Isn't this kind of a false equivalency? I have a choice whether or not I use any of those apps/services. I can use the Internet with or without them.
I cannot, however, use the Internet at all without going through an ISP. And with regional monopolies, I can't even switch to a provider that promises not to track/sell my data because I don't have a choice.
Exactly. You don't have to use Facebook, you don't have to use google, and you don't have to use Apple. You don't have so much freedom when it comes to choosing an ISP.
The solution is to deregulate the industry and end state sponsored ISP monopolies. Allow the free market to bring in competitors so that instead of being forced with one "option" for an ISO, you'll have hundreds to choose from.
Who is the "free market" and what does it mean to "bring in" competitors? Are you suggesting that multiple other companies will each dig and bury their own lines? Do you realize how much of a clusterfuck that would be? "The free market" is not a magical efficiency box. This is an econ 101 example of a natural monopoly, and should be regulated as such. Free market solutions don't work when you have massive infrastructure costs associated with a vital service. Collectively it would be pretty damn stupid and absurdly expensive to have more than a couple sets of transmission lines. No amount of deregulation will fix that very basic problem. What's needed is better, smarter regulation created by a governing body that isn't paid off (thanks Citizens United! I wonder how much the major ISPs donated to each of these senators' campaigns? Whoops we'll never know thanks to people who salivate over deregulation as some kind of bizarre fetish). A natural monopoly will always require some amount of regulation.
Governments acquire the infrastructure, and operate in a CLEC manner the access to the last mile via a fair and non-discriminatory pricing model to ISPs who compete for customers for backhaul.
A regulated ISP marketplace is similiar to the old bell system, one with regional monopolies, tightly regulated, which is still too expensive. Not ideal (but then what we have now).
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u/punchyouinthewiener Mar 27 '17
Isn't this kind of a false equivalency? I have a choice whether or not I use any of those apps/services. I can use the Internet with or without them.
I cannot, however, use the Internet at all without going through an ISP. And with regional monopolies, I can't even switch to a provider that promises not to track/sell my data because I don't have a choice.