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> The competition got serious. It's interesting how pure competition and "rational self-interest" got us the likes of Comcast and Cox and Verizon and all these

> The competition got serious. It's interesting how pure competition and "rational self-interest" got us the likes of Comcast and Cox and Verizon and all these other awful, awful companies. They quickly locked up the market, injected their own lobbyists into Washington, and then were content to provide a poor service for a lot of money. What is shaking them out of their complacency now is not "the market" or "competition" as it's usually understood. It's a very large company, with tons of cash, led by someone (Larry Page) with goals beyond pure financial gains and rock-bottom self-interest. Perhaps it's time to go back to the drawing board, and figure out what's wrong with these purely mechanistic models of society and the markets. It seems like it's time to ask ourselves if a dose of self-less-ness is perhaps required to make the whole system work better. Not a very large dose, mind you, but just a little bit; anything over the current level of zero, really.

jimktrains2 12y ago
> Perhaps it's time to go back to the drawing board, and figure out what's wrong with these purely mechanistic models of society and the market I've always had the impression that it's more a matter of timescales. Places do what's best for them in the next year, not the next 50yrs. If companies thought further ahead and building long term plans and potential would be a reason to spend capital, then I think we'd see a very different market, in many markets.
throwaway90999 12y ago
"with goals beyond pure financial gains and rock-bottom self-interest." This doesn't paint an accurate picture. Google isn't deploying Fiber out of any notion of selflessness. This is a competitive play, and a very good one at that. You say selfless ideals, I say this is exactly how "the market" and "competition" are commonly understood to function -- in the absence of corruption, regulatory capture and state granted monopolies.
- Florin_Andrei 12y ago
  > This is a competitive play, and a very good one at that. Absolutely it is, yes. You're just not looking beyond that level.
  - oldmanjay 12y ago
    And you're ascribing purity of motivation based on nothing more than apparent religious belief in your savior Larry. Hardly a more convincing argument.
- r_edwards 12y ago
  but I would argue a bigger hedge against net neutrality -> not banking on defeating what increasingly looks like regulatory capture.
Retric 12y ago
A soft cap on corporate size seems like the simplest solution. EX: 20,000 employs and or contractors and companies can’t own shares of other companies without being included in that cap. Outsourcing seems like the obvious loophole, but hardly an insurmountable barrier. Though, increasing tax load as companies scale is probably a much better option. Not that there is a realistic chance of this passing any time soon, but large companies are harmful to both democracy and free markets so it's likely to be tried by someone. PS: The only real counter argument I can think of is global completion. Edit: (3 downvotes no responces.) How odd, looks like I hit one of those things you can't say. http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html I wonder why?
jmilloy 12y ago
I tend to think that it's just really easy to look at things on too-small a timescale. Consider the extreme: in a single second, there aren't any discernible market pressures in the ISP industry, and it would be weird to expect it. Which is mainly to say that it is important to talk about how quickly you want competition and market forces to come into play (not just that you want them to) when talking about why and how to change "the system".
cheald 12y ago
You don't think that the core of the issue is regulatory capture, rather than a failing of "the market"? It takes a lot of money to break into a captured market, which is why it takes a large company to do it. Google entering the ISP market has done more to shake up and spur on the incumbents in the past couple of years than anything regulators have done. And furthermore, you can be assured that their doing so is absolutely self-interested; Google isn't building fiber for the betterment of humanity, they're building it to improve the delivery of their services which make them money.
- Florin_Andrei 12y ago
  Regulatory capture is definitely involved, yes. Except it's not the originator of the woes, it's merely an instrument. It's not the bullet that kills the victim, it's the assassin that pulls the trigger.
  - cheald 12y ago
    We have empirical evidence that competition has an immediate effect on improving the marketplace. Competition is hindered because of regulatory capture. It would seem to follow that competition is the cure, and impediment of regulation bought through corruption is the disease.
- xenadu02 12y ago
  It's horribly inefficient to lay new fiber for every ISP that wants to enter the market. At some point the economies of scale are such that it becomes impossible to even enter the market; many thought two entrants was the limit, Google is proving that the market can support three. This is a classic case where government should be laying fiber to cover the last mile and selling access at cost to any ISP that wants it. The equipment on either end can be the ISP's equipment, a fiber is a fiber. Except for cuts, there's nearly no maintenance required.
  - nickik 12y ago
    If three fiber nets are not enougth to creat a good market, why not lay another? If all the ones that are there are really shit there are costumers to be had. And just by the fact that there are three horrible equally sized companys there we allready know that they are not able to change because if they could, they would allready be winning over market share there. Also its easy for one of these providers to sell of there own fibers to many providers on top of itself so they dont have to figure out all the costumer managment and things like that. There are many, many option outthere but the are currenly very hard to take (because of old and new regulation). Everything from a truly huge company building a huge new net for the hole country in order to provit from economy of scale to small local companys that take offer specialised communitys and then spread from there. In principle letting government lay down the fiber sound like a fine idea that can work, but juging by other technical project governemnt do I have my doutes.
jpatokal 12y ago
> pure competition ... injected their own lobbyists into Washington It's either pure competition, or they're injecting lobbyists to tilt the table in their favor, but not both.
hellbanner 12y ago
Have you read 23 Things they Don't tell you about Capitalism, by chance? I think you would enjoy it. http://www.amazon.com/Things-They-Dont-About-Capitalism/dp/1608193381/ http://www.amazon.com/Things-They-Dont-About-Capitalism/dp/1...
chrismcb 12y ago
While I agree that Page has more goals than pure financial gain, I don't see how those other goals really play into fiber. More bandwidth to Americans means more potential money for Google. No one else was increasing the bandwidth, so google is trying to jump start the process. But they are doing it purely for financial gain. It is just a bonus that it also benefits consumers. But isn't that how free markets are supposed to work?
javert 12y ago
> locked up the market, injected their own lobbyists into Washington Ergo, it was not a free market and it was not laissez-faire capitalism. In a free market, i.e. laissez-faire capitalism, anybody is free to do whatever they want as long as they don't initiate the use of force, including the government, so you could not get into the situation you describe in the first place.

jimktrains2 12y ago

> Perhaps it's time to go back to the drawing board, and figure out what's wrong with these purely mechanistic models of society and the market I've always had the impression that it's more a matter of timescales. Places do what's best for them in the next year, not the next 50yrs. If companies thought further ahead and building long term plans and potential would be a reason to spend capital, then I think we'd see a very different market, in many markets.

throwaway90999 12y ago

"with goals beyond pure financial gains and rock-bottom self-interest." This doesn't paint an accurate picture. Google isn't deploying Fiber out of any notion of selflessness. This is a competitive play, and a very good one at that. You say selfless ideals, I say this is exactly how "the market" and "competition" are commonly understood to function -- in the absence of corruption, regulatory capture and state granted monopolies.

Florin_Andrei 12y ago
> This is a competitive play, and a very good one at that. Absolutely it is, yes. You're just not looking beyond that level.
- oldmanjay 12y ago
  And you're ascribing purity of motivation based on nothing more than apparent religious belief in your savior Larry. Hardly a more convincing argument.
r_edwards 12y ago
but I would argue a bigger hedge against net neutrality -> not banking on defeating what increasingly looks like regulatory capture.

Retric 12y ago

A soft cap on corporate size seems like the simplest solution. EX: 20,000 employs and or contractors and companies can’t own shares of other companies without being included in that cap. Outsourcing seems like the obvious loophole, but hardly an insurmountable barrier. Though, increasing tax load as companies scale is probably a much better option. Not that there is a realistic chance of this passing any time soon, but large companies are harmful to both democracy and free markets so it's likely to be tried by someone. PS: The only real counter argument I can think of is global completion. Edit: (3 downvotes no responces.) How odd, looks like I hit one of those things you can't say. http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html I wonder why?

jmilloy 12y ago

I tend to think that it's just really easy to look at things on too-small a timescale. Consider the extreme: in a single second, there aren't any discernible market pressures in the ISP industry, and it would be weird to expect it. Which is mainly to say that it is important to talk about how quickly you want competition and market forces to come into play (not just that you want them to) when talking about why and how to change "the system".

cheald 12y ago

You don't think that the core of the issue is regulatory capture, rather than a failing of "the market"? It takes a lot of money to break into a captured market, which is why it takes a large company to do it. Google entering the ISP market has done more to shake up and spur on the incumbents in the past couple of years than anything regulators have done. And furthermore, you can be assured that their doing so is absolutely self-interested; Google isn't building fiber for the betterment of humanity, they're building it to improve the delivery of their services which make them money.

Florin_Andrei 12y ago
Regulatory capture is definitely involved, yes. Except it's not the originator of the woes, it's merely an instrument. It's not the bullet that kills the victim, it's the assassin that pulls the trigger.
- cheald 12y ago
  We have empirical evidence that competition has an immediate effect on improving the marketplace. Competition is hindered because of regulatory capture. It would seem to follow that competition is the cure, and impediment of regulation bought through corruption is the disease.
xenadu02 12y ago
It's horribly inefficient to lay new fiber for every ISP that wants to enter the market. At some point the economies of scale are such that it becomes impossible to even enter the market; many thought two entrants was the limit, Google is proving that the market can support three. This is a classic case where government should be laying fiber to cover the last mile and selling access at cost to any ISP that wants it. The equipment on either end can be the ISP's equipment, a fiber is a fiber. Except for cuts, there's nearly no maintenance required.
- nickik 12y ago
  If three fiber nets are not enougth to creat a good market, why not lay another? If all the ones that are there are really shit there are costumers to be had. And just by the fact that there are three horrible equally sized companys there we allready know that they are not able to change because if they could, they would allready be winning over market share there. Also its easy for one of these providers to sell of there own fibers to many providers on top of itself so they dont have to figure out all the costumer managment and things like that. There are many, many option outthere but the are currenly very hard to take (because of old and new regulation). Everything from a truly huge company building a huge new net for the hole country in order to provit from economy of scale to small local companys that take offer specialised communitys and then spread from there. In principle letting government lay down the fiber sound like a fine idea that can work, but juging by other technical project governemnt do I have my doutes.

jpatokal 12y ago

> pure competition ... injected their own lobbyists into Washington It's either pure competition, or they're injecting lobbyists to tilt the table in their favor, but not both.

hellbanner 12y ago

Have you read 23 Things they Don't tell you about Capitalism, by chance? I think you would enjoy it. http://www.amazon.com/Things-They-Dont-About-Capitalism/dp/1608193381/ http://www.amazon.com/Things-They-Dont-About-Capitalism/dp/1...

chrismcb 12y ago

While I agree that Page has more goals than pure financial gain, I don't see how those other goals really play into fiber. More bandwidth to Americans means more potential money for Google. No one else was increasing the bandwidth, so google is trying to jump start the process. But they are doing it purely for financial gain. It is just a bonus that it also benefits consumers. But isn't that how free markets are supposed to work?

javert 12y ago

> locked up the market, injected their own lobbyists into Washington Ergo, it was not a free market and it was not laissez-faire capitalism. In a free market, i.e. laissez-faire capitalism, anybody is free to do whatever they want as long as they don't initiate the use of force, including the government, so you could not get into the situation you describe in the first place.