7 ms·

Looking at the NoGovInternet site [1] mentioned in the article, their arguments against municipal broadband seem to mostly revolve around financial sustainabili

Looking at the NoGovInternet site [1] mentioned in the article, their arguments against municipal broadband seem to mostly revolve around financial sustainability. They cite a paper that claims that 90% of such efforts fail to generate enough revenue to be self-sustaining. To me that seems like a strange argument against a municipal service. Surely no one expects other things like road maintenance to be financially self-sustaining? [1] https://www.nogovinternet.com/ https://www.nogovinternet.com/

axus 2y ago
There might be some "good arguments" against increasing broadband competition through government action, but we all know the incumbents aren't funding these sites for love of a good debate.
- throwitaway222 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
schmidtleonard 2y ago
Of course not, but the real objection is "it doesn't put money in my pocket" and they can't say that. The point of saying this instead is to make it just a little bit harder to debunk. Attention is a scarce resource, so that's enough to push it through.
mminer237 2y ago
Well in that case you're taxing people who don't use it to pay for it. If it can't get enough people wanting to use it at what it costs to run, I can see that as a good argument it shouldn't exist. (Though obviously I would take that data with a pile of salt.)
- Retric 2y ago
  By that argument we should tax private broadband providers to claw back past subsidies with interest and eliminate current ones. Instead it’s just an argument that subsidies for private businesses is good but public works is bad, which seems silly.
- phone8675309 2y ago
  > Well in that case you're taxing people who don't use it to pay for it. Bullshit. There are many ways such a thing could be funded without being on the backs of individual taxpayers.
  - germinator 2y ago
    I'm guessing you're talking about taxing businesses or products / services instead. That strikes me as a weird argument. Ultimately, all taxes are taxes on the labor of individual humans. "Corporate money" mostly isn't: if you tax it, you either pay as an employee or as a consumer. There are some populist arguments about executive compensation, but if nothing else, executives are still "individual taxpayers", right?
    - phone8675309 2y ago
      Businesses have to pay for a lot of things that consumers don't - business licenses, permits, etc. Any of those things can be a source of revenue to make up the shortfall. By that logic should corporations get a tax break because a corporation isn't going to be using the public library given that it's a legal fiction? Come on.
      - bartonfink 2y ago
        > you either pay as an employee or as a consumer. I think you stopped reading, or at least comprehending what you were reading, early.
- goodcanadian 2y ago
  Well in that case you're taxing people who don't use it to pay for it. The same can be said of virtually any government service.
legitster 2y ago
If you go down the rabbit-hole for any government funded service, you will find an opposition group. Politics abhors a vacuum. It doesn't mean they are well organized or funded.
tdb7893 2y ago
In this case also if it's losing money because private broadband providers dropped their prices that's still a win for the municipality. If it's losing money and prices didn't become more competitive then I would say it was just a bad idea overall.
- semi 2y ago
  even if prices don't drop to be competitive, service quality could be raised to stay competitive, but that's hard to measure aside from actual increase in bandwidth. Even if neither of those are true, there's still value in a municipality not relying on potentially a single company for something as important as internet. But that's admittedly a harder sell.
jandrese 2y ago
That 90% figure is suspect as well, since it's including the initial buildout costs of young projects in the financial calculation. So the authors don't consider it "sustainable" until the buildout costs are fully paid off. It's considered a failure if they took out a loan to build out the network.
soco 2y ago
Now I don't know how stuff works in the States, but what's the government's job if the municipality does this with their own funding? Aren't they free to burn their own money as they please (or, their community pleases) be it cantaloupe contests, marching bands clubs or broadband internet?
- parineum 2y ago
  The municipality is the government? The government is not free to burn it's money as it pleases. Some form of democracy, represented or direct, instructs it how to spend it's money.
  - ftth_finland 2y ago
    > as their community pleases Did you miss that part?
    - parineum 2y ago
      Are the businesses that operate in the community not part of the community?
      - ftth_finland 2y ago
        No. Their owners and employees might be.
ents 2y ago
> Surely no one expects other things like road maintenance to be financially self-sustaining? I have never once in my life heard anyone describe the US Military through such a lens.
user3939382 2y ago
I wonder how much of the municipal broadband costs include fighting these lobby groups’ members in court.
fifteen1506 2y ago
Not an American. I do believe sustainability is important. However if the market failed to provide a solution, then a wee-bit of incentive is needed. Probably in 20 years those networks will be privatized so idk why they're complaining. Additionally, US could very well force the sharing of infrastructure to get the market working better and force the market players to only discriminate its prices by region, not just where there is competition. TL;DR: market failed, they can't cry because they didn't do the effort.
parineum 2y ago
> To me that seems like a strange argument against a municipal service. Surely no one expects other things like road maintenance to be financially self-sustaining? A service that charges money and is meant to compete with private companies should do so on even grounds lest it just becomes a de-facto government monopoly. That's fine if that's the goal but, in that case, it shouldn't be charging money at all and should just be providing the service by default. Operating at a middle ground where it's subsidized by government funding but isn't providing service to everyone but is available to everyone isn't a logical place to be. The reason why the argument against municipal service's financial sustainability makes sense is because it's often sold to and voted on by the population it serves as being solvent. There are three situations that make sense to me for municipal broadband. 1. Charge a fee and operate without government funding, similar to a non-profit but government run. Probably with an exception for expanding the network to cover the entire municipality but, once that's complete, maintenance should be sustained by the program. Essentially, providing at-cost broadband and subsidizing accessibility. 2. Broadband-for-all. Government provides broadband as a service, provided free of charge to the end user and funded by taxpayers. 3. In lieu of some kind of broadband subsidy gated to a limited population (low-income, most likely). Broadband-for-all... if you're poor. Municipal broadband is usually proposed as and passed by voters as #1. The requirement for it to be self sustaining is to allow for competition in the market to still exist. After all, the problem we are trying to solve is created by the monopoly (duopoly if you consider DSL competitive to cable or have access to fiber) so replacing one monopoly with another is not seen as progress by many. #1 gets support from the broadest constituency because different groups like it for different reasons. #2 is not usually broadly supported enough to be voted in and #3 doesn't solve the problem that #1 and #2 aim to. > Surely no one expects other things like road maintenance to be financially self-sustaining? Because nobody every voted for road maintenance to be self-sustaining. People usually are voting for tax increases that are meant to pay for roads.

axus 2y ago

There might be some "good arguments" against increasing broadband competition through government action, but we all know the incumbents aren't funding these sites for love of a good debate.

throwitaway222 2y ago
[flagged]
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]

schmidtleonard 2y ago

Of course not, but the real objection is "it doesn't put money in my pocket" and they can't say that. The point of saying this instead is to make it just a little bit harder to debunk. Attention is a scarce resource, so that's enough to push it through.

mminer237 2y ago

Well in that case you're taxing people who don't use it to pay for it. If it can't get enough people wanting to use it at what it costs to run, I can see that as a good argument it shouldn't exist. (Though obviously I would take that data with a pile of salt.)

Retric 2y ago
By that argument we should tax private broadband providers to claw back past subsidies with interest and eliminate current ones. Instead it’s just an argument that subsidies for private businesses is good but public works is bad, which seems silly.
phone8675309 2y ago
> Well in that case you're taxing people who don't use it to pay for it. Bullshit. There are many ways such a thing could be funded without being on the backs of individual taxpayers.
- germinator 2y ago
  I'm guessing you're talking about taxing businesses or products / services instead. That strikes me as a weird argument. Ultimately, all taxes are taxes on the labor of individual humans. "Corporate money" mostly isn't: if you tax it, you either pay as an employee or as a consumer. There are some populist arguments about executive compensation, but if nothing else, executives are still "individual taxpayers", right?
  - phone8675309 2y ago
    Businesses have to pay for a lot of things that consumers don't - business licenses, permits, etc. Any of those things can be a source of revenue to make up the shortfall. By that logic should corporations get a tax break because a corporation isn't going to be using the public library given that it's a legal fiction? Come on.
    - bartonfink 2y ago
      > you either pay as an employee or as a consumer. I think you stopped reading, or at least comprehending what you were reading, early.
goodcanadian 2y ago
Well in that case you're taxing people who don't use it to pay for it. The same can be said of virtually any government service.

legitster 2y ago

If you go down the rabbit-hole for any government funded service, you will find an opposition group. Politics abhors a vacuum. It doesn't mean they are well organized or funded.

tdb7893 2y ago

In this case also if it's losing money because private broadband providers dropped their prices that's still a win for the municipality. If it's losing money and prices didn't become more competitive then I would say it was just a bad idea overall.

semi 2y ago
even if prices don't drop to be competitive, service quality could be raised to stay competitive, but that's hard to measure aside from actual increase in bandwidth. Even if neither of those are true, there's still value in a municipality not relying on potentially a single company for something as important as internet. But that's admittedly a harder sell.

jandrese 2y ago

That 90% figure is suspect as well, since it's including the initial buildout costs of young projects in the financial calculation. So the authors don't consider it "sustainable" until the buildout costs are fully paid off. It's considered a failure if they took out a loan to build out the network.

soco 2y ago

Now I don't know how stuff works in the States, but what's the government's job if the municipality does this with their own funding? Aren't they free to burn their own money as they please (or, their community pleases) be it cantaloupe contests, marching bands clubs or broadband internet?

parineum 2y ago
The municipality is the government? The government is not free to burn it's money as it pleases. Some form of democracy, represented or direct, instructs it how to spend it's money.
- ftth_finland 2y ago
  > as their community pleases Did you miss that part?
  - parineum 2y ago
    Are the businesses that operate in the community not part of the community?
    - ftth_finland 2y ago
      No. Their owners and employees might be.

ents 2y ago

> Surely no one expects other things like road maintenance to be financially self-sustaining? I have never once in my life heard anyone describe the US Military through such a lens.

user3939382 2y ago

I wonder how much of the municipal broadband costs include fighting these lobby groups’ members in court.

fifteen1506 2y ago

Not an American. I do believe sustainability is important. However if the market failed to provide a solution, then a wee-bit of incentive is needed. Probably in 20 years those networks will be privatized so idk why they're complaining. Additionally, US could very well force the sharing of infrastructure to get the market working better and force the market players to only discriminate its prices by region, not just where there is competition. TL;DR: market failed, they can't cry because they didn't do the effort.

parineum 2y ago

> To me that seems like a strange argument against a municipal service. Surely no one expects other things like road maintenance to be financially self-sustaining? A service that charges money and is meant to compete with private companies should do so on even grounds lest it just becomes a de-facto government monopoly. That's fine if that's the goal but, in that case, it shouldn't be charging money at all and should just be providing the service by default. Operating at a middle ground where it's subsidized by government funding but isn't providing service to everyone but is available to everyone isn't a logical place to be. The reason why the argument against municipal service's financial sustainability makes sense is because it's often sold to and voted on by the population it serves as being solvent. There are three situations that make sense to me for municipal broadband. 1. Charge a fee and operate without government funding, similar to a non-profit but government run. Probably with an exception for expanding the network to cover the entire municipality but, once that's complete, maintenance should be sustained by the program. Essentially, providing at-cost broadband and subsidizing accessibility. 2. Broadband-for-all. Government provides broadband as a service, provided free of charge to the end user and funded by taxpayers. 3. In lieu of some kind of broadband subsidy gated to a limited population (low-income, most likely). Broadband-for-all... if you're poor. Municipal broadband is usually proposed as and passed by voters as #1. The requirement for it to be self sustaining is to allow for competition in the market to still exist. After all, the problem we are trying to solve is created by the monopoly (duopoly if you consider DSL competitive to cable or have access to fiber) so replacing one monopoly with another is not seen as progress by many. #1 gets support from the broadest constituency because different groups like it for different reasons. #2 is not usually broadly supported enough to be voted in and #3 doesn't solve the problem that #1 and #2 aim to. > Surely no one expects other things like road maintenance to be financially self-sustaining? Because nobody every voted for road maintenance to be self-sustaining. People usually are voting for tax increases that are meant to pay for roads.