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No one is forcing you to use an electrical company. You could always power your house with a bicycle generator. Therefore, electrical companies shouldn't be reg

No one is forcing you to use an electrical company. You could always power your house with a bicycle generator. Therefore, electrical companies shouldn't be regulated as public utilities.

judge2020 5y ago
Creating your own power plant, lugging gallons of oil for power generation, or hiring someone to 24/7 power you home via bicycle all cost a few orders of magnitude more than paying the utility company for service, and creating a competing utility company wouldn't make sense competitively in any way, so naturally there's a monopoly. For search engines, it's both easy to switch to a different one as a consumer and it's easy for someone new to come in and create a profitable competitor (see bing, ddg).
- inetknght 5y ago
  > so naturally there's a monopoly. And, just as naturally, the government actually owns a lot of the distribution network. The producers provide into the distribution network, the customers receive from the distribution network, and the government regulates fair (by some definition thereof) access.
- ascar 5y ago
  > creating a competing utility company wouldn't make sense competitively in any way, so naturally there's a monopoly So how come there are countries without a natural monopoly and with competing utility providers? Also running your own generator with oil isn't a few orders of magnitude (i.e. at least 100x) more expensive. I wouldn't be surprised if it's not even one order of magnitude more expensive, but maybe just twice as expensive. I also don't think GP's simile is good, but some of your arguments against it are just blatantly false.
  - judge2020 5y ago
    > So how come there are countries without a natural monopoly and with competing utility providers? Local governments own most U.S. utility lines and pipes, so a competing for-profit utility would have to go against the not-for-profit public service, leaving low to no room for profit and no reason to even compete. Fiber/cable/dsl lines are one of the few U.S. utilities with competition because the performance/reliability/features of the service can vary greatly and because almost no local governments ran their own ISP before private companies came in and ran their lines. I can bet that any area with a municipal ISP has a very low chance of seeing xfinity/att run their own fiber if they're not already servicing the area.
Manuel_D 5y ago
Yes, you have to use the municipal electricity. You cannot lay your own power lines, it's illegal. And in most urban areas, you can't run your own generator for emissions restrictions. You also can't power your home with a bicycle. Even champion bicyclists output 50-100 watts. Using Bing, DuckDuckGo, or other Google alternatives are incomparably easier than not using utilities like electricity and plumbing. I struggle to see how one can honestly make this comparison.
- andyana 5y ago
  You might want to rethink your bike claim; it is certainly possible.
  - ben_w 5y ago
    Only as a technicality. Domestic electrical power use varies worldwide from “none” to “tens of kilowatts”. This, for example, is what it takes to run a UK household on bicycle electricity: https://youtu.be/C93cL_zDVIM https://youtu.be/C93cL_zDVIM
    - andyana 5y ago
      No, not even as a technicality. It is possible, full stop.
- smaudet 5y ago
  Such a tiny, piddling outlook on the world. You can do everything with water with rain-barrels and buckets. As others have said, you can do power with candles, bike generators, and wood fire. Is that a realistic solution in a modern society? Hell no. I struggle to see how anyone honestly can lie to themselves that it is somehow absurd to label something a "utility" just because the technology has advanced beyond cave-man level. Google deserves their status as a utility - monopolies, effective or otherwise, we have consistently found to be actively harmful. Furthermore, if a company wants to be a "be-all-everything technological solution", it is actively attempting to usurp the role of government. And when that govt is un-elected, that's a despotic oligarchy, at best. We may well be forced to storm Google HQ and put every Google CEO's head on the chopping block if we want to preserve our liberty. Or, y'know, maybe just support getting them regulated instead, bit more of a humane solution, dontcha think?
unishark 5y ago
You can make that decision in rural areas. It costs a lot of money to get wires run to a new house. You might use solar instead with a generator as backup. In many urban areas you may not even be allowed to opt out of utilities meanwhile. I once delayed paying for the water bill in a new house for a month till I moved in and needed, got a big late bill finally because the fees are mandatory for the house.
- torgian 5y ago
  Almost like you don’t even own the house.

No one is forcing you to use an electrical company. You could always power your house with a bicycle generator. Therefore, electrical companies shouldn't be regulated as public utilities.

judge2020 5y ago

Creating your own power plant, lugging gallons of oil for power generation, or hiring someone to 24/7 power you home via bicycle all cost a few orders of magnitude more than paying the utility company for service, and creating a competing utility company wouldn't make sense competitively in any way, so naturally there's a monopoly. For search engines, it's both easy to switch to a different one as a consumer and it's easy for someone new to come in and create a profitable competitor (see bing, ddg).

inetknght 5y ago
> so naturally there's a monopoly. And, just as naturally, the government actually owns a lot of the distribution network. The producers provide into the distribution network, the customers receive from the distribution network, and the government regulates fair (by some definition thereof) access.
ascar 5y ago
> creating a competing utility company wouldn't make sense competitively in any way, so naturally there's a monopoly So how come there are countries without a natural monopoly and with competing utility providers? Also running your own generator with oil isn't a few orders of magnitude (i.e. at least 100x) more expensive. I wouldn't be surprised if it's not even one order of magnitude more expensive, but maybe just twice as expensive. I also don't think GP's simile is good, but some of your arguments against it are just blatantly false.
- judge2020 5y ago
  > So how come there are countries without a natural monopoly and with competing utility providers? Local governments own most U.S. utility lines and pipes, so a competing for-profit utility would have to go against the not-for-profit public service, leaving low to no room for profit and no reason to even compete. Fiber/cable/dsl lines are one of the few U.S. utilities with competition because the performance/reliability/features of the service can vary greatly and because almost no local governments ran their own ISP before private companies came in and ran their lines. I can bet that any area with a municipal ISP has a very low chance of seeing xfinity/att run their own fiber if they're not already servicing the area.

Manuel_D 5y ago

Yes, you have to use the municipal electricity. You cannot lay your own power lines, it's illegal. And in most urban areas, you can't run your own generator for emissions restrictions. You also can't power your home with a bicycle. Even champion bicyclists output 50-100 watts. Using Bing, DuckDuckGo, or other Google alternatives are incomparably easier than not using utilities like electricity and plumbing. I struggle to see how one can honestly make this comparison.

andyana 5y ago
You might want to rethink your bike claim; it is certainly possible.
- ben_w 5y ago
  Only as a technicality. Domestic electrical power use varies worldwide from “none” to “tens of kilowatts”. This, for example, is what it takes to run a UK household on bicycle electricity: https://youtu.be/C93cL_zDVIM https://youtu.be/C93cL_zDVIM
  - andyana 5y ago
    No, not even as a technicality. It is possible, full stop.
smaudet 5y ago
Such a tiny, piddling outlook on the world. You can do everything with water with rain-barrels and buckets. As others have said, you can do power with candles, bike generators, and wood fire. Is that a realistic solution in a modern society? Hell no. I struggle to see how anyone honestly can lie to themselves that it is somehow absurd to label something a "utility" just because the technology has advanced beyond cave-man level. Google deserves their status as a utility - monopolies, effective or otherwise, we have consistently found to be actively harmful. Furthermore, if a company wants to be a "be-all-everything technological solution", it is actively attempting to usurp the role of government. And when that govt is un-elected, that's a despotic oligarchy, at best. We may well be forced to storm Google HQ and put every Google CEO's head on the chopping block if we want to preserve our liberty. Or, y'know, maybe just support getting them regulated instead, bit more of a humane solution, dontcha think?

unishark 5y ago

You can make that decision in rural areas. It costs a lot of money to get wires run to a new house. You might use solar instead with a generator as backup. In many urban areas you may not even be allowed to opt out of utilities meanwhile. I once delayed paying for the water bill in a new house for a month till I moved in and needed, got a big late bill finally because the fees are mandatory for the house.

torgian 5y ago
Almost like you don’t even own the house.