7 ms·

I wonder. I wonder. I live in Russia and I have 2-3 very good providers on the block constantly competing with each other and offering better connection and pri

by snitko 12y ago

I wonder. I wonder. I live in Russia and I have 2-3 very good providers on the block constantly competing with each other and offering better connection and prices. They would show up on time and connect you very fast. They fix things quickly (in my government maintained house, the basement once became filled with water after the rain, and the wires were damaged. Even though it wasn't their fault, the ISP came and fixed it the same day). I pay about $120 a year for my internet. It's faster than anything I saw when in the US. And that's in Russia, that authoritarian backward country. Do you know why I pay so little? That's because we have the free-est goddamn ISP market, government hasn't been interfering with it (it's starting to, though). Everything I see government touches is of low quality, whereas everything that's good in my country is private enterprise. And yet, you claim free market fails. Dear american internet users. The only reason you have what you have - shitty speeds and near monopolies - is BECAUSE you have government sticking its nose where it shouldn't (I'd say, it shouldn't stick its nose anywhere, but that's another story). Comcast is the second largest lobbyist in Washington. And still you want to fix the problem by introducing more of the same, that is more regulation and more government, whereas the only way to fix things is to not allow governmental interference in the first place. You can't blame evil Comcast. Why? Because if not them, someone else would lobby and win. If you can lobby, you have to or you're gone.

gress 12y ago
How do ISPs gain the rights to dig up the streets in Russia?
- ahomescu1 12y ago
  Don't know about Russia, but in Romania they didn't dig (or at least not until recently). Most of the ISPs would run their cables between utility poles, trees and buildings directly. This created messes like [1] and [2], but it was cheap. I think back in 2012 Parliament passed a law forcing all ISPs and cable companies to bury the cables. 1 - http://s.wsj.net/media/050710pow14_J_20100506172349.jpg http://s.wsj.net/media/050710pow14_J_20100506172349.jpg 2 - http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6142/6205357944_8056b01e05_m.jpg http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6142/6205357944_8056b01e05_m....
josephlord 12y ago
If one of those 2-3 providers bought the others should the government intervene in the free market to stop it? BTW do they operate their own wires to the building? If not is the owner of the wires allowed to compete in the market, raise prices or deny service?
- mxiia 12y ago
  In a free market that would not happen. The decline in quality of the very product that the companies are offering would lead to a lower revenue stream for them.
- snitko 12y ago
  No. If one of them grew and bought others and provided excellent service no one could outcompete, what's the point to interfere? I'm not against monopolies per se. I'm against monopolies that are created using government power. However, if this new monopolist started providing shitty service, competitors would emerge immediately. Granted the government wouldn't prevent them from emerging by demanding to purchase expensive licences and comply with regulations.
  - matthewmacleod 12y ago
    That's naïve - it would be exceptionally difficult for a new ISP to emerge countrywide even in the a sense of regulation. It's very capital-intensive!
    - snitko 12y ago
      That's very well. Some industries mature and new companies don't enter those industries because they are taken. For example, not many people attempt to go into the soft drinks market. Why? Because there's Coca-Cola and Pepsi. How idiotic would that seem if government started saying things like "we need soft drinks neutrality so every McDonalds is now obligated to sell you both Coca Cola or Pepsi and that new competitor who just entered the market". That wouldn't solve any real problem, as you can imagine. If there is a problem, let consumers decide directly, not government.
lonnyk 12y ago
>whereas the only way to fix things is to not allow governmental interference in the first place. But we are past this point. So what is the solution now?
- spindritf 12y ago
  "If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging"?
  - wavefunction 12y ago
    Isn't that the point of digging?
- snitko 12y ago
  Good question. The solution is not go full retard, it seems, but to stop doing wrong things. Whatever you do, you don't ever introduce new regulation. Don't introduce more opportunities for government bureaucrats to feed from. Because if you do, it's gonna lead to worse and more expensive things for the consumer.
  - harpastum 12y ago
    I understand your point, and I don't want to derail this thread into a discussion on language. However, saying that introducing more governmental regulation is going "full retard" (even if the idea behind it is actually true) is reductive and detracts from your point. This is not an issue of political correctness. Saying "not go full shit-head" falls into the same category. Please treat your opposition with respect, even if you disagree with them.
    - snitko 12y ago
      Oh, ok, sorry. I never realized "retard" is super offensive in that way. It didn't sound like a very strong word to me, so I apologize.
    - vram22 12y ago
spindritf 12y ago
Do you know why I pay so little? That's because we have the free-est goddamn ISP market Yes, but also the communist architecture. Those buildings are easier to wire and the way they're managed makes it easier to get a permit. It's the same in Poland, if you live in one of those atrocious apartment blocks[1], you'll have a pick of three, or even seven various ISPs but move to the suburbs and it's suddenly either the national telekom or some crappy wireless. Deregulation would probably help Americans living in densely populated areas but not so much in the sprawl. And having a garden is almost a birthright. Ironically, it's the Americans in the big cities who favour regulation, and Americans outside of them who don't. [1] http://www.michaeltotten.com/images/Communist%20Blocks%20Georgia%202.jpg http://www.michaeltotten.com/images/Communist%20Blocks%20Geo...
- snitko 12y ago
  I live in the suburbs. Suburbs and especially new buildings in suburbs are best connected.
- eru 12y ago
  > Ironically, it's the Americans in the big cities who favour regulation, and Americans outside of them who don't. Not quite, they just favour different regulation. > Deregulation would probably help Americans living in densely populated areas but not so much in the sprawl. Perhaps that would convince some people to de-sprawl?
saucetenuto 12y ago
> Do you know why I pay so little? That's because we have the free-est goddamn ISP market This is a little imprecise; "free" and "free of governmental interference" are not the same thing. More likely it is because you have a _competitive_ ISP market. That might in turn be because of how free your market is, but in order to really know we'd have to know how your area solved the problems that led city governments to grant monopolies in the first place.
- ataggart 12y ago
  >"free" and "free of governmental interference" are not the same thing. Since "free" in this context means absence of coercion against extant or would-be competitors, and since government regulatory efforts are a source of such anti-competitive coercion, unless one is concerned with firms sending hit squads against each other (which would more rightly be considered "crime"), the distinction isn't particularly useful.
  - aninhumer 12y ago
    Are you suggesting the only possible forms of anti-competitive coercion are government regulation or hit squads?
    - zanny 12y ago
      If it is voluntary it is not coercive. You can always not deal with your competition on unfair terms. In what circumstance could a 3rd party non-violent entity coerce you? The biggest one I can think of is "buying you out" but that is still either voluntary, in that the owners agree on the buyout, or it is a buyout of a publicly traded company, and I can't even get started on how non-free market the stock market is, but even then you elected to sell ownership in a public marketplace voluntarily and took that risk.
      - aninhumer 12y ago
        >In what circumstance could a 3rd party non-violent entity coerce you? Predatory pricing. Buying up necessary capital. Paying other companies to not deal with you (Suppliers, Retailers, Advertisers etc.) All completely voluntary, and these are just off the top of my head.
vajorie 12y ago
> BECAUSE you have government sticking its nose where it shouldn't (I'd say, it shouldn't stick its nose anywhere, but that's another story). Comcast is the second largest lobbyist in Washington. Your argument, even though it reads like liberal laissez-faire stuff, actually is: the government is being controlled by corporations. So, your solution of "stop regulation" is offtopic. Come up with something relevant to your own argument first. Like, hmm, "stop corporations from dictating governance". That'll work.
- snitko 12y ago
  I actually think it's both ways. Both corporations and government control consumers. That's what it's about. The solution should be such that it is easier to administer it. You can fight numerous evil corporations to no luck. Or you could focus on one entity without which all those evil things wouldn't be possible.
kaonashi 12y ago
Considering our government created the internet in the first place, I'm not sure that's a long-term winning strategy.
- snitko 12y ago
  I disagree with that statement. People created internet. As well as built roads and educated children. Individuals do that. The only question is, how are they financed. If those activities are financed using tax money, it's called "government". Then, the question we should ask ourselves, would people still invent awesome things and build roads and educate their children without government funding? Would they, maybe, somehow use the money they don't have to pay as taxes now, to do all of those things? After all, they use money to do other things all the time, and those other things are not nearly as important for them as roads or education.
  - kaonashi 12y ago
    > If those activities are financed using tax money, it's called "government". Taxes don't finance US government expenditure; they create demand for the currency. > Then, the question we should ask ourselves, would people still invent awesome things and build roads and educate their children without government funding Government provides the coordination required to accomplish these things. The private sector is notoriously horrible at coordination between competing actors.
    - snitko 12y ago
      > The private sector is notoriously horrible at coordination between competing actors. This must be why I can never get my luggage handled flying two or more airlines or why I can never use my cellphone in another country connecting to another operator's network. Can you give me some examples where the private sector is actually bad at coordination?
      - kaonashi 12y ago
        You picked two areas with massive government regulation. So yes, when government acts as the intermediary, the private sector can stop failing at coordination.
specialist 12y ago
Regulation serves the public when it ensures a level playing field. Through the law, protection of property rights, a fair and impartial judicial system, the right to petition your government, etc. Regulation harms the public when it thwarts those democratic institutions. By protecting incumbents, limiting liability, forcing litigants into arbitration, hiding important information, etc. Some things only government can provide well. Clean air, fire fighters, standards. Matters of public safety and health really shouldn't be (wholly) privatized, because profit motive is in direct opposition to the public good. Maybe some day government can provide good (enough) internet service. Perhaps after the technology and rate of change settle down. But not today.
- snitko 12y ago
  Why is it that only government can provide some things well? Can you prove it both logically and empirically?
  - AnthonyMouse 12y ago
    Some goods and services are dominated by up-front costs. That makes usage-based billing economically harmful by discouraging usage of a use-it-or-lose-it resource that has already been paid for. It also makes competition extremely inefficient because each competitor has to duplicate the high up-front cost of e.g. building a last mile network. The result when left to private enterprise is generally a monopoly that charges monopoly rents for access to the resource, and in cases where there is competition (e.g. because two existing monopoly markets merged through technological change, as with telephone and cable) the competition is highly inefficient because each competitor has to duplicate each other's costs. And if competition exists then the competitors are essentially required to engage in some form of explicit or implicit collusion to not lower prices, since in a market dominated by up-front costs each competitor can always gain revenue by lowering prices to gain customers, until the competitor responds in kind ultimately causing all providers to be unable to recover their up-front costs. Having the government pay for such resources (as with roads) with tax dollars and then providing free access to the public is massively more efficient than private enterprise, because you eliminate the incentive for rent-seeking and economically harmful usage-based billing and for that matter eliminate all the overhead of billing, marketing, collections, denying access to non-subscribers, etc. But the only way to do this is if the resource can be funded in some other way, specifically through taxation.
atmosx 12y ago
> And yet, you claim free market fails. Seriously? You have a cheaper/better internet access in Russia compared to the USA and suddenly the Russian (extremely corrupted) political and social model (a modern monarchy of sorts) became a model economy over the US? PS. I can't find the source, but I've read that in the last Russian elections more than 35% of the population wanted to return back to communism.
- cyorir 12y ago
  Off by a factor of 2, if you are referring to the Presidential elections in Russia, where the communist party candidate received less than 20% of the vote. 35% roughly includes all parties except Putin's. Although I am not sure that voting against Putin (or voting for the communist party, even) is equivalent to voting to return to communism. Were you referring to a poll, or perhaps another election?
  - atmosx 12y ago
    Since I can't find the link, I won't disagree on the numbers you're reporting, but seriously the only one who trusts Russian election results must be Putin (and you). ps. I'm not saying that he wouldn't have won anyway, but I'm sure that the elections in Russia are extremely well guarded.
    - cyorir 12y ago
      I'll admit that I gave official election figures, as estimated by Russian election officials. They are at link [0]. Judging by official results, support for the communist party in Russia has not been anywhere near 30% since the 90's. However the Communist Party is Russia's straw man party, it is built to provide a weak counterexample to Putin and distract those who would otherwise support the main liberal opposition. This is fairly obvious whether you go by official results or western polls. I'm not sure why you think I trust the elections though; you seem to think I am arguing in favor of Putin when I am not. I simply don't think that throwing around a figure like "35% of Russians support communism" is a good idea when it is purposefully misleading and there is nothing to back it up. [0] http://www.parties-and-elections.eu/russia.html http://www.parties-and-elections.eu/russia.html
vacri 12y ago
Everything I see government touches is of low quality, whereas everything that's good in my country is private enterprise. And yet the countries that are consistently in the top 5 or top 10 of most quality-of-life measures are those countries that are social democracies (generally scandanavia and aust/nz/canada), where the government puts its fingers in a lot of pies. If the things that your government touches is bad, then that's a problem with your government, not the awesomeness of the free market. Out of curiosity, how well do your ISPs cater to rural users? People in urban centres are cheap to service, but spread-out rural users are quite expensive.
- omgtehlion 12y ago
  In rural areas you pay a lot for initial connection, then usual rates. Or just use radio links (WiMAX and fixed 3G stations are kind of popular where my parents live).

by snitko 12y ago

gress 12y ago

How do ISPs gain the rights to dig up the streets in Russia?

ahomescu1 12y ago
Don't know about Russia, but in Romania they didn't dig (or at least not until recently). Most of the ISPs would run their cables between utility poles, trees and buildings directly. This created messes like [1] and [2], but it was cheap. I think back in 2012 Parliament passed a law forcing all ISPs and cable companies to bury the cables. 1 - http://s.wsj.net/media/050710pow14_J_20100506172349.jpg http://s.wsj.net/media/050710pow14_J_20100506172349.jpg 2 - http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6142/6205357944_8056b01e05_m.jpg http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6142/6205357944_8056b01e05_m....

josephlord 12y ago

If one of those 2-3 providers bought the others should the government intervene in the free market to stop it? BTW do they operate their own wires to the building? If not is the owner of the wires allowed to compete in the market, raise prices or deny service?

mxiia 12y ago
In a free market that would not happen. The decline in quality of the very product that the companies are offering would lead to a lower revenue stream for them.
snitko 12y ago
No. If one of them grew and bought others and provided excellent service no one could outcompete, what's the point to interfere? I'm not against monopolies per se. I'm against monopolies that are created using government power. However, if this new monopolist started providing shitty service, competitors would emerge immediately. Granted the government wouldn't prevent them from emerging by demanding to purchase expensive licences and comply with regulations.
- matthewmacleod 12y ago
  That's naïve - it would be exceptionally difficult for a new ISP to emerge countrywide even in the a sense of regulation. It's very capital-intensive!
  - snitko 12y ago
    That's very well. Some industries mature and new companies don't enter those industries because they are taken. For example, not many people attempt to go into the soft drinks market. Why? Because there's Coca-Cola and Pepsi. How idiotic would that seem if government started saying things like "we need soft drinks neutrality so every McDonalds is now obligated to sell you both Coca Cola or Pepsi and that new competitor who just entered the market". That wouldn't solve any real problem, as you can imagine. If there is a problem, let consumers decide directly, not government.

lonnyk 12y ago

>whereas the only way to fix things is to not allow governmental interference in the first place. But we are past this point. So what is the solution now?

spindritf 12y ago
"If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging"?
- wavefunction 12y ago
  Isn't that the point of digging?
snitko 12y ago
Good question. The solution is not go full retard, it seems, but to stop doing wrong things. Whatever you do, you don't ever introduce new regulation. Don't introduce more opportunities for government bureaucrats to feed from. Because if you do, it's gonna lead to worse and more expensive things for the consumer.
- harpastum 12y ago
  I understand your point, and I don't want to derail this thread into a discussion on language. However, saying that introducing more governmental regulation is going "full retard" (even if the idea behind it is actually true) is reductive and detracts from your point. This is not an issue of political correctness. Saying "not go full shit-head" falls into the same category. Please treat your opposition with respect, even if you disagree with them.
  - snitko 12y ago
    Oh, ok, sorry. I never realized "retard" is super offensive in that way. It didn't sound like a very strong word to me, so I apologize.
  - vram22 12y ago

spindritf 12y ago

Do you know why I pay so little? That's because we have the free-est goddamn ISP market Yes, but also the communist architecture. Those buildings are easier to wire and the way they're managed makes it easier to get a permit. It's the same in Poland, if you live in one of those atrocious apartment blocks[1], you'll have a pick of three, or even seven various ISPs but move to the suburbs and it's suddenly either the national telekom or some crappy wireless. Deregulation would probably help Americans living in densely populated areas but not so much in the sprawl. And having a garden is almost a birthright. Ironically, it's the Americans in the big cities who favour regulation, and Americans outside of them who don't. [1] http://www.michaeltotten.com/images/Communist%20Blocks%20Georgia%202.jpg http://www.michaeltotten.com/images/Communist%20Blocks%20Geo...

snitko 12y ago
I live in the suburbs. Suburbs and especially new buildings in suburbs are best connected.
eru 12y ago
> Ironically, it's the Americans in the big cities who favour regulation, and Americans outside of them who don't. Not quite, they just favour different regulation. > Deregulation would probably help Americans living in densely populated areas but not so much in the sprawl. Perhaps that would convince some people to de-sprawl?

saucetenuto 12y ago

> Do you know why I pay so little? That's because we have the free-est goddamn ISP market This is a little imprecise; "free" and "free of governmental interference" are not the same thing. More likely it is because you have a _competitive_ ISP market. That might in turn be because of how free your market is, but in order to really know we'd have to know how your area solved the problems that led city governments to grant monopolies in the first place.

ataggart 12y ago
>"free" and "free of governmental interference" are not the same thing. Since "free" in this context means absence of coercion against extant or would-be competitors, and since government regulatory efforts are a source of such anti-competitive coercion, unless one is concerned with firms sending hit squads against each other (which would more rightly be considered "crime"), the distinction isn't particularly useful.
- aninhumer 12y ago
  Are you suggesting the only possible forms of anti-competitive coercion are government regulation or hit squads?
  - zanny 12y ago
    If it is voluntary it is not coercive. You can always not deal with your competition on unfair terms. In what circumstance could a 3rd party non-violent entity coerce you? The biggest one I can think of is "buying you out" but that is still either voluntary, in that the owners agree on the buyout, or it is a buyout of a publicly traded company, and I can't even get started on how non-free market the stock market is, but even then you elected to sell ownership in a public marketplace voluntarily and took that risk.
    - aninhumer 12y ago
      >In what circumstance could a 3rd party non-violent entity coerce you? Predatory pricing. Buying up necessary capital. Paying other companies to not deal with you (Suppliers, Retailers, Advertisers etc.) All completely voluntary, and these are just off the top of my head.

vajorie 12y ago

> BECAUSE you have government sticking its nose where it shouldn't (I'd say, it shouldn't stick its nose anywhere, but that's another story). Comcast is the second largest lobbyist in Washington. Your argument, even though it reads like liberal laissez-faire stuff, actually is: the government is being controlled by corporations. So, your solution of "stop regulation" is offtopic. Come up with something relevant to your own argument first. Like, hmm, "stop corporations from dictating governance". That'll work.

snitko 12y ago
I actually think it's both ways. Both corporations and government control consumers. That's what it's about. The solution should be such that it is easier to administer it. You can fight numerous evil corporations to no luck. Or you could focus on one entity without which all those evil things wouldn't be possible.

kaonashi 12y ago

Considering our government created the internet in the first place, I'm not sure that's a long-term winning strategy.

snitko 12y ago
I disagree with that statement. People created internet. As well as built roads and educated children. Individuals do that. The only question is, how are they financed. If those activities are financed using tax money, it's called "government". Then, the question we should ask ourselves, would people still invent awesome things and build roads and educate their children without government funding? Would they, maybe, somehow use the money they don't have to pay as taxes now, to do all of those things? After all, they use money to do other things all the time, and those other things are not nearly as important for them as roads or education.
- kaonashi 12y ago
  > If those activities are financed using tax money, it's called "government". Taxes don't finance US government expenditure; they create demand for the currency. > Then, the question we should ask ourselves, would people still invent awesome things and build roads and educate their children without government funding Government provides the coordination required to accomplish these things. The private sector is notoriously horrible at coordination between competing actors.
  - snitko 12y ago
    > The private sector is notoriously horrible at coordination between competing actors. This must be why I can never get my luggage handled flying two or more airlines or why I can never use my cellphone in another country connecting to another operator's network. Can you give me some examples where the private sector is actually bad at coordination?
    - kaonashi 12y ago
      You picked two areas with massive government regulation. So yes, when government acts as the intermediary, the private sector can stop failing at coordination.

specialist 12y ago

Regulation serves the public when it ensures a level playing field. Through the law, protection of property rights, a fair and impartial judicial system, the right to petition your government, etc. Regulation harms the public when it thwarts those democratic institutions. By protecting incumbents, limiting liability, forcing litigants into arbitration, hiding important information, etc. Some things only government can provide well. Clean air, fire fighters, standards. Matters of public safety and health really shouldn't be (wholly) privatized, because profit motive is in direct opposition to the public good. Maybe some day government can provide good (enough) internet service. Perhaps after the technology and rate of change settle down. But not today.

snitko 12y ago
Why is it that only government can provide some things well? Can you prove it both logically and empirically?
- AnthonyMouse 12y ago
  Some goods and services are dominated by up-front costs. That makes usage-based billing economically harmful by discouraging usage of a use-it-or-lose-it resource that has already been paid for. It also makes competition extremely inefficient because each competitor has to duplicate the high up-front cost of e.g. building a last mile network. The result when left to private enterprise is generally a monopoly that charges monopoly rents for access to the resource, and in cases where there is competition (e.g. because two existing monopoly markets merged through technological change, as with telephone and cable) the competition is highly inefficient because each competitor has to duplicate each other's costs. And if competition exists then the competitors are essentially required to engage in some form of explicit or implicit collusion to not lower prices, since in a market dominated by up-front costs each competitor can always gain revenue by lowering prices to gain customers, until the competitor responds in kind ultimately causing all providers to be unable to recover their up-front costs. Having the government pay for such resources (as with roads) with tax dollars and then providing free access to the public is massively more efficient than private enterprise, because you eliminate the incentive for rent-seeking and economically harmful usage-based billing and for that matter eliminate all the overhead of billing, marketing, collections, denying access to non-subscribers, etc. But the only way to do this is if the resource can be funded in some other way, specifically through taxation.

atmosx 12y ago

> And yet, you claim free market fails. Seriously? You have a cheaper/better internet access in Russia compared to the USA and suddenly the Russian (extremely corrupted) political and social model (a modern monarchy of sorts) became a model economy over the US? PS. I can't find the source, but I've read that in the last Russian elections more than 35% of the population wanted to return back to communism.

cyorir 12y ago
Off by a factor of 2, if you are referring to the Presidential elections in Russia, where the communist party candidate received less than 20% of the vote. 35% roughly includes all parties except Putin's. Although I am not sure that voting against Putin (or voting for the communist party, even) is equivalent to voting to return to communism. Were you referring to a poll, or perhaps another election?
- atmosx 12y ago
  Since I can't find the link, I won't disagree on the numbers you're reporting, but seriously the only one who trusts Russian election results must be Putin (and you). ps. I'm not saying that he wouldn't have won anyway, but I'm sure that the elections in Russia are extremely well guarded.
  - cyorir 12y ago
    I'll admit that I gave official election figures, as estimated by Russian election officials. They are at link [0]. Judging by official results, support for the communist party in Russia has not been anywhere near 30% since the 90's. However the Communist Party is Russia's straw man party, it is built to provide a weak counterexample to Putin and distract those who would otherwise support the main liberal opposition. This is fairly obvious whether you go by official results or western polls. I'm not sure why you think I trust the elections though; you seem to think I am arguing in favor of Putin when I am not. I simply don't think that throwing around a figure like "35% of Russians support communism" is a good idea when it is purposefully misleading and there is nothing to back it up. [0] http://www.parties-and-elections.eu/russia.html http://www.parties-and-elections.eu/russia.html

vacri 12y ago

Everything I see government touches is of low quality, whereas everything that's good in my country is private enterprise. And yet the countries that are consistently in the top 5 or top 10 of most quality-of-life measures are those countries that are social democracies (generally scandanavia and aust/nz/canada), where the government puts its fingers in a lot of pies. If the things that your government touches is bad, then that's a problem with your government, not the awesomeness of the free market. Out of curiosity, how well do your ISPs cater to rural users? People in urban centres are cheap to service, but spread-out rural users are quite expensive.

omgtehlion 12y ago
In rural areas you pay a lot for initial connection, then usual rates. Or just use radio links (WiMAX and fixed 3G stations are kind of popular where my parents live).