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Comment by EchoChamberMan | Hacker News Reader

Profit at any cost is absolutely a problem.

Profit in free markets drives competitors to come in and eat those profits.

The problem we have right now is that BigCos use government to erect barriers to entry.

There are plenty of monopolies, duopolies, etc in the "free" market that have nothing to do with governments. Example: How broadband companies share the map and don't intrude into each other's "territories".

They're literally granted monopolies by local governments.

Largely in part due to regulatory capture; it is not necessarily innate of a government to cause this. Maybe restrictions on how corporations are able to influence governments to act against their constituency might solve this problem, rather than giving corporations carte blanche to do anything...

Both ISPs and PG&E are monopolies/duopolies by government mandate. Those markets are incredibly far from the capitalist ideal of a free market.

What you're looking at is corruption, not capitalism.

You are right, I forgot about that. I guess it is capitalism/greed induced corruption.

When the capital investment to compete with large players in the ISP/electricity market is enormous you will, eventually, end up with a monopoly either way.

Laying cables for internet/electricity is expensive, I cannot comprehend why the USA hasn't understood this particularity and hasn't attempted to create a publicly-owned national grid and fibre infrastructure where providers can plug into and offer internet connectivity and electricity production over it.

You do not want multiple competing companies laying down their own electricity cables, nor internet cables, it's wasteful and just creates a huge barrier for any competition to appear...

Other countries have tackled this issue by regulating that the company that owns the cable and the company that provides the service over the cables are separate entities, frequently with the cable owner being the state.

Public utilities don't operate in a free market. It's not possible, the infrastructure is public.

BigCos using government to erect barriers to entry isn't a distortion of free markets. It’s an inherent outcome of capitalism's maturity, where monopolies and oligopolies emerge naturally.

The problem becomes when growth of profits is the only driving metric. At some point the company will look at ways to screw over any entity outside of the company to ensure profits and growth. Sure they erect barriers but this issue is prevalent among all big companies in the US.

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