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Requesting federal funding for interstate highways is really an admission of failure. It is an admission that the transportation infrastructure concept cannot
by jedbrown 6y ago
Requesting federal funding for interstate highways is really an admission of failure.
It is an admission that the transportation infrastructure concept cannot survive on its own merit in the marketplace.
- jqpabc123 6y agoYes, absolutely correct. If the marketplace controlled the interstate highway system, every on and off ramp would have a toll booth --- not to mention that the roadways would likely receive minimum upkeep. Some things are simply unworkable under the "free market" and transportation is one of these --- but software is not.
- jedbrown 6y agoClearly there are toll roads and many other forms of commercially viable "free market" transportation, so your argument is that some forms of transportation demand public funding. The same applies to software: like cheap and versatile transportation, libraries and infrastructure are force multipliers for commercially-viable and public-interest products. Despite such software being heavily used in industry, there's a lot that is funded from a combination of public sources (e.g., a side-effect of federally-funded basic research by groups with deeply-held open source convictions) and volunteer effort. This could be improved by direct public funding or by tax incentives for companies that contribute to independently-governed open source projects. Either way, it takes legislators recognizing that open source infrastructure has sufficient value to create policy that helps sustain it.