3 ms·
> high taxes on the land you're using, government not allowing you to bury lines below roads and other obstructions, and similar regulatory issues. Citation?
by DannoHung 17y ago
> high taxes on the land you're using, government not allowing you to bury lines below roads and other obstructions, and similar regulatory issues.
Citation?
Honestly, I'd think that the main reason that telegraph lines could only profitably be installed along railroad lines would be because of maintenance concerns.
- javert 17y agoUnfortunately, I don't have a citation on this. I'm just appealing to common sense. If there are no regulatory barriers to providing some service, someone will do it, when they are able to do it profitably. Which means that they'll do it when it's actually worth doing. If there were no regulatory monopoly on creating telegraph lines, WU wasn't really that bad, and it wasn't really needed/worth it. (After all, the article does not make a case that WU successfully manipulated the election.) However, I think it's far more likely that there was a regulatory monopoly, as there is for modern telecoms.
- billjings 17y agoLand rights are more important than property taxes. I don't think that private property rights can reasonably be called a regulatory barrier.