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Comment by ateesdalejr | Hacker News Reader

What's wrong with rich guys becoming richer? Isn't that the entire process of capitalism? Someone else will come along and topple the monopoly right? If the ISPs cause problems for the consumer there will be a large amount backlash so much so that nobody is going to want to use the ISP. Woops there goes another monopoly.

Most everyone here is a capitalist I'm quite sure of it. You can try refuting your capitalist roots but any one person could say the same of yourself, "Why does that really rich overpaid programmer get all of that money. Let's repeal 'profession neutrality' and take his means to make money away." What are you going to say in response?

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They have a physical monopoly in this case with access to the wires. A startup can't just roll out their own network everywhere, even with unlimited capital, due to the legal rights needed to lay that cable. You also can't choose to not use them anymore as they have become an integral part of society. Many things you used to do in person can only be done on the internet now. At this point there is no functional difference between paying protection money to a gang or paying the ISPs. Your business will be trashed, your own personal livelihood can be destroyed due to lack of internet access, and the government will back up the isp if you fight it in any way.

That is why it's bad that all this does is make the rich richer.

Google fiber is a perfect example. Google for gods sakes couldn’t make an entry. They tried! Google! And barely got into a handful of cities and a very small portion of those cities to boot. If google can’t become a competitor no one else stands a chance in hell. That’s just the reality. Maybe wireless tech will change that but I’m not holding my breath. Even with MM wave stuff.

Nothing wrong with rich guys getting richer. There is a huge problem when it's happening because they've corrupted the government to help them at the expense of consumers, and to preserve their monopoly. It's called regulatory capture, and it's the opposite of free market capitalism.

Doesn't this correlate with poorer guys getting poorer?

Us poor people paid taxes to get those lines up and running we are definitely poorer.

This type of unrestrained capitalism creates monopolies that become unbreakable.

When the cost of entry is so high that laying cables is prohibitively expensive, it's almost impossible to compete with large cable companies to break their hold. Look at how much Google has struggled to roll out Fiber, due to all the complicated laws surrounding where and how you can lay these lines down in cities.

By forcing ISP's to maintain the fast lane, you could ensure that they would compete on fair terms, rather than just squeeze money from other corporations.

"What's wrong with rich guys becoming richer?"

Because it happens by doing something that negatively affects the rest of us. If they were getting richer by something that benefitted the rest of us too, that'd be fine.

I'm already unhappy with my ISP; they constantly raise prices without raising service, and I don't reach even 20% of the speed that I'm paying for. Looking for another ISP: Hmm. Well, I could go mobile (surely they won't have a problem with a couple hundred GB a month in bandwidth!) Or there's satellite (same issue, plus horrendous latency). Guess I'm stuck with the cable company.

Let's hope for the future that someone new comes in. Looks up local regulations...the city gave that company exclusive franchise rights. Great.

> Woops there goes another monopoly.

I can dream, I guess.

Move to Thailand.

Nah, pretty sure I've disparaged their king at least once.

> profession neutrality

What even...?

Something thought of at the spur of the moment. I'm pretty sure no such thing as profession neutrality exists. But if it did and it were being repealed it would most likely be a big deal.

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