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Comment by bkeroack | Hacker News Reader

What are the odds that the city will run an ISP better than, say, the DMV?

In my observations, problems at the DMV are usually because of the public, not the DMV. People show up to register a car without a title, have missing paperwork to get a license plate, and are generally unprepared.

The DMV spells out what you need online, but people show up and need every little thing explained to them. I'm at the counter for 5 minutes, pay my fees, and walk out the door.

Why was this other goof-ball at the window for 25 minutes? 99% of the time, because they did something wrong.

No need for heavy stats here, but let's look at popular opinion of the DMV. If there is broad variance in the amount of time it takes to tackle simple issues (such as paying a fine), then I'd suggest someone look at the process, the operations, or both. A "human behavior be damned" perspective isn't going to help anyone.

> let's look at popular opinion of the DMV

Let's look at popular opinion of Comcast!

In all seriousness, we are exiting (I hope) a time of anti-government fervor where no matter what the government did (unless it's the police and military) it was by default assumed to be done poorly. I no longer think this is the case, and there is a ton of stuff that our government does extremely well.

Don't forget that the people who work at the DMV are the public, and they aren't perfect. I've had so many different sets of requirements explained to me by different people, counter clerks who wouldn't accept paperwork that was just examined by the line-keeper/ticket-giver, situations where one clerk tried to turn me away where their neighbor said "What's the problem? Here, gimme that..." and 5 minutes later everything is taken care of.

Pretty good actually. My main gripe with the DMV is the time spent waiting in line. That's hard to scale. To make the line go faster you need to hire more people. Your driver's license is an important security touch point, so it's going to be hard to move away from getting it in person. An ISP is pretty different from that, right?

The California DMV has an appointment system that will let you avoid (mostly) waiting, just go at your appointed time and (in my experience) you'll be served within 10 minutes of that time, if not earlier.

They also have a online wait-time monitor for offices online, so you can look at neighboring cities for a shorter wait, it could be worth a 15 minutes drive to a more distance office to save 45 minutes of waiting.

My first UK passport was applied for using a paper form submitted at a local post office -- this was pre-widespread Internet. The person in the post office could advise that my photo met the technical requirements (size etc), but couldn't verify my identity.

The most recent renewal was done with an online system which produced a single page PDF declaration -- the rest of the data was only electronic. I printed it, attached my photos, signed and posted it. The new passport was delivered two days later.

You can see the application process: https://www.gov.uk/apply-renew-passport

I think the same applies for a driving license, but my first still has some years before expiry.

As a resident, I can honestly say that Fort Collins' city government is exceptionally well run. That's one of the reasons why we voted in favor of this.

They don’t need to run it better than the DMV to beat Comcast.

This is why it is so sad, but true.

DMV is run by the state, not the city. Municipal level organizations are police and fire, which can be run very efficiently.

What's wrong with how DMV is run?

My state's DMV has essentially moved to a mostly online system where you pay online and get documents mailed to you. I think the only reason to ever show up at the DMV is to take or re-take your driving test.

All the renewals are done online. I haven't been to the DMV in almost a decade.

I lived in a community with municipal broadband (Brigham City, UT / UTOPIA fiber) and it was extremely well run. There were still private ISPs handling basically everything, it's just that they used city-owned fiber and offered very reasonable rates.

So this is essentially the taxpayer paying to build out infrastructure that private enterprise then runs and collects profits on right? This is a good thing? Wasn't that always the argument why pharmaceutical companies are so evil, because they appropriate public research for private profit?

The infrastructure collects fees to pay for itself, generally. It isn't provided to private enterprise for free.

Residents are generally happy with the other municipal utilities provided in Fort Collins.

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