David Vs. Goliath > Idiots

reply to B

Re: Idiots

so maybe your company could do a better job? c'mon.

reply to Steve

reply to Steve

But, Steve! There IS no direct competition for cable-style services! DSL is a joke -- the bandwidth's just not there.

This would have BEEN the competition that is supposed to make the market fairer and better.

The same "principle" of disliking government-run utilities (which I am not alien to) should be the same principle that abhors de facto monopolies.

If you ignore the realities, a cable and broadband monopoly that has complete control over what you pay for a service, in favor of a principle (that government "rarely" does better), I just don't think you're being reasonable.

-- B
--
In a realm outside causality and function

Perhaps, but I really don't the government is standing between me and cheaper broadband! Rather, I think the ominous spectre of investing in infrastructure is what keeps any single-sourced wired competition at bay.

I'm viewing this quite practically -- in this case there is a viable proposed competitor in the marketplace, and it only happens to be sponsored via a public initiative. Their web page claims their current plan is ENTIRELY financed through private sector investment, with NO taxpayer dollars.

I just don't see objecting to this simply because the government is involved. I quite like having roads to drive on, sidewalks, a police force and military, and so on. And as you imply, the government was damn well involved in Comcast's ascendancy to this monopoly to begin with.

More to the point, government initiatives are involved in all KINDS of effort to foster private industry, successfully or not. "Economic incentive zones", sales tax wars, etc. If there's no reasonable prospect of a single private competitor starting from scratch, what's wrong with government jump-starting the project, for the benefit of citizens, in an effort to level a skewed playing field created by the "exclusive franchise arrangements" you bemoan?

-- B
--
In a realm outside causality and function

reply to Steve
St. Charles and other municipalities in this area have quite a bit of experience in running their own utilities. They've been doing it for years. St. Charles runs it's own electric utility and our rates are better than Com Ed and the power is more reliable.

Just because it's a municipality doesn't mean they can't do it better.

reply to wiggles4
The only reason NASA did that is because they are a massive monopoly that operates at a loss to keep private business out of the space business.

reply to Steve
americans always believe that private is good and government is evil... i think the truth lies somewhere in between

reply to Steve
Tell that to telstra. It's gone down hill ever since it was privatized (and it's not even fully privatized yet)

reply to B