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It has never been tried in practice. If we take the violent enforcement of artificial limitation on a non-scarce concept (radios can broadcast at frequencies an

by zanny 14y ago

It has never been tried in practice. If we take the violent enforcement of artificial limitation on a non-scarce concept (radios can broadcast at frequencies and do so at variable frequencies fairly well) off the table, and the reality that in the absence of such forced regulation a major monopoly is prohibitive because, in the case of the radio industry, because there is no scarce resource here (radio waves can be produced for nigh-nothing after the investment in a radio, which is a markedly low barrier to entry) you can't have a cartel enforce dominance either without expending excessive amounts of resources to deny competitors, and they would bankrupt themselves trying to maintain dominance without actually providing anything useful and unable to extort because the ability to enter the market is too low, and without regulation, they can't create false barriers to entry. Also, actively attacking someones broadcasts for the sole purpose of disruption is still extortion. I'm not nutty enough to think you can go total anarchy, just that artificially constructed scarcity is bad for everyone.

jamespo 14y ago
Has your proposed scenario been tried in practise either? Saying "they would bankrupt themselves" is just supposition with no timeframe - in the meantime everyone suffers.
- zanny 14y ago
  People are not absolutely predictable, for one, so no one can say what would happen with certainty. I can say what I think would happen. And that is because without the violence to protect them, they are nigh powerless to control the entire electromagnetic spectrum emissions range that can safely transmit signals. In the meantime, right now 300 million plus people are suffering under an artificially controlled market for a resource that has no inherent scarcity. They are crushed by the very rent seekers this article speaks of on goods they can't truly possess without the violence of law to protect their interests, and they are given artificial advantage to abuse the regulations giving them the power to extort others.
PeterisP 14y ago
If all the radio providers are somehow able to come together and arrange an allocation of channels so that they don't overlap, then they are also able to (a) not allocate any of those channels to newscomers; (b) the channel allocation guarantees marketshare, i.e., if you gain more usage you don't get more capacity, so will rise prices - it's exactly a cartel situation like OPEC. The entry barrier is capital investment in radios - if you want to use 1800 mhz GSM band, you need to buy many millions (billions for country-wide scale) worth of radios and put them up to towers. If you want to later switch to 1900 mhz band as the first one is "polluted" - tough luck, buy new gear and install it once more. Or, in practice, if you don't get a guarantee that your devices won't work, you just don't buy them and keep out of the market. And, as soon as you call installing a device on the same spectrum "actively attacking someones broadcasts" - then it's a pure monopoly, first-come first-serve; the first one to put up the investment and put in New York some towers with ALL the frequency channels standard phones support (it's not that much, ~triple what they're normally using) gets an effective monopoly forever, since anyone putting up any GSM tower will be a disruption.

by zanny 14y ago

jamespo 14y ago

Has your proposed scenario been tried in practise either? Saying "they would bankrupt themselves" is just supposition with no timeframe - in the meantime everyone suffers.

zanny 14y ago
People are not absolutely predictable, for one, so no one can say what would happen with certainty. I can say what I think would happen. And that is because without the violence to protect them, they are nigh powerless to control the entire electromagnetic spectrum emissions range that can safely transmit signals. In the meantime, right now 300 million plus people are suffering under an artificially controlled market for a resource that has no inherent scarcity. They are crushed by the very rent seekers this article speaks of on goods they can't truly possess without the violence of law to protect their interests, and they are given artificial advantage to abuse the regulations giving them the power to extort others.

PeterisP 14y ago

If all the radio providers are somehow able to come together and arrange an allocation of channels so that they don't overlap, then they are also able to (a) not allocate any of those channels to newscomers; (b) the channel allocation guarantees marketshare, i.e., if you gain more usage you don't get more capacity, so will rise prices - it's exactly a cartel situation like OPEC. The entry barrier is capital investment in radios - if you want to use 1800 mhz GSM band, you need to buy many millions (billions for country-wide scale) worth of radios and put them up to towers. If you want to later switch to 1900 mhz band as the first one is "polluted" - tough luck, buy new gear and install it once more. Or, in practice, if you don't get a guarantee that your devices won't work, you just don't buy them and keep out of the market. And, as soon as you call installing a device on the same spectrum "actively attacking someones broadcasts" - then it's a pure monopoly, first-come first-serve; the first one to put up the investment and put in New York some towers with ALL the frequency channels standard phones support (it's not that much, ~triple what they're normally using) gets an effective monopoly forever, since anyone putting up any GSM tower will be a disruption.