Target refused to sell you clothes because someone made a false copyright infringement claim against you, you would laugh in their face and go shop at any of a thousand other stores. And for exactly that reason they don't even attempt to do things like that. Moreover, in many cases the regulations are what make markets uncompetitive. Providing internet service to urban areas is highly lucrative and has relatively low costs -- if you could pull $40/month from each of a hundred people just for wiring a single high rise, companies would be lining up left and right to do that. But you aren't allowed to do that without also providing service to an area covering hundreds of square miles, including random farmhouses that are ten miles apart from one another. A competent government would instead solve that problem through direct subsidies to providers who expand into rural areas (or leave it to the market to figure out how to connect sparse farmhouses with some kind of medium-speed directional wireless or similar), and then there would be more competition. But we haven't got that. Moreover, even when there are actual natural monopolies (like roads or rural internet) that can justify government involvement, what works best in those cases is often for the government to just provide the thing directly rather than trying to regulate some independent private entity with a 96% chance of capturing the regulators.

clairity 8y ago
> "This is only true of uncompetitive markets. If Target refused to sell you clothes because someone made a false copyright infringement claim against you, you would laugh in their face and go shop at any of a thousand other stores. And for exactly that reason they don't even attempt to do things like that." what you say would be true of (increasingly rare) mom-and-pop shops, but the relationship you use is highly asymmetric and favorable to the large bureaucratic organization, no matter the competitive dynamics of the market. target would be the one laughing in your face, not the customer. the false dichotomy of preferring one bureaucracy over another because one is private and the other public is silly (in case it's unclear, you should prefer neither). the rest of what you said is reasonable however. direct provision, direct subsidies, or removal of regulatory barriers in rural access would be better than the convoluted compromise we have now.