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Comment by ja30278 | Hacker News Reader

   * having tax-subsidized government entities competing with private business doesn't exactly lead to a vibrant competitive marketplace

   * I'd rather not have any facet of government in an easy position to monitor my internet traffic.

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By that argument, why is the government in the security business competing with the private sector to protect citizens against crime?

Up here in Socialist Canada, in addition to keeping its citizens healthy, the government actually provides the water I drink in direct competition with the private sector who sell water in nice little plastic bottles. Yum :-)

Also, the expression "tax-subsidized" is not correct. Funding an activity with taxes is one thing. Subsidizing an activity with taxes is something else, such as a program to give privately held corporations massive tax breaks in exchange for locating their businesses in a particular state or county. Which companies do, and somehow I never hear conservative pundits complain about the anti-competitive tax subsidizing going on.

By that argument, why is the government in the security business competing with the private sector to protect citizens against crime?

Well, that's the argument for anarchy, isn't it? (I am not being sarcastic).

But, as you know, "why is the government doing X" is a question which doesn't have much or anything to do with "ought we have the government do X".

Yeah, the point of the security/anarchy argument is that you can't just argue blindly from a position of "less government" as if it were an end rather than a means, because if that's your only concern, you're free to move to Somalia and experience the free market first hand.

It turns out that many subjects require more knowledge and sophistication than a 2-word bumper sticker if you want to set smart policy.

Strangely, it turns out that there are groups in Somalia who will demand that you pay them in order to continue to exist, and the penalties for not paying this -- what shall we call it? Oh, yeah -- tax is even worse than not paying taxes here. The US has far less government/crime* for its GDP than Somalia.

* "government" being what large criminal enterprises are called, basically.

Do you think that the current system has led to a vibrant competitive marketplace for consumer broadband in the US? The facts seem to be that many municipalities are able to provide much faster connections at a lower price than the local cable monopolies are either able or willing to do. If you put aside theoretical preconceptions about how economies ought to run, it's hard to see how anyone can argue the better service at a lower price is a bad thing.

Of course the price is lower. If Time Warner had the power to levy property taxes in addition to charging for internet services, they could probably get away with charging less for internet access.

If companies weren't effectively buying monopoly rights from local authorities their prices might be lower too. Here in San Francisco you still can't get residential fiber in over half the city, and you can't have it without bundled TV or phone service so the minimum is $80/mo for a 15/5 connection in the neighborhoods where it is available. There's one cable provider and one DSL provider, and the services are proportionately expensive.

For a major city in a financial/tech hub of the world's richest country, the available consumer options are pretty weak.

Are tax revenues being used to subsidize the lower price? I honestly don't know. You seem to suggest that they are, but you don't offer any data to back it up.

I'd rather not have any facet of government in an easy position to monitor my internet traffic.

In fairness, it's a bit late for that:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nsa#AT.26T_Internet_monitoring

Telcos and cable companies often receive subsidies at the state level to bring broadband to out-of-the-way places, for speed improvements, etc. Not sure if this is the case in NC, but the situation nationwide is not that clear-cut.

This bill angers me. I've ranted about my / my parent's situation before (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2328423).

TLDR version of which is: Parents are in rural NC. Northland Cable services the area but not my parent's street. Time Warner is less than mile away. They cant service area because Northland has exclusivity. DSL isnt there. 1mb wireless is there but with 30% packet loss.

It saddens me every time I return for a visit. I see more and more businesses going away (it has been like this for years) and no new businesses moving in for the most part.

I can't help but feel that if the county actually had some reliable form of internet access to a larger portion of the county (s/internet/broadband) that things could improve a little. As it stands right now, I know some folks who moved to the county for work and then left because they could not get broadband at their home.

Anyway... I'm sleepy and ranting again.

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