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That’s how I wound up reverting to DSL service for a year. The invisible hand can’t grasp monopolies.

by DataWorker 7y ago

tehwebguy 7y ago
Yeah, this is not doable in most US cities I’d guess.
- jopsen 7y ago
  The sales people will often give you discounts if you ask, or pretend that you might cancel :)
pitaj 7y ago
Don't blame "the invisible hand" (the market) for those monopolies. Utilities like water, gas, and electricity are monopolized by the state: torn away from the market's invisible hand. Internet providers use government regulations, not available market forces, to keep out competitors.
- DataWorker 7y ago
  What’s free mean when talking about markets exactly? Free from what?
  - cameronbrown 7y ago
    Regulatory capture I'd guess.
  - pitaj 7y ago
    An ideal free market is one is which no coercion occurs, including state coercion like regulations and taxes, and private coercion like theft and fraud. Colloquially, a free market refers to one in which a minimal amount of government intervention occurs. The less state intervention, the more free the market.
    - NeedMoreTea 7y ago
      No, that just gives rise to corrupt capitalism. Like expecting law and order without police and courts. Without regulation and strong intervention against problematic companies cartels, profiteering, monopoly and all the other problems of unconstrained capitalism tend to result. Standards will fall, prices will rise, deals will be done on golf courses and in (formerly) smoke filled bars against the interests of the customers. The best markets are ones that have a clear market, and are kept free and ethical by strong and appropriate oversight (government). Needless to say there are many markets that are not appropriate uses of the market, and oversight does not work too well with a revolving door between commerce and regulator, smoothed by filthy lucre.
    - tomp 7y ago
      There’s a number of problems that can occur in markets without any coertion - e.g. principal - agent problem, or asymmetric information - that make a market less efficient and thus worse for paricipants. The job of the government is to work to prevent those, even with coertion if necessary (e.g. fiduciary laws, food standards, ...). There’s a tradeoff between too few laws (reducing market participants’ confidence in the goods/services they buy) and too many laws (increasing barriers to entry and causing monopolies).
    - perl4ever 7y ago
      I think it's bad to define a word for a situation in terms of what you think it takes to get there. Because that encodes your prejudices where it's not necessary. Whenever you define freedom as "what you get when you do X" you have set yourself up for Orwellian denial of reality. I think a good way to define freedom is "the condition of having a reasonably large number of good choices". The better and more diverse the choices, the more freedom.
- Faark 7y ago
  > Internet providers use government regulations, not available market forces, to keep out competitors. High initial investment cost have totally no role to play at that. Or landlords allowing only a single ISP [0]... that's just part of the market... you can always move, after all. But no, dysfunctional markets must be because of government regulation, since markets are so great that there are no other form of market failures. Sorry, but equating regulatory capture with "government regulations" kind of triggers me. Companies obviously will use everything possible to their advantage. Including dysfunctional governments. At that point, fixing your gov might be the more important issue... [0] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/06/fcc-siding-landlords-and-comcast-over-tenants-who-want-broadband-choices https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/06/fcc-siding-landlords-a...
  - pitaj 7y ago
    High initial investment costs (for laying fiber etc) won't stop someone like Google. What stopped Google fiber was regulatory barriers set up by municipalities to help their local ISP cronies. > Sorry, but equating regulatory capture with "government regulations" kind of triggers me. Regulatory capture is composed of government regulations. > fixing your gov might be the more important issue Exactly
    - scarface74 7y ago
      Well, Google isn’t blameless here. Google was also either hubristic or incompetent and thought just because they were full of smart people, could “fix” anything. Google Fiber and “shallow trenching”. https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/02/google-fiber-exits-louisville-after-shoddy-installs-left-exposed-wires-in-roads/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/02/googl... It’s also not exactly unlike Google to abandon projects for the new ooh shiny.
      - tehwebguy 7y ago
        Yeah, it stretches the imagination to no end to think Google couldn’t make something work due to regulations.
- wycy 7y ago
  Regulatory capture is a market force.
  - pitaj 7y ago
    No it is not. Regulatory capture is created with the influence of market actors, but cannot exist without state (non-market) policies and enforcement.
- NeedMoreTea 7y ago
  Oh so wrong. Just about all those places who privatised state utilities and brought in the market are, in varying degree, regretting it. Take Thames water, busy playing with offshore finance plays, massively increasing profit and exec pay whilst reducing on all performance measures. Worst nationally for leaks, rate of fixing leaks, managing supply, it goes on.
  - pitaj 7y ago
    "Privatizing" state utilities is not equivalent to bringing in the market. Usually privatization just means converting the government-managed monopoly to a heavily regulated, privately managed, government-sanctioned monopoly. There's no market there.
    - NeedMoreTea 7y ago
      There is a market across much of Europe, a proper, functioning mature but rent-seeking market - as is to be expected from a utility. I can get my electricity from any of the companies in the UK, same for gas, without any restriction. I can choose on price or service, regardless of where I live. Yet service standards have declined, prices have risen far in excess of inflation, and buffer overhead of generation, production and storage has declined. The national grid is more fragile than it was as a result. That's despite efforts of the grid to modernise, and provide a smart grid for renewables. It's required additional regulation to bring back a little headroom on the grid, and inadequate regulation to prevent extreme profit-seeking. The projected plans for additional pumped storage and hydro and tidal schemes have been shelved. For decades. Electric has indulged in the same banking roulette with currency plays seeking profit in preference to producing electricity. So what part of the market is missing? None. What advantages has the market brought? For execs and shareholders, free money! For customers and the climate? More costs, poorer service. The biggest winners? The US corporations and hedge funds who fell like vultures on the privatised companies. Oh, and the French state - their power is still significantly state owned, I think 51%. They've been able to save their tax payers money by joining in the profiteering from UK generation - one of the big 6 UK suppliers is EDF: Électricité de France.
- chongli 7y ago
  Utilities are natural monopolies. It's not feasible for every company in the marketplace to build their own water, gas, or electricity distribution network.
  - pitaj 7y ago
    There is no evidence of natural monopolies ever actually arising naturally as you're describing. In every instance, government either acted pre-emptively and established a monopoly itself or the monopoly was a result of other government regulations and policies (for instance, patents and copyright).
    - scarface74 7y ago
      Do you really want 10 different companies installing power lines, electrical wiring, etc? Also, without a government granted monopoly, private corporations would only compete in the most affluent areas. They wouldn’t offer services at an affordable rate if at all to less dense areas.
      - tehwebguy 7y ago
        Exactly, there may be some play when it comes to internet but that argument does not apply to water, power. It’s a highly disingenuous argument to say that we’d be better off with a fully private water market.
      - pitaj 7y ago
        > Do you really want 10 different companies installing power lines, electrical wiring, etc? Yeah, that sounds amazing. Do you think there should be zero alternative firms? > Also, without a government granted monopoly, private corporations would only compete in the most affluent areas. That's a ridiculous assertion and doesn't apply to any other good. There may be more options for the affluent, but that's not the same thing. > They wouldn’t offer services at an affordable rate if at all to less dense areas. And why should they? People should be living efficiently in cities anyways where they're more productive and have less carbon footprint.

That’s how I wound up reverting to DSL service for a year. The invisible hand can’t grasp monopolies.

tehwebguy 7y ago

Yeah, this is not doable in most US cities I’d guess.

jopsen 7y ago
The sales people will often give you discounts if you ask, or pretend that you might cancel :)

pitaj 7y ago

Don't blame "the invisible hand" (the market) for those monopolies. Utilities like water, gas, and electricity are monopolized by the state: torn away from the market's invisible hand. Internet providers use government regulations, not available market forces, to keep out competitors.

DataWorker 7y ago
What’s free mean when talking about markets exactly? Free from what?
- cameronbrown 7y ago
  Regulatory capture I'd guess.
- pitaj 7y ago
  An ideal free market is one is which no coercion occurs, including state coercion like regulations and taxes, and private coercion like theft and fraud. Colloquially, a free market refers to one in which a minimal amount of government intervention occurs. The less state intervention, the more free the market.
  - NeedMoreTea 7y ago
    No, that just gives rise to corrupt capitalism. Like expecting law and order without police and courts. Without regulation and strong intervention against problematic companies cartels, profiteering, monopoly and all the other problems of unconstrained capitalism tend to result. Standards will fall, prices will rise, deals will be done on golf courses and in (formerly) smoke filled bars against the interests of the customers. The best markets are ones that have a clear market, and are kept free and ethical by strong and appropriate oversight (government). Needless to say there are many markets that are not appropriate uses of the market, and oversight does not work too well with a revolving door between commerce and regulator, smoothed by filthy lucre.
  - tomp 7y ago
    There’s a number of problems that can occur in markets without any coertion - e.g. principal - agent problem, or asymmetric information - that make a market less efficient and thus worse for paricipants. The job of the government is to work to prevent those, even with coertion if necessary (e.g. fiduciary laws, food standards, ...). There’s a tradeoff between too few laws (reducing market participants’ confidence in the goods/services they buy) and too many laws (increasing barriers to entry and causing monopolies).
  - perl4ever 7y ago
    I think it's bad to define a word for a situation in terms of what you think it takes to get there. Because that encodes your prejudices where it's not necessary. Whenever you define freedom as "what you get when you do X" you have set yourself up for Orwellian denial of reality. I think a good way to define freedom is "the condition of having a reasonably large number of good choices". The better and more diverse the choices, the more freedom.
Faark 7y ago
> Internet providers use government regulations, not available market forces, to keep out competitors. High initial investment cost have totally no role to play at that. Or landlords allowing only a single ISP [0]... that's just part of the market... you can always move, after all. But no, dysfunctional markets must be because of government regulation, since markets are so great that there are no other form of market failures. Sorry, but equating regulatory capture with "government regulations" kind of triggers me. Companies obviously will use everything possible to their advantage. Including dysfunctional governments. At that point, fixing your gov might be the more important issue... [0] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/06/fcc-siding-landlords-and-comcast-over-tenants-who-want-broadband-choices https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/06/fcc-siding-landlords-a...
- pitaj 7y ago
  High initial investment costs (for laying fiber etc) won't stop someone like Google. What stopped Google fiber was regulatory barriers set up by municipalities to help their local ISP cronies. > Sorry, but equating regulatory capture with "government regulations" kind of triggers me. Regulatory capture is composed of government regulations. > fixing your gov might be the more important issue Exactly
  - scarface74 7y ago
    Well, Google isn’t blameless here. Google was also either hubristic or incompetent and thought just because they were full of smart people, could “fix” anything. Google Fiber and “shallow trenching”. https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/02/google-fiber-exits-louisville-after-shoddy-installs-left-exposed-wires-in-roads/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/02/googl... It’s also not exactly unlike Google to abandon projects for the new ooh shiny.
    - tehwebguy 7y ago
      Yeah, it stretches the imagination to no end to think Google couldn’t make something work due to regulations.
wycy 7y ago
Regulatory capture is a market force.
- pitaj 7y ago
  No it is not. Regulatory capture is created with the influence of market actors, but cannot exist without state (non-market) policies and enforcement.
NeedMoreTea 7y ago
Oh so wrong. Just about all those places who privatised state utilities and brought in the market are, in varying degree, regretting it. Take Thames water, busy playing with offshore finance plays, massively increasing profit and exec pay whilst reducing on all performance measures. Worst nationally for leaks, rate of fixing leaks, managing supply, it goes on.
- pitaj 7y ago
  "Privatizing" state utilities is not equivalent to bringing in the market. Usually privatization just means converting the government-managed monopoly to a heavily regulated, privately managed, government-sanctioned monopoly. There's no market there.
  - NeedMoreTea 7y ago
    There is a market across much of Europe, a proper, functioning mature but rent-seeking market - as is to be expected from a utility. I can get my electricity from any of the companies in the UK, same for gas, without any restriction. I can choose on price or service, regardless of where I live. Yet service standards have declined, prices have risen far in excess of inflation, and buffer overhead of generation, production and storage has declined. The national grid is more fragile than it was as a result. That's despite efforts of the grid to modernise, and provide a smart grid for renewables. It's required additional regulation to bring back a little headroom on the grid, and inadequate regulation to prevent extreme profit-seeking. The projected plans for additional pumped storage and hydro and tidal schemes have been shelved. For decades. Electric has indulged in the same banking roulette with currency plays seeking profit in preference to producing electricity. So what part of the market is missing? None. What advantages has the market brought? For execs and shareholders, free money! For customers and the climate? More costs, poorer service. The biggest winners? The US corporations and hedge funds who fell like vultures on the privatised companies. Oh, and the French state - their power is still significantly state owned, I think 51%. They've been able to save their tax payers money by joining in the profiteering from UK generation - one of the big 6 UK suppliers is EDF: Électricité de France.
chongli 7y ago
Utilities are natural monopolies. It's not feasible for every company in the marketplace to build their own water, gas, or electricity distribution network.
- pitaj 7y ago
  There is no evidence of natural monopolies ever actually arising naturally as you're describing. In every instance, government either acted pre-emptively and established a monopoly itself or the monopoly was a result of other government regulations and policies (for instance, patents and copyright).
  - scarface74 7y ago
    Do you really want 10 different companies installing power lines, electrical wiring, etc? Also, without a government granted monopoly, private corporations would only compete in the most affluent areas. They wouldn’t offer services at an affordable rate if at all to less dense areas.
    - tehwebguy 7y ago
      Exactly, there may be some play when it comes to internet but that argument does not apply to water, power. It’s a highly disingenuous argument to say that we’d be better off with a fully private water market.
    - pitaj 7y ago
      > Do you really want 10 different companies installing power lines, electrical wiring, etc? Yeah, that sounds amazing. Do you think there should be zero alternative firms? > Also, without a government granted monopoly, private corporations would only compete in the most affluent areas. That's a ridiculous assertion and doesn't apply to any other good. There may be more options for the affluent, but that's not the same thing. > They wouldn’t offer services at an affordable rate if at all to less dense areas. And why should they? People should be living efficiently in cities anyways where they're more productive and have less carbon footprint.