I've never bought the "tragedy of the commons" theory, though I'm familiar with the argument, mostly because I fail to see a tragedy. A robustly protected publi

I've never bought the "tragedy of the commons" theory, though I'm familiar with the argument, mostly because I fail to see a tragedy. A robustly protected public utilities system is one of the reason the US is a first world country and Somalia is not. Hardin’s arguments lack any practical value. Can you imagine what an unregulated wireless spectrum would look like? I've also never accepted the Coase Theorem because it too ignored the practical problem of "whomever builds the tallest tower wins". You simply can't build wireless network (or wired that have any practical use) without government control. Or, if you do, the market will work out a natural monopoly over time because of the need for standardization. It's the same reason it's so hard to break into the social network market, one platform is better and the larger it is, the better it gets. Imagine that extrapolated to something as economically essential as the telecomm system. We enable free markets by providing basic infrastructure (roads, telecom, etc.). But that's getting off the topic of the discussion. The spectrum, in practice, is the property of the government and, by extension, the people. Wired networks are more complicated, but shared ownership is implied by right-of-way agreements, or at least the obligation to operate them in the public interest is implied. As long as that's true, governments are obligated to protect the public's interest in a free and open form of communication over those networks.