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As a presumably technical poster, I have a hard time understanding your comparison between - the internet, through which most of all civil life and beyond flow

As a presumably technical poster, I have a hard time understanding your comparison between - the internet, through which most of all civil life and beyond flows - grocery stores and gas stations. The internet is a public utility at this point. You’re arguing that poor neighborhoods should pricier or worse water and sewage hah.

bigbillheck 3y ago
> You’re arguing that poor neighborhoods should pricier or worse water and sewage hah. I'm certain there's plenty of people here would agree with that.
- dogman144 3y ago
  I think that’s the root issue, yes.
  - gottorf 3y ago
    To assume that those who disagree with you is doing so on the basis of wanting to inflict pain on lower-income people is both intellectually lazy as well as in violation of the HN guidelines, which ask you[0] to follow the principle of charity. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - dogman144 3y ago
      Nowhere did anyone say wanting to inflict pain. Justifying higher prices was what you were doing, what OP noted, and what I agree with as a trend.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      - gottorf 3y ago
        I'm not justifying higher prices; I'm justifying different prices. There seemed to be an implication that some people wanted higher prices in poorer neighborhoods just to stick it to the poor in wording like this: > You’re arguing that poor neighborhoods should pricier or worse water and sewage hah. I apologize if I read into something that wasn't there. To clarify, I won't be upset if some poor neighborhoods happen to pay less for internet service than wealthy neighborhoods, either. And I fully understand your argument made elsewhere that you consider internet access to be a public utility that should be equally priced within the area, much like power or water.
gottorf 3y ago
> You’re arguing that poor neighborhoods should pricier or worse water and sewage Nowhere did I make that claim. I'm simply saying that if a service costs differently to provide in different areas, then it's reasonable to expect different prices paid by the consumer. Of course, you can also make a valid argument that certain kinds of services should cost the same everywhere in the overwhelming interest of public benefit; kind of like how it costs one stamp to send a letter whether it goes from your house to the next house over, or from Florida to Alaska. But it doesn't mean that the former position is automatically unreasonable or discriminatory. I'm also having a hard time understanding the proposition that internet access is more vital than food and transportation.
- dogman144 3y ago
  If you can’t understand that a public utility can’t be compared to market-based examples like gas stations or grocery stores, then we’re probably at a stalemate. It doesn’t cost differently to provide water and sewage to poor neighborhoods, at least as far as the consumer is aware and in theory for how it’s supposed to work. On top of that there are ample heating/water/sewage subsidies for those neighborhoods, which further invalidates the internet market cost argument. That is assuming the internet is viewed as a public utility at this point. Which, for anyone using it since 2010 or so, is hard to argue with.
  - lupusreal 3y ago
    > It doesn’t cost differently to provide water and sewage to poor neighborhoods It costs more to connect neighborhoods which are further away from the town core, or up/down hills (requiring pumping). These may in some circumstances correlate incidentally with poverty, causing a "disparate impact" which nobody set out to deliberately create. For instance, consider a trailer park that is several miles out of town because that's where land was cheap and where zoning permitted it; running water and sewage service there from the town will very likely be cost prohibitive. Instead, water will probably come from one or more private wells and sewage will be sent to a septic system dug specifically for that neighborhood. This will be done because it is more affordable than hooking up to the town's utilities.
lupusreal 3y ago
Do you really think the government should be obliged to offer water and sewage service to all neighborhoods, let alone for the same price? The price to hook up will obviously depend on local circumstance and in a sizable minority of cases the price would be so prohibitive that it isn't done at all! 15% of American homes get their water from private wells instead of a utility. Even more use septic systems instead of having a connection to a sewage utility.
- dogman144 3y ago
  I’m unclear how you’re linking private well houses (rural, have the money to drop a well, live off public utilities by choice) to lower income urban-ish neighborhoods. Have you ran into a lot of septic tanks and well houses in urban LA? Edit - just going to expand this to we’re talking about the consumer costs, not the price to deliver. So, low income consumers within utility systems (ie live in a city like LA) usually have subsidies for every other utility they get - water, heating, gas. It is viewed as inhumane to shut off heating in the winter, for instance. Tech industry and their enablers forced life to run through the internet, but no, that development didn’t turn the internet into a public utility… for sure. That same internet that the US govt by and and large developed and handed over to private sector later. Libertarian market-based technology politics love to forget where the industry came from in the first place, and the role it plays now in people’s lives.
  - lupusreal 3y ago
    There are poor neighborhoods in rural areas; these cannot receive utilities at the same price a offered to neighborhoods in more ideal locations. The price of a utility hookup doesn't depend on how wealthy you are, but can nevertheless vary from neighborhood to neighborhood and in some cases poor neighborhoods will be more expensive to serve than some wealthy neighborhoods. This isn't normally considered some sort of great injustice, it's just practical reality.
    - dogman144 3y ago
      Yup, I live rural, used to live urban. And regardless of cost to deliver, low income rural utilities gets subsidized in some form when it hits the consumer. Which is what this law in LA seems to be proposing.

bigbillheck 3y ago

> You’re arguing that poor neighborhoods should pricier or worse water and sewage hah. I'm certain there's plenty of people here would agree with that.

dogman144 3y ago
I think that’s the root issue, yes.
- gottorf 3y ago
  To assume that those who disagree with you is doing so on the basis of wanting to inflict pain on lower-income people is both intellectually lazy as well as in violation of the HN guidelines, which ask you[0] to follow the principle of charity. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - dogman144 3y ago
    Nowhere did anyone say wanting to inflict pain. Justifying higher prices was what you were doing, what OP noted, and what I agree with as a trend.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - gottorf 3y ago
      I'm not justifying higher prices; I'm justifying different prices. There seemed to be an implication that some people wanted higher prices in poorer neighborhoods just to stick it to the poor in wording like this: > You’re arguing that poor neighborhoods should pricier or worse water and sewage hah. I apologize if I read into something that wasn't there. To clarify, I won't be upset if some poor neighborhoods happen to pay less for internet service than wealthy neighborhoods, either. And I fully understand your argument made elsewhere that you consider internet access to be a public utility that should be equally priced within the area, much like power or water.

gottorf 3y ago

> You’re arguing that poor neighborhoods should pricier or worse water and sewage Nowhere did I make that claim. I'm simply saying that if a service costs differently to provide in different areas, then it's reasonable to expect different prices paid by the consumer. Of course, you can also make a valid argument that certain kinds of services should cost the same everywhere in the overwhelming interest of public benefit; kind of like how it costs one stamp to send a letter whether it goes from your house to the next house over, or from Florida to Alaska. But it doesn't mean that the former position is automatically unreasonable or discriminatory. I'm also having a hard time understanding the proposition that internet access is more vital than food and transportation.

dogman144 3y ago
If you can’t understand that a public utility can’t be compared to market-based examples like gas stations or grocery stores, then we’re probably at a stalemate. It doesn’t cost differently to provide water and sewage to poor neighborhoods, at least as far as the consumer is aware and in theory for how it’s supposed to work. On top of that there are ample heating/water/sewage subsidies for those neighborhoods, which further invalidates the internet market cost argument. That is assuming the internet is viewed as a public utility at this point. Which, for anyone using it since 2010 or so, is hard to argue with.
- lupusreal 3y ago
  > It doesn’t cost differently to provide water and sewage to poor neighborhoods It costs more to connect neighborhoods which are further away from the town core, or up/down hills (requiring pumping). These may in some circumstances correlate incidentally with poverty, causing a "disparate impact" which nobody set out to deliberately create. For instance, consider a trailer park that is several miles out of town because that's where land was cheap and where zoning permitted it; running water and sewage service there from the town will very likely be cost prohibitive. Instead, water will probably come from one or more private wells and sewage will be sent to a septic system dug specifically for that neighborhood. This will be done because it is more affordable than hooking up to the town's utilities.

lupusreal 3y ago

Do you really think the government should be obliged to offer water and sewage service to all neighborhoods, let alone for the same price? The price to hook up will obviously depend on local circumstance and in a sizable minority of cases the price would be so prohibitive that it isn't done at all! 15% of American homes get their water from private wells instead of a utility. Even more use septic systems instead of having a connection to a sewage utility.

dogman144 3y ago
I’m unclear how you’re linking private well houses (rural, have the money to drop a well, live off public utilities by choice) to lower income urban-ish neighborhoods. Have you ran into a lot of septic tanks and well houses in urban LA? Edit - just going to expand this to we’re talking about the consumer costs, not the price to deliver. So, low income consumers within utility systems (ie live in a city like LA) usually have subsidies for every other utility they get - water, heating, gas. It is viewed as inhumane to shut off heating in the winter, for instance. Tech industry and their enablers forced life to run through the internet, but no, that development didn’t turn the internet into a public utility… for sure. That same internet that the US govt by and and large developed and handed over to private sector later. Libertarian market-based technology politics love to forget where the industry came from in the first place, and the role it plays now in people’s lives.
- lupusreal 3y ago
  There are poor neighborhoods in rural areas; these cannot receive utilities at the same price a offered to neighborhoods in more ideal locations. The price of a utility hookup doesn't depend on how wealthy you are, but can nevertheless vary from neighborhood to neighborhood and in some cases poor neighborhoods will be more expensive to serve than some wealthy neighborhoods. This isn't normally considered some sort of great injustice, it's just practical reality.
  - dogman144 3y ago
    Yup, I live rural, used to live urban. And regardless of cost to deliver, low income rural utilities gets subsidized in some form when it hits the consumer. Which is what this law in LA seems to be proposing.