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>power of the free market A government controlled or subsidized competitor doesn't result in a free market.

• danShumway 5y ago
  Then the current ISP situation is not a free market, because they're constantly subsidized. States pick individual winners for broadband all the time, private companies get direct contracts and grants to lay wire, government works directly with companies to subsidize costs for lower-income families. In general, the 'competition' we're talking about here isn't between individual businesses and the government -- it's between the entire categories of privatized solutions and public solutions. There are (at least) two theories for how to provide a service: to have communities pool resources in the form of a local town/city government and provide it themselves, or to have the service completely privatized. By creating public options for some social services, but still allowing the private market overall to compete alongside them, we can start to determine which services cost more money to operate, and which end up providing better outcomes. There are some concerns, but many of them are mitigated by the fact that municipal Internet is only... municipal. It's not a massive nation-wide thing. But in any case, this is all kind of a moot point because city-maintained broadband doesn't seem to me to be any more of an overuse of government resources than any of the other privileges and resources we're already giving away to private companies in the space. In a genuinely free market, I might be a lot more hesitant about this. But given the current state of the broadband market, I really don't see a problem with small communities and cities voluntarily deciding to try their own hand at connecting themselves to the Internet.