The argument given is this process empowers the public and gives them choices.

But it's usually instrumented through monopolies: cartels, m&a, patent protection, natural & geographic monopolies or some mechanism where the choice remains merely theoretical.

For example, the organization discussed here.

So the public gives up control, never gets the choice, and usually weirdly enough still pays for it - the profits just get funneled out of the system.

For instance, in high speed internet, the infrastructure is usually built by tax dollars and those same consumers pay a second time for service on the platform they just paid to build.

This is usually justified by the fact that it's expensive to build the infrastructure conveniently ignoring the source of the funds. The public usually isn't careful enough to deconstruct this rationale.. Really.

It's wacky when you think about it. Fluffy marketing words like "small government" and "free market" which seems to always strangely lead to the most expensive option with the least public control and oversight.

It's a giant hustle, like back when taxpayers built sports stadiums for tax revenue from tax-exempt NFL teams. Without exception all it did was blow huge holes in the city books with the phantom returns never coming. It's a hoodwink operation. Nothing more.

Instead, let the government own some for-profits and cut taxes that way. Like the public bank of North Dakota, municipal internet or the collectors editions from the US mint. If taxpayers build the stadium, taxpayers own the team, simple.

There's no logical reason the public has to be left just with the stinkers that lose money while the winners get privatized away. We'll be paying someone to run the stuff we paid to build, might at well be ourselves