Wow so interesting comparing the comments in this thread vs Reddit. I guess since the HN audience is generally older, they tend to have a more conservative take on this than myself and my peers.
Currently, these are the top five comments:
https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/e710oj/sanders_ca...
>Break up comcast? Clearly bernie is a man for and of the people.
>Finally! It's long overdue. These monopolies need to end so people can have affordable internet access.
>Every day there’s more great news from him.
>And now you know why MSNBC hates Bernie. I really enjoy the network but even I'll admit their Comcast connections get in the way of their ability to actually cover politics in a fair light.
>Fuccckkk comcast
And it continues like that for quite a few more. No substance, just empty rage against 'The Man'. Disagree on any bit of it and prepare to be personally attacked and downvoted into obscurity.
Search an address anywhere in America, go to the ISPs website, and see what the options are. I’d bet money that the vast majority are restricted to one ISP, one will be via coax which is limited to 5mbps upload for the whole neighborhood. The other is the phone company offering DSL (doesn’t count as broadband internet).
The only solution to providing high bandwidth, low latency, symmetric internet is by running fiber wires everywhere. The private company owning the monopoly (Comcast for most) has no reason to do that, and can simply charge whatever they want (as long as it’s not too much to cause sufficient outrage to cause political change). They don’t need to improve their product, which the only way would be to run fiber wires to all the houses, but they can just collect rent from everyone who has no option.
I don't, and I never said that; I said that reddit comments tend to lack substance, and I think the examples show that. Only one of them even mentions the word "Monopoly" (local oligarchies would be more accurate), and it's a very simple, short statement. The rest are complete throwaways.
Look, your response to me was vastly better than any of those. There's no discussion of pros and cons, potential roadblocks, or the complexities of such a large plan. It's just "Bernie is awesome, down with the corporations!". If you disagree, in any way, your labeled a corporate bootlicker. /r/politics is a cult. I didn't come out of that thread having learned anything. I didn't even see a mention of any specific details of the plan in the ~10 top comments I read.
How you can equate that with what you see in the comments here is beyond me.
It’s been known for a long time that the only way to improve internet connections is to run fiber wire. It’s also been known that Comcast and other monopolies lobby and spend money to fight it. It’s known that they stand to lose money by becoming a dumb pipe. So there no discussion to be had, in my opinion, other than governments running their own fiber for their citizens.