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No, you're putting words in my mouth, or misunderstanding my point. > you think Comcast should be broken up I think efforts to break up tech monopolies should

No, you're putting words in my mouth, or misunderstanding my point. > you think Comcast should be broken up I think efforts to break up tech monopolies should first be focused on telecommunication companies. > because they lobby for things you don't like, Not just me, but are objectively harmful to 99% of the people they would affect > but FAANG is fine because they lobby for things you do. I'm mostly focusing on Google here, and yes, they at least occasionally lobby for things I like because sometimes their interests and the interests of the public in general happen to align. With Comcast (and other ISPs), you have only one choice, and they spend tons of money and effort making sure you only have that one choice, and continue to have only that one choice. Comcast recently spent nearly $1M to prevent Fort Collins from creating a municipal ISP[1]. That is actively anti-competitive and monopolistic by definition. [1]: https://muninetworks.org/content/totals-are-comcast-spends-900k-fort-collins-election https://muninetworks.org/content/totals-are-comcast-spends-9...

rayiner 8y ago
> With Comcast (and other ISPs), you have only one choice, and they spend tons of money and effort making sure you only have that one choice, and continue to have only that one choice. Comcast recently spent nearly $1M to prevent Fort Collins from creating a municipal ISP[1]. That is actively anti-competitive and monopolistic by definition. I'm sure if the U.S. government was proposing to sell public bonds to build a search engine or ride-sharing service, you'd see a lot of lobbying from Silicon Valley. It's not "actively anti-competitive and monopolistic by definition" to oppose government backed and funded competition in your industry.
- brmgb 8y ago
  Search engine and ride-sharing don't seem to be natural monopolies however. Communication infrastructure in most part of the USA clearly is. Still I agree breaking up Comcast is not the solution. You will just end up with smaller more localized monopolies. That's pretty much what happened with Bell after all. The solution would be either nationalizing the infrastructure and leasing it to operators or forcing existing operators to rent their infrastructure to their competitors for a set price. The later is actually working quite well in France. Short of that you will never get competition. It's simply not profitable.
  - rayiner 8y ago
    It's working terribly in France. France has some of the slowest broadband in the OECD: https://www.akamai.com/fr/fr/multimedia/documents/state-of-the-internet/q1-2017-state-of-the-internet-connectivity-report.pdf https://www.akamai.com/fr/fr/multimedia/documents/state-of-t.... Just 18% of French households have connections faster than 15 mbps, versus 48% of American households.
    - brmgb 8y ago
      That's mostly because France never used copper cable as a TV distribution system and is going straight to fiber. Deployment is admittedly slower than it should be especially in the countryside where it will never be profitable due to low density. Meanwhile, people are stuck with ADSL and VDSL which give connections closer to 10mbps than 15. Cost wise however, you can't even compare the USA and France. In France, a full speed FTTH subscription with no data cap cost 25 euros and you can pay 20 more to get a cell phone plan with unlimited call and unlimited data. If you are ready to switch provider yearly, you can bring that down to 25 euros all included.
      - rayiner 8y ago
        According to the December 2017 OECD data, France and the U.S. are basically tied in terms of fiber deployment (12-13% of total broadband connections): https://www.oecd.org/sti/broadband/1.10-PctFibreToTotalBroadband-2017-12.xls https://www.oecd.org/sti/broadband/1.10-PctFibreToTotalBroad.... Which is pretty remarkable because in the U.S., fiber is a relatively smaller upgrade, because fast cable alternatives are available in almost every fiber market. (Just 1/3 of people who can get FiOS actually subscribe, for example. Google fiber has struggled to break 40% too.) And how quickly is France's number going to grow given that France's second largest ISP recently cancelled its plans to deploy fiber? https://www.reuters.com/article/altice-sfr-france/altice-abandons-effort-to-lay-its-own-fibre-technology-across-france-idUSL8N1OD2O5 https://www.reuters.com/article/altice-sfr-france/altice-aba.... Also note that the French deployment is being heavily subsidized by the government (to the tune of $24 billion). Except for a small amount during the post-2008 economic stimulus, broadband deployment in the U.S. is not subsidized. Whereas the French government is paying a direct subsidy to build fiber in rural areas, in the U.S. rural deployment is financed by a cross subsidy (taxing ISPs in urban areas to subsidize ISPs in rural ones).
- elefanten 8y ago
  It's municipal, so the magnitude of threat you're implying (oooh Government) is a misdirection. GP's point is that consistently lobbying to shut down the existence of any competition, public or private, is monopolistic behavior. And it is, pretty much by definition.
  - rayiner 8y ago
    GP used an example of lobbying against the government entering what had heretofore been a private market. Pushing back on that is not "monopolistic" by any sense of the term. If you have examples of Comcast lobbying to prevent private competition, I'd like to hear them. The biggest impediment to private competition actually comes from the public interest sector, which insists on build-out requirements that make it very difficult to start competing ISPs, on the theory that it's better for nobody to have competing choices than to only have wealthier areas have competing choices.
    - psadauskas 8y ago
      Comcast lobbied heavily everywhere that Google was looking to build our their fiber. Eg, https://consumerist.com/2016/09/20/comcast-att-try-again-to-stall-google-fiber-in-nashville-by-writing-law-to-slow-it-down/ https://consumerist.com/2016/09/20/comcast-att-try-again-to-...
    - elefanten 8y ago
      Monopoly refers to being a sole provider. It is completely by definition monopolistic to take action to prevent a second provider from emerging. Is it possible for them to have other strategic incentives for their action, such as preventing a type of competitor from emerging? Yes. And if you take the perspective that government is a uniquely troublesome competitor, it's understandable to feel extra strong about it. But it's still monopolistic in context. A counterpoint to "competition from the government is uniquely unfair" is "having only one provider is uniquely unfair". One is from the perspective of a profitable $100B corporation, the other is from the perspective of the consumers.
    - ams6110 8y ago
- rexpop 8y ago
  No, it's worse. What's the purpose of monopoly laws? What is their spirit? Consumer benefit, right? If that is better served by municipal utilities, then while it may not violate the word of antitrust, it certainly violates the spirit.
bhl 8y ago
> I'm mostly focusing on Google here, and yes, they at least occasionally lobby for things I like because sometimes their interests and the interests of the public in general happen to align. There’s definitely an argument to be made here that their interests don’t align with the public, and that they should therefore be targeted first — public interests is a subjective phrase.

rayiner 8y ago

> With Comcast (and other ISPs), you have only one choice, and they spend tons of money and effort making sure you only have that one choice, and continue to have only that one choice. Comcast recently spent nearly $1M to prevent Fort Collins from creating a municipal ISP[1]. That is actively anti-competitive and monopolistic by definition. I'm sure if the U.S. government was proposing to sell public bonds to build a search engine or ride-sharing service, you'd see a lot of lobbying from Silicon Valley. It's not "actively anti-competitive and monopolistic by definition" to oppose government backed and funded competition in your industry.

brmgb 8y ago
Search engine and ride-sharing don't seem to be natural monopolies however. Communication infrastructure in most part of the USA clearly is. Still I agree breaking up Comcast is not the solution. You will just end up with smaller more localized monopolies. That's pretty much what happened with Bell after all. The solution would be either nationalizing the infrastructure and leasing it to operators or forcing existing operators to rent their infrastructure to their competitors for a set price. The later is actually working quite well in France. Short of that you will never get competition. It's simply not profitable.
- rayiner 8y ago
  It's working terribly in France. France has some of the slowest broadband in the OECD: https://www.akamai.com/fr/fr/multimedia/documents/state-of-the-internet/q1-2017-state-of-the-internet-connectivity-report.pdf https://www.akamai.com/fr/fr/multimedia/documents/state-of-t.... Just 18% of French households have connections faster than 15 mbps, versus 48% of American households.
  - brmgb 8y ago
    That's mostly because France never used copper cable as a TV distribution system and is going straight to fiber. Deployment is admittedly slower than it should be especially in the countryside where it will never be profitable due to low density. Meanwhile, people are stuck with ADSL and VDSL which give connections closer to 10mbps than 15. Cost wise however, you can't even compare the USA and France. In France, a full speed FTTH subscription with no data cap cost 25 euros and you can pay 20 more to get a cell phone plan with unlimited call and unlimited data. If you are ready to switch provider yearly, you can bring that down to 25 euros all included.
    - rayiner 8y ago
      According to the December 2017 OECD data, France and the U.S. are basically tied in terms of fiber deployment (12-13% of total broadband connections): https://www.oecd.org/sti/broadband/1.10-PctFibreToTotalBroadband-2017-12.xls https://www.oecd.org/sti/broadband/1.10-PctFibreToTotalBroad.... Which is pretty remarkable because in the U.S., fiber is a relatively smaller upgrade, because fast cable alternatives are available in almost every fiber market. (Just 1/3 of people who can get FiOS actually subscribe, for example. Google fiber has struggled to break 40% too.) And how quickly is France's number going to grow given that France's second largest ISP recently cancelled its plans to deploy fiber? https://www.reuters.com/article/altice-sfr-france/altice-abandons-effort-to-lay-its-own-fibre-technology-across-france-idUSL8N1OD2O5 https://www.reuters.com/article/altice-sfr-france/altice-aba.... Also note that the French deployment is being heavily subsidized by the government (to the tune of $24 billion). Except for a small amount during the post-2008 economic stimulus, broadband deployment in the U.S. is not subsidized. Whereas the French government is paying a direct subsidy to build fiber in rural areas, in the U.S. rural deployment is financed by a cross subsidy (taxing ISPs in urban areas to subsidize ISPs in rural ones).
elefanten 8y ago
It's municipal, so the magnitude of threat you're implying (oooh Government) is a misdirection. GP's point is that consistently lobbying to shut down the existence of any competition, public or private, is monopolistic behavior. And it is, pretty much by definition.
- rayiner 8y ago
  GP used an example of lobbying against the government entering what had heretofore been a private market. Pushing back on that is not "monopolistic" by any sense of the term. If you have examples of Comcast lobbying to prevent private competition, I'd like to hear them. The biggest impediment to private competition actually comes from the public interest sector, which insists on build-out requirements that make it very difficult to start competing ISPs, on the theory that it's better for nobody to have competing choices than to only have wealthier areas have competing choices.
  - psadauskas 8y ago
    Comcast lobbied heavily everywhere that Google was looking to build our their fiber. Eg, https://consumerist.com/2016/09/20/comcast-att-try-again-to-stall-google-fiber-in-nashville-by-writing-law-to-slow-it-down/ https://consumerist.com/2016/09/20/comcast-att-try-again-to-...
  - elefanten 8y ago
    Monopoly refers to being a sole provider. It is completely by definition monopolistic to take action to prevent a second provider from emerging. Is it possible for them to have other strategic incentives for their action, such as preventing a type of competitor from emerging? Yes. And if you take the perspective that government is a uniquely troublesome competitor, it's understandable to feel extra strong about it. But it's still monopolistic in context. A counterpoint to "competition from the government is uniquely unfair" is "having only one provider is uniquely unfair". One is from the perspective of a profitable $100B corporation, the other is from the perspective of the consumers.
  - ams6110 8y ago
rexpop 8y ago
No, it's worse. What's the purpose of monopoly laws? What is their spirit? Consumer benefit, right? If that is better served by municipal utilities, then while it may not violate the word of antitrust, it certainly violates the spirit.

bhl 8y ago

> I'm mostly focusing on Google here, and yes, they at least occasionally lobby for things I like because sometimes their interests and the interests of the public in general happen to align. There’s definitely an argument to be made here that their interests don’t align with the public, and that they should therefore be targeted first — public interests is a subjective phrase.