Yes. Free Market so long as your company has multiple billions to spend on infrastructure and competition. Finland, Denmark, and a bunch of other countries have even stricter internet regulatory laws (regulated a s a public utility), yet somehow companies make money hand over fist while providing a competitive service. Strange.
I'd argue that the business exec that wants to succeed in a free market would increase his/her bandwith and speed in order to attract more customers. Survival of the fittest has worked forever - socialism, not so much.
But don't forget that in many places there is legally only 1 option. Maybe 2. Yeah infrastructure is very expensive and only big companies can do it, but when only 1 big company is legally allowed to service an area, the problem is magnified. That is something that the market can solve, if the local/state/federal governments would allow it.
Public good: In economics, a public good is a good that is both non-excludable and non-rivalrous in that individuals cannot be effectively excluded from use and where use by one individual does not reduce availability to others. The internet cannot be a public good. Bandwidth is scarce and rivalrous.
You are consistently overlooking the whole monopoly part... there is no more market share for them to grab.
Guess what this new ruling did? Yep, it overturned regulation that was preventing competition. Do you guys understand what this ruling is stating? It is prohibiting the existing companies from using their virtual monopoly to make arbitrary decisions on the level of service that content providers receive. At the same time, it's striking down some barriers that were preventing competitive broadband infrastructure from being built. This is regulation of broadband like the first amendment is regulation of free speech.
The article you just linked states that the half measure the FCC chose actually isn't doing that. The FCC's involvement in this practice of preempting state laws is also constitutionally dubious. That's a nice way of saying it's unconstitutional. Like the FCC's existence. But all of this just makes it clear that people need to work at the local and state level to have these rules changed. Keep the feds out of it. FWP?
I read the article - but I don't understand how the fcc ruling will fix things. The ruling says that everyone needs to have the same internet speed, it doesn't say that everyone should have internet. I still say if we let the markets prevail, everyone wins.
And my point is that there is no market. A "free market" has low or non-existent barriers to entry, which is not the case with US broadband.
I disagree - the market doesn't exist because of regulations on the telecom industry. If you eliminate the regulations the market will create itself. Barriers to entry don't create a market - the ability to compete on an equal playing field does.
Are you just quoting from an Econ 101 book or what? Do you seriously not see how the need to lay down an entire physical infrastructure to service an entire city/section of a city is not an enormous barrier to entry into this market? The telecom and cable companies already had the majority of this infrastructure in place.
Give me more credit than that. Let's reverse the question - are you telling me that regulation hasn't helped to create the monopoly that currently exits? I agree that it costs a ton of money to build the infrastructure - but the people that are allowed to build it can do so because of regulations. Open up the market and everything changes - including a reduction in the cost of entry. That's called competition.
The regulation that you speak of allowed such an industry to exist in the first place. Meaning, as Binary said - the barriers to entry are enormous. Ok, so you get rid of regulations, do you get rid of all regulations? Meaning, I want to get in the internet service provider business. What do I need to do? I need to build a network, it would seem. That also means tearing up streets to install cable, wiring, etc. Are you proposing I shouldn't have to get permits and when I tear up the streets and install my stuff that I can just tell anyone that comes along that 'sorry, street closed, free market baby!' Or how about I fuck up existing power lines, phone lines, water lines, gas lines, because we get rid of the regulation that requires I act in accordance with local permits that I don't have to get? Then, can I just install shit in public areas? Public buildings? Of course, I'm being facetious. The big issue here is that people quote Adam Smith without actually reading it (granted, it's boring as shit, and derivative, and basically a justification for certain companies being granted licenses in Victorian England, but I digress) - but if you DO read it, what actually comes through is that some industries - roads, infrastructure, etc. are not subject to free market theory because under free market theory no single entity would build it because it is not in its best interest to provide something that everyone uses but is of no profitable value to themselves. Those regulations you speak of? That was to enable the system we currently use to get built in the first place, as no one was going to build it all without some guarantee of making money off it. The phone lines were the same way. You think AT&T would have built the network they did across this country without some guarantee of making their money back? Of course not - and by the way - back in the 80's AT&T was forced to share it's lines, but this was after decades of having a monopoly and making its money back on the network. So understand the difference between goods which are actually subject to free market theory, such as shoes, or clothes, and things that are not, such as bridges and power grids. Free market theory is nice - but it is merely a model to explain consumer/manufacturer behavior in certain set conditions - which rarely exist in the real world.
Then you don't understand infrastructure development costs or time lines at all. We are already playing on a skewed field, and just removing regulation at this point won't magically equalize things. They have built up a juggernaut (aka monopoly) using government regulation and funding. And even if it did, it will be highly localized and selective, like the Google Fibre offering. Just because Kansas City now has Google Fibre doesn't mean that the market has stabilized, or will stabilize, because 99.999% of the rest of the country is still stuck using the infrastructure that was built out by the other ISPs, due to that unfair cash and regulatory advantage they had. The least that can happen is that they are then mandated/regulated to not rape their customers with that advantage, which is what it seems the FCC has done (in part) with this ruling. They have also regulated that everyone gets free access on those networks, which makes everything an equal playing field. Without Net Neutrality, startups could be squeezed out of viability by arbitrary "network taxes or fees" imposed by the ISP's.
Actually what you are saying is only partially true - Bell systems starting installing phone lines long before 1934 which is when the regulations I'm referring to were put in place. They were put in place because Bell Systems in fact created a monopoly - because of a free market. They had the where with all and the money to make it happen. There are many more players in the game these days and I'm not suggesting we let anyone tear up the streets, what I am suggesting is that the infrastructure is there owned by a number of people - let the market determine who can get in the game. As much as I enjoy a spirited debate, I have kids to pick up and weekend stuff to do - I'm out of here for now. Have a good weekend folks.
In my state (Washington and I imagine in a lot of others), telecom and cable companies were given monopolies from local governments in exchange for the ability to lay down infrastructure. In fact, these same companies were given subsidies from governments to sweeten the deal. The ensuing monopoly made it impossible for new competition to exist. In my state, phone and cable company lobbyists got a law passed banning the creation of new municipal broadband after the city of Tacoma got fed up and opened their fiber network to home and businesses. With the passing of this law, Tacoma couldn't (and still can't) expand their fiber network to allow for competition with Comcast. tl;dr. The monopolies exist because the unregulated broadband industry wrote legislation essentially banning competition.
Do you blame companies with money for trying to protect their money and make more of it? Is that not what you do in your personal life everyday? The problem there is the assholes in local/state/federal governments that passed the laws that their industry friends wanted them to pass. Your last sentence doesn't even make sense. How can an unregulated market regulate and pass legislation? Legislation is what governments do. It's like you think these fuckwits in congress are just busy worrying about the world and trying to fix it until the evil money pusher comes by and offers them a taste.
I blame companies once they begin harming competition and the very customers they depend on to stay in business. Comparing a corporation and the average worker is like comparing a fucking tricycle and a Bugatti in terms of transportation. There is a huge difference between a guy doing a 9-5 and a corporation who is printing money. I wish I had the resources to pay for Congressmen and women to legislate paid maternity and paternity leave for my wife and me. I point you to your previously quoted sentence. Cable and telecom companies argued that broadband provided by their infrastructure didn't fall under any regulation. Until the FCC removed their thumb from their butthole last week, those companies then lobbied for legislation that would prevent you, the average consumer, from using any other internet provider than them. This is why roughly 80-85% of American households only have one choice in internet service providers. To ask the free market to sort this situation out would be like inviting the fox into the henhouse. Comcast, Verizon, et. al. have stacked the deck so far in favor of themselves that it is nearly impossible for anybody to put a dent in their marketshare. It took Google (only the biggest internet company in the WORLD) to stand up to these companies and they've only been able to roll out their service in Kansas City, Provo and Austin. And they haven't even been able to roll out completely in those cities.
The government that spies on people, tortures them, runs endless wars around the world, and dictates every day bullshit in people's lives isn't fox-like? My point about companies making money is they behave in their natural way, which is to do whatever is in their perceived interest. Just like average people do. Just like the government does.