Personally I am pro net neutrality. Usually I am all for free market solutions, but most of the places I have lived there was only one available ISP. A free market requires competition and when your choices are ‘Comcast’ or ‘no internet at home’ that’s not really a scenario ripe for free market solutions. I don’t agree with all of the net neutrality rules, but I do believe that the government should be involved in trust busting.
So one of the things that I saw being shared around was this graphic is being pushed by Democrat Congressional candidate from California Ro Khanna.
If the net neutrality people really wanted to get people on their side, one of those packages would have to be labeled “Pornography.”
Nothing will make the demand single service pricing in internet service more pressing than millions of American homes getting an itemized bill for internet that includes a special porn service.
Just let that fight break out at bill paying time.
“Honey, why are we paying $14.99/MO in gaming and $19.99/MO in Porn?”
They made the mistake of having all the itemized items adding up to the same amount as the net netrality version. In a unfettered monoply, monoply pricing rules. The itemzed bill prices would probably double at least.
but most of the places I have lived there was only one available ISP
That’s because the legislature declared there would only be one owner of each kind of ‘last mile’ wires to the houses. Repeal that monopoly, disband the FCC, and there will be more ISPs, too.
> Repeal that monopoly, disband the FCC, and there will be more ISPs, too.
>
That is a reasonable assumption. But not the only one.
It could also happen that this last-mile-rule is cancelled, it becomes the property of whoever laid it. Every other provider will be free to lay their own cable. And for most remote places, no one will want to do it, because it is not profitable. So they will rent capacity on that cable and re-sell this, which will lead to a plethora of offers that do not differ much at all, which is a great way to hide actual monopolies behind faux competition.
This potential future sounds more convoluted, I’ll admit. It is also what actually happened in Germany. Rural areas do not have real alternatives. There’s only a few big cities where providers bothered to lay down their own cables.
Abolishing former monopolies is not that easy when it is not some much about rules but about physical stuff that is surprisingly expensive to build.
The notion of a monopoly doesn’t really hold up. In most places, you have cable plus the phone company plus the cellular companies (3 or 4 of them). Admittedly in some rural places, like where I live, there’s only cable plus, maybe, cell phone. In some *way* out places, perhaps none at all. Well, there is always satellite.
The easiest answer is to abolish the legal monopoly. If it’s actually a “natural monopoly” nothing changes. But if it’s a monopoly only due to the law, then there will be competition. The only ones who will suffer from such a change are the worthless bureaucrats enforcing the current unconstitutional monopoly.
As for the graphic, I’d love the choice at the bottom — since I don’t do social media, getting a discount for a “no facebook/twitter” service would be just what I want.
There are no “natural monopolies”, it does not exist, it is mythical. Monopoly is only and always an act of government. If the homeowner doesn’t want to pay for a better wire to be installed to their house, then they don’t. There is no special economic name for this priority decision by the homeowner.
It’s possible that there might exist one (but only one) example of a non-government natural monopoly: DeBeers diamonds. At least in years past when diamonds basically came only from South Africa.
But apart from that one example (if it’s still real), you’re absolutely right, monopolies exist only because the government violated its duty to the citizens by protecting some company that paid the politicians enough.
Oh yeah because every time the government takes something over and regulates it, it’s ALWAYS better than the free market. Government is always on the cutting edge.
Wait, did that sound as stupid to you as it just did to me?
https://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2017/11/27/net-neutrality-explained-via-professor-hazletts-great-book-the-political-spectrum/amp/
The issue is, you can’t undo half a regulation. If the government is going to allow local monopolies on ISPs it has to maintain net neutrality, or else you get monopoly pricing.
If you are going to repeal net neutrality, that you have to use anti-trust laws to make ISPs a truly free market.
The word ‘monopoly’ is defined to mean legislative action, not how many sources there are for a good or service. Single sourced goods are common, for example only Author X writes stories about Character Y.
you can’t undo half a regulation
Of course you can. You’re arguing that once a rape commences, the rapists’ penis has to be fully inserted and orgasm or you will be offended by the lack of “ordered liberty”.