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We've done this once or twice already, with electricity and telephone service, and that followed the same economic pattern. No need to reinvent a process that

We've done this once or twice already, with electricity and telephone service, and that followed the same economic pattern. No need to reinvent a process that worked well the first time around.

rayiner 7y ago
Labor costs have changed dramatically since then. We couldn’t build the New York Subway at today’s prices, for example.
- dv_dt 7y ago
  Decades of productivity of improvements make higher labor costs completely bearable. In fact, one might say that is the fundamental basis of advancing civilization.
  - bcrosby95 7y ago
    Has that really affected labor costs related to broadband rollout? We're still sticking wires up on poles or in the ground - from what I can tell by using the same machinery we have for decades now.
    - dv_dt 7y ago
      Small scale digging & semi-automated specialized trenching equipment makes for smaller crews, smaller capital investment, and less time to dig a given trench. (Did you know that there's a delightfully named machine called a Ditch Witch?) For another, the equipment you need to support a given level of bandwidth has dropped orders of magnitude in cost. For another, endpoint hookups are faster and easier, we know much better how to splice fiber faster and cheaper. etc etc... it takes a real lack of imagination to claim it's the same as when we put in electricity and telephone networks or even early fiber or copper networks.
- spaceribs 7y ago
  but we can afford multi-billionaires and imperialism...
  - rayiner 7y ago
    Fun fact: confiscating the total wealth of all US billionaires (accumulated over a lifetime), would fuel government for less than six months.
    - spaceribs 7y ago
      Also fun: the amount of wealth they wouldn't have been able to accumulate off the back of taxpayer paid infrastructure.
- nutshell89 7y ago
  Public good construction costs have increased for reasons other than high western labor costs. Take for example this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21716312 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21716312 Alon Levy mainly cites the flawed design-build model where design and construction contracts are awarded to the same firm as well as the comparatively high cost of TBM use for deep stations / tunnels versus cut-and-cover construction techniques for simpler, shallow stations.

We've done this once or twice already, with electricity and telephone service, and that followed the same economic pattern. No need to reinvent a process that worked well the first time around.

rayiner 7y ago

Labor costs have changed dramatically since then. We couldn’t build the New York Subway at today’s prices, for example.

dv_dt 7y ago
Decades of productivity of improvements make higher labor costs completely bearable. In fact, one might say that is the fundamental basis of advancing civilization.
- bcrosby95 7y ago
  Has that really affected labor costs related to broadband rollout? We're still sticking wires up on poles or in the ground - from what I can tell by using the same machinery we have for decades now.
  - dv_dt 7y ago
    Small scale digging & semi-automated specialized trenching equipment makes for smaller crews, smaller capital investment, and less time to dig a given trench. (Did you know that there's a delightfully named machine called a Ditch Witch?) For another, the equipment you need to support a given level of bandwidth has dropped orders of magnitude in cost. For another, endpoint hookups are faster and easier, we know much better how to splice fiber faster and cheaper. etc etc... it takes a real lack of imagination to claim it's the same as when we put in electricity and telephone networks or even early fiber or copper networks.
spaceribs 7y ago
but we can afford multi-billionaires and imperialism...
- rayiner 7y ago
  Fun fact: confiscating the total wealth of all US billionaires (accumulated over a lifetime), would fuel government for less than six months.
  - spaceribs 7y ago
    Also fun: the amount of wealth they wouldn't have been able to accumulate off the back of taxpayer paid infrastructure.
nutshell89 7y ago
Public good construction costs have increased for reasons other than high western labor costs. Take for example this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21716312 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21716312 Alon Levy mainly cites the flawed design-build model where design and construction contracts are awarded to the same firm as well as the comparatively high cost of TBM use for deep stations / tunnels versus cut-and-cover construction techniques for simpler, shallow stations.