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Comment by ransom1538 | Hacker News Reader

Comcast board meeting (RIGHT NOW): "First things first, how do we charge more for netflix streaming."

I can also see some of the four horsemen (AAPL, GOOG, AMZN, FB) discussing something along these lines: "We have enough cash and/or market cap to buy some of these last-mile companies AND we can block our competitors. Shall we pull the trigger?"

Joke? If not, source?

Obviously a joke, but probably not terribly inaccurate from what we can expect in the future.

They're free to do so; companies exist to make money. Cable internet carriers probably will attempt something like this.

The next thing that will happen is, when Comcast goes too far, another provider (cable? wireless carrier? satellite broadband? something new from a startup?) disrupts the market by offering an alternative to Comcasts' egregious policies. Comcast loses subscribers and is monetarily forced to be more consumer-friendly.

Except due to regulatory capture and lobbying of enough municipalities this has become harder

Selling a plain service and doing it well for a fair price should have won most consumers but they will switch companies for minor discounts or the shiniest cellphone then complain they get shafter

Yes, you're right, regulations make it more difficult.

But if startups have taught us anything, it's that businesses find a way to disrupt existing economies even in the face of regulations.

Ironically, Net Neutrality (NN) is itself a regulation. One of the reasons we reject NN is because creating regulations often has unintended consequences. We believe it's better to not have the regulation and let the free market and open competition sort out the details.

> another provider

This is laughably naive.

Hand waving and saying the market will correct itself (somehow? someway? someday?) is unhelpful.

Not someway, somehow. I gave a concrete example of how it will correct itself.

If we wish to talk about hand waving, consider all the "the internet is going to blow up!" hysteria[0] going on right now from the pro-NN side.

[0]: https://twitter.com/thereaIbanksy/status/940989790677291010

Hand waving and saying the government will correct the market (and not create new problems or itself be a source of problems) is unhelpful.

In the last ten years, I've lived in 6 different localities and have had a total of 4 options for ISP, never more than 2 at any given time. In at least some of those cases, I've watched as potential competition to those options was shut down by ISP-lobbied local regulation. At whatever point there's a possibility of competition in this space, I'll readily buy the free-market argument that they should be de-regulated.

Are you counting wireless as an option? We're beginning to see some folks use their mobile carrier + tethering as their home internet, often times with better speeds than their cable internet.

And what does the future hold? Undoubtedly more competition: the internet already plays a huge role in our lives, and that's likely to only increase. A startup that can disrupt the cable company stranglehold would tap a huge market and force cable companies to be more consumer-friendly.

Wireless is the only plausible competitor. Currently, the costs are still too high and the reliability too low. However, looking 1-2 years forward this will be a very attractive option.

How exactly are they going to lose subscribers when a vast majority of them have no alternative?

Great! So the competitor can rely on leasing municipal broadband networks to avoid expensive, wide-spread fiber buildout? No, because that’s illegal in many cities thanks to lobbying from Comcast and friends.

Ok, so the competitor can build their own fiber network. That’s very expensive and time consuming, but it can be done...if local legislators approve it. Sure hope Comcast and friends don’t have any influence there! This is one of the suspected reasons for the failure of Google Fiber, but hey, maybe it’ll work next time.

Incidentally my two options for internet service are:

1) Comcast 2) A local competitor offering sub-1MBPS

Some choice.

You're thinking too small. Disruptive technologies are disruptive so often because they bypass the current infrastructure. Ford didn't need horses, Lyft didn't need a fleet of taxis. Maybe the next disruptive broadband company doesn't need to lease existing wire infrastructure.

As for internet service options today, yes, it's not great. But it's getting better. We already have several options; here are two examples. Some wireless carriers already allow unlimited tethering; no cables needed. Broadband via satellite is available virtually everywhere in the US; again, no cable infrastructure needed.

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