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Comment by arthurofbabylon | Hacker News Reader

I’m seeing a lot of misplaced cynicism in the comments, much of which fails to deal with the subject matter of the article.

The US really does have a capitalism crisis with declining competition — it does not require any form of special intelligence to see that.

Switzerland really does have vastly superior infrastructure — it does not take some stroke of brilliance to see that.

The essay elegantly articulates the why. Even if the anti-public commentariat doesn’t like Switzerland’s strong governance, even if there is a varying spread of speeds/competition or whatever else is being measured, even if one small country is out-performing a big one on many metrics… it doesn’t change the underlying insights of the essay, insights that the US desperately needs to understand.

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It is an essay not a scientific paper. As such it's more an opinion peace. The first question in my head why it does not compare with Rumania and South Korea.

It might be they had a more free market approach (I don't know really). Poland has a strong wireless connection infrastructure and it has there a market approach e.g.

The reason the essay from Switzerland compares to Germany as both counties are part of the German speaking world and to the US as Americans are very loud on HN , Internet so you need to canter this audience.

That's why I don't like this essay. This very specific sound from "we know it better". This essay doesn't want to find the best way for this type of infrastructure. Ironically I know this sound only from Germany.

The author is Swiss – your ad hominem attach fails twice. And again, I'll direct you to original point of my above comment and a point made in the essay: if you want to be effective you'll need to look past ideology to see the actually working dynamics of the system. There is no doubt that the Swiss internet service provision system is superior to the US and Germany – no doubt. The essay explains why, an essay you are welcome to read.

Ok and you couldn't get my argument: Why not Rumania, South Korea? These countries have also a great quality of internet. On mobile Poland, France and Austria?

This is also a difference between an ideologicopinion piece with a "Ive told you so" and "Markets are bad " to an scientific review.

I'm sure the analysis could be expanded – why don't you give your try at an essay? If you write it, I'll read it.

How much should the essay be expanded? Surely we don't want a 1:1 scale model of reality. We probably should not factor in the conductivity of water and compare against the cost of 1 liter of milk; although if I wanted to attack the integrity of the essay I might lament those factors' absence.

Snark aside, I like that the author chose to compare Switzerland, Germany, and the US. It elegantly illustrated the similarities and differences.

I can judge an analysis even if I am not aiming to write another one.

Sorry this debate is getting weird and boring. Have a nice day.

Correction: you can judge an analysis poorly and incorrectly.

Population of Switzerland is around 9 million people. Slightly larger than NYC.

Comparing a country with the population of a single city in America is disingenuous. There are probably some cities in America that have faster internet than Switzerland.

I'll briefly reiterate the essay's primary point, for your convenience, which is agnostic to population size: when a natural monopoly exists, the best solution – regardless of ideology – is to make the underlying infrastructure at once singular and public while fostering competition at the level of servicing that infrastructure. That is how Switzerland accomplished its highly functional fiber-optic network, a system that is at once cheaper, more reliable, and more performant than its US and German peers.

This is a perfect example of my earlier comment: you are talking around the subject, cynically dismissing the point of the essay without even addressing it.

The US has fantastic fiber optic internet that's why this is total BS. I have multi-gig symmetrical fiber in UT, so does family have access to it in New Hampshire, and my friends who live in the Southeastern US.

The only places that have shit internet are states like California and New York. That's not an "America" or a "Capitalism" problem. That's a problem of living somewhere with a dysfunctional government that doesn't allow anyone to build new infrastructure.

Look, as mentioned in the prior comment there are varying spreads of performance across geography (including in Switzerland), and while you might be experiencing one expression of that variance (good internet connection in Utah) you need to look beyond that anecdote to trace the bigger picture and observe performance/cost/reliability beyond your narrow environment.

> "That's not a capitalism problem"

It literally is a capitalism problem, as clarified by the essay; capitalism requires competition to work, and the essay eloquently describes how to accomplish competition in internet service provision.

(Also, what are you talking about, California with "shit internet"?)

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