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One is contracted by the US government to provide public infrastructure (and AFAIK still hasn't fulfilled their end of the agreement), and the other is an entit

by ellard 8y ago

One is contracted by the US government to provide public infrastructure (and AFAIK still hasn't fulfilled their end of the agreement), and the other is an entity that operated and grew organically to provide a service that the government didn't ask for.

gpm 8y ago
Is google fiber (which, afaik, was not contracted by the government) private infrastructure in your model then? (Both yes and no are certainly valid answers, I'm just curious about how you view this)
- ellard 8y ago
  I don't know what Google's contracts and agreements are with local municipality, so the short version of my answer is that I don't know how i'd classify Google Fiber myself. For a more general point of view, i'd take into account a lot of factors such as: - who "owns" the service, both from an "on paper" POV and who builds and maintains it - what does the contracts between the entity and the government say - did the government pay for a service to be built by the entity, vs the entity asked for permission to build the service, vs the entity built the service using non-government-permission-required resources - what was the spirit of the relationship between the entity and the government - who will be using the service - is the service a government-allowed monopoly - etc. Facebook does pass some of those tests (eg. the "public at large" is the target userbase for it), but fail a lot of the other tests at least in how they operate in the United States. Comcast's general laying out of wire + offering services over that wire passes a lot more of those tests and puts the service into public infrastructure in most folks' eyes. edit: formatting
Chris_Chambers 8y ago
It doesn’t matter if it grew organically. All large social media companies should be nationalized and required to prioritize the first amendment above everything else. This nationalization should be done on principle alone as a precaution, not as a punishment. The prior owners can be happily compensated with billions from US taxpayers. Anyone should be happy to receive such an amount if it means they get to retire early, and anyone upset about it clearly had a sinister agenda to hide. Something like this will happen before 2024. I’m glad no one will see my unreadably gray comment, I’d hate to ruin the surprise.

by ellard 8y ago

gpm 8y ago

Is google fiber (which, afaik, was not contracted by the government) private infrastructure in your model then? (Both yes and no are certainly valid answers, I'm just curious about how you view this)

ellard 8y ago
I don't know what Google's contracts and agreements are with local municipality, so the short version of my answer is that I don't know how i'd classify Google Fiber myself. For a more general point of view, i'd take into account a lot of factors such as: - who "owns" the service, both from an "on paper" POV and who builds and maintains it - what does the contracts between the entity and the government say - did the government pay for a service to be built by the entity, vs the entity asked for permission to build the service, vs the entity built the service using non-government-permission-required resources - what was the spirit of the relationship between the entity and the government - who will be using the service - is the service a government-allowed monopoly - etc. Facebook does pass some of those tests (eg. the "public at large" is the target userbase for it), but fail a lot of the other tests at least in how they operate in the United States. Comcast's general laying out of wire + offering services over that wire passes a lot more of those tests and puts the service into public infrastructure in most folks' eyes. edit: formatting

Chris_Chambers 8y ago

It doesn’t matter if it grew organically. All large social media companies should be nationalized and required to prioritize the first amendment above everything else. This nationalization should be done on principle alone as a precaution, not as a punishment. The prior owners can be happily compensated with billions from US taxpayers. Anyone should be happy to receive such an amount if it means they get to retire early, and anyone upset about it clearly had a sinister agenda to hide. Something like this will happen before 2024. I’m glad no one will see my unreadably gray comment, I’d hate to ruin the surprise.