Comment by john_b | Hacker News Reader

Comment by john_b | Hacker News Reader

The major providers like to pretend that they're in a wonderful competitive market where, if only they were allowed to discriminate on traffic more, there would be more competition, prices would be lowered, and investment in infrastructure would grow due to the competition.

This is a nice rosy view of things, but it's just not accurate. They're de facto infrastructure builders, and for their efforts they want a monopoly on that infrastructure, with all the powers it comes with (e.g. favoring some traffic over others). The problem is that everybody long ago realized that infrastructure monopolies are a bad idea because they destroy both competition and infrastructure growth. It's why major roads aren't owned by private companies, it's why the electric company can't charge you more if they don't like the brand of your TV, and it's why public transportation services like trains and buses can't charge you more if you're partners.

Letting private businesses compete in various niche ways is fine as long as they are (1) actually private and (2) actually in a working free market. Telecoms in the U.S. are neither. They're so heavily subsidized and regulated that they function more as pseudo-government entities who should be entrusted with very serious business of maintaining public infrastructure. But they should definitely be prevented from rampantly discriminating against their customers to profit. The whole point of infrastructure is that it is a common public good, available to everyone equally without discrimination.

>>" It's why major roads aren't owned by private companies"

In the US, many major roads are owned by private companies like Cintra [1] to give one example, and they charge tolls [2] on those roads.

It's become common practice in many US states that any new highway construction must have a toll on it and then the state sells the road to a private company.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cintra [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toll_road

>>It's become common practice in many US states

I think it's unfortunately down to the incessant anti-tax rhetoric in the US. It's a lot easier to get a private company to finance a toll-road with a concession agreement than it is to pass bond measures or increase taxes.

I don't follow this logic. Toll roads allow the people who want to use a road to pay for it. Tax-funded roads take taxes from all the district's citizens to pay for roads that only some will use. Great if you use that road. Not so great if you don't.

This is insane. By this logic, public goods don't exist. Tax-funded fire departments are great if your house catches fire, not so great if it doesn't, etc.

Indeed. I have no children, why should I pay taxes to educate other people's kids? Just because they're our future laborers working on and within our common economy to keep things going after I've left the workforce.

Because better educated children are less likely to stab you and take your cell phone while you're walking your dog.

Seriously, though, why are real estate prices higher in areas with better schools? It's not because every person who lives there or might live there has kids, it's because better public infrastructure creates better quality of life for everyone. Good public schools might not impact you directly if you don't have children, but they do attract better neighbors, create more cultural and social opportunities (even for the childless), and generally produce better quality of life for the communities they serve.

I really, really wish all the libertarians would get off HN and move to Somalia or some other place with no functioning government where they could finally be happy. I'm sure it would work out well for them, because good governance clearly has no positive externalities.

I left the /s implied.

Clearly I need to work on my sarcasm-detector... :)

No worries. I probably need to cut down on my sarcasm, especially online, but I've found it to be the most effective "shutup" tool in my bag when dealing with this extreme mindset. As an example, two weeks ago I was at dinner with some folks including a Catholic seminarian and a young USAF officer. The seminarian was commenting on topics related to social justice, something he's devoted most of his adult life to, and the need for government involvement. Young officer says he believes taxation is "immoral", as it's taking money from other people by force. My response, "But you're paid with tax dollars...". I didn't have to continue that line of thought before he switched topics. I guess the really unfortunate thing is that I've had to use that same line on a number of civil servants and government contractors in this area. They don't seem to appreciate the hypocrisy of denouncing the government for taxing them, while being paid with tax dollars, until someone else calls them out on it. And two days later they'll be ranting again.

The parent comment was being sarcastic. He was using the obvious example of schools to illustrate what a ridiculous idea the notion that public roads are somehow not a public good if one person happens not to use them.

> I really, really wish all the libertarians would get off HN and move to Somalia or some other place with no functioning government where they could finally be happy.

That's harsh. Most libertarians aren't anarchists...

It's more a recognition that roads aren't automatically public goods. Roads in general tend to benefit everyone, sure. But something like say the Georgia 400, which just exists to funnel suburban commuters into Atlanta? That's better off as a toll road, paid for by the people who use it.

Of course there are public goods, but your fire department analogy doesn't work. We have fire departments standing by in case there's a fire. So, sure, a fire department that services your neighborhood is great, but you probably wouldn't want to pay for one that doesn't service your neighborhood.

> So, sure, a fire department that services your neighborhood is great, but you probably wouldn't want to pay for one that doesn't service your neighborhood.

Except we do pay them. I live in a fairly well off area in middle Georgia (by non-metro Atlanta standards at least). But we have a couple neighboring counties that, left to their own devices, wouldn't be able to afford much in the way of a fire department (median income drops by $10-20k, populations also lower so they can't make up the taxes in aggregate). Our state taxes get partially redistributed to permit those poorer counties/cities to have an essential service. (Note: I know that the state spends on fire, my brief search did not reveal a county-by-county breakdown)

Isn't the tax that's added into the price of a gallon of gas suppose to pay for roads?

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_tax

That just covers the maintenance costs (and only about half of those), not capital construction costs.

That's not accurate.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_Highway_System#Finan...

"About 70 percent of the construction and maintenance costs of Interstate Highways in the United States have been paid through user fees, primarily the fuel taxes collected by the federal, state, and local governments."

And about 1/7 of the fuel tax revenue is redirected to public transit, rather than highways.

A moderate increase in the fuel tax[1] could make the IHS completely self-sustaining for both capital and maintenance expenditures. Unfortunately, raising the gas tax is typically a political loser.

Local roads are predominantly paid for through local property and other taxes, but that's easier to justify, since everyone takes advantage of local roads even if they don't drive.

[1] At least until electric cars become commonplace, in which case I'd probably be in favor of a simple mileage tax which could achieve the same effect.

This is actually a great illustration of the reason we have common carrier laws in the US.

Should we allow Cintra to let you go 100MPH instead of 70MPH if you pay a higher toll on the Indiana Toll Road? Maybe every 10MPH is an additional $1. Or maybe Cintra knows that Tesla drivers are rich, so their tolls could be set 10x higher than a Kia's toll. Or maybe people with Illinois license plates are on average more wealthy than people with Ohio plates, so they can pay more too...

How about free trips if you order more than $100 worth of food at Chili's? Discounts if you let them plaster your car with advertising?

Looking up the numbers it's still a tiny, tiny minority of roads in the US. Cintra's worldwide holdings are ~1% of the total length of major highways in the US. Significant, but not all in the US. And many toll roads are publicly owned. Or under private contract for X years so the taxpayers didn't have to take out a bond or front $Y million for the project.

Sure, maybe private companies have a small supporting role in piggybacking on one of the biggest (and highest ROI) government infrastructure projects ever: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_Highway_System

The real problem here is that many advocates of net neutrality frame their support of neutrality strictly in terms of enabling free-market innovation. Perhaps because they're afraid to lose the support of the many libertarians who still walk among us, net neutrality supporters are afraid to give a fully fleshed-out narrative of what should happen: the government either makes a massive direct investment in increasing information bandwidth (as it has done with transportation bandwidth), or it assimilates the telcos and makes them do so. Finally, the current wave of market-based innovation can continue, supported (as markets always are) by a robust public infrastructure. There is a properly dialectical relationship here: you can't have one of these moments without the other, even though they are contradictory.

Is this plan perfect? No, but it sounds a million times more preferable than Comcast and Verizon picking which startups live or die.

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