Comment by ancap | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ancap | Hacker News Reader

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> Factor in no need to advertise services

I've seen plenty of advertisements for government services.

> no duplication of effort (and greater scale)

The "duplication of effort" is a plus for a functioning market bringing competition, cooperation, lower cost, and increased standard of living. [1]

> no sales department

Whether they have this or that department will be greatly outweighed by the massive bureaucratic burden and special interest groups.

> no executive bonuses at all levels

If they are to have competent people to run the program (which is probably asking too much of a government program) then they will have to be compensated similarly as they would be in a private organization, whether that includes bonuses or not.

> no legal department

Will be replaced by the armed enforcement department.

> no billing

There is but it is outsourced to the IRS or other department

> no metering

Like it or not, access to the internet is a scarce resource, and regardless of who operates the infrastructure there are technical bottlenecks which have to be managed. If there are no caps, no metering it will be guaranteed to be overrun by abusers and be an overall horrible experience. This will essentially turn internet access into tragedy of the commons.

[1] See the first two-ish minutes of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kB2gBgsqPac as Friedman compares duplication of economic efforts to duplication of intellectual research (a point which I think some on HN can appreciate).

> I've seen plenty of advertisements for government services.

For basic things like roads?

> The "duplication of effort" is a plus for a functioning market bringing competition, cooperation, lower cost, and increased standard of living. [1]

Cooperation beats competition. Think Linux and Balkanized Unix (if you want to stay in the tech analogies)

> Whether they have this or that department will be greatly outweighed by the massive bureaucratic burden and special interest groups.

What would those SIGs defend?

> If they are to have competent people to run the program

Not everyone competent work for money. Maybe that will weed out the sociopaths from C-level positions, at least.

> Will be replaced by the armed enforcement department.

I'd love to know your reasoning behind this.

> There is but it is outsourced to the IRS or other department

Which cuts costs because they are already doing it and there is no increase in their workload.

> Like it or not, access to the internet is a scarce resource

Yes, but you only need to assess health and ensure QoS levels are maintained. It's completely understandable to be throttled in peak load times and enjoy more resources off-peak.

> I've seen plenty of advertisements for government services.

>For basic things like roads?

Ever listen to the radio?? The government has a lot of advertisements. Everything from "Make sure you have the correct child safety seat in your vehicle" to the standard "think before you drink" or don't beat your wife as well as the advertising of services that one should use.. You occasionally see them on late night TV, but you can often see them at times when children watch tv.

> Will be replaced by the armed enforcement department.

>I'd love to know your reasoning behind this

i think is using historical references. However, govts have notoriously used force in some method or another. Imminent domain and civil assett forfeiture readily come to mind. Of course govt can use other methods including weaponizing it's agencies, e.g. the IRS and the FBI are historic examples, but one could imagine the FCC doing similar.. I understand that's difficult to grasp depending on your political persuasion.

> There is but it is outsourced to the IRS or other department

>Which cuts costs because they are already doing it and there is no increase in their workload

I'm not even sure, are you serious about this??. Surely not.

> Like it or not, access to the internet is a scarce resource

>Yes, but you only need to assess health and ensure QoS levels are maintained. It's completely understandable to be throttled in peak load times and enjoy more resources off-peak.

Again. This seems pretty short sighted. Tech changes, and it changes fast. The idea that we should enshrine some particular technology in place for the future is horrific in terms of future innovation.

But more than this, i think we now have a fundamental misunderstanding of what a "right" is. I tend to think the end goal of such articles is the marginalization of the word, as has been done with other words such as rape..

Those examples are for public service announcements which aren't technically advertisements.

> Cooperation beats competition.

It's hard to think of greater scale of cooperation than what happens in the free market

> What would those SIGs defend?

Without even getting very creative: obscure routes to place lines, brands of hardware, companies to outsource installation/maintenance to, subsidizing of higher up core internet infrastructure, acceptable and unacceptable internet content, subsidizing internet content (since what good is the "right" of internet access if you don't have the "right" to certain content). This is just scraping the surface.

> Not everyone competent work for money. Maybe that will weed out the sociopaths from C-level positions, at least.

You're right but not in the way you think. The sociopaths are drawn to positions of power.

> I'd love to know your reasoning behind this.

Virtually every government department has armored vehicles, SWAT style teams, etc. Just a cursory google search reveals that even many local school districts now have armored vehicles, grenade launchers, etc.

> Which cuts costs because they are already doing it and there is no increase in their workload.

As stated previously, any cost savings possibly imagined are greatly outweighed by the bureaucratic machine created.

> It's completely understandable to be throttled in peak load times and enjoy more resources off-peak.

Turning the internet into the commons means there is no "off-peak".

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