7 ms·

Don't do that. Do almost anything other than that. If you make them public utilities, they'll get even worse, become more politically tangled, become even more

• goatinaboat 6y ago
  If you make them public utilities, they'll get even worse, become more politically tangled, become even more entrenched, impossible to remove and impossible to compete with. You'll put the government directly into the business of preventing competition against them via intense regulation and government-lobby protection. I think your fears are overblown, when was the last time the power company, the phone company, the sewer company, the train operator, the postal service decided on a whim to un-person someone? Sure those organisations aren't perfect by a long shot but by and large they are trustworthy and accountable.
  • doctor_eval 6y ago
    Yeah but it's a short step from that to being forced to exclusively use the state-mandated email provider in order to be able to communicate with the government or big businesses... at a cost.
• perryizgr8 6y ago
  > impossible to compete with. That's already true. Look at how Google is banning accounts without recourse. Or how Twitter and Facebook are censoring personal and public discourse to push their political agenda. Why are they able to do so? Because it is already impossible to compete with them. I second the idea of declaring them as public utilities.