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I'm really, really glad they chose Kansas City as the pilot city despite not living there. If they had just gone and chosen San Francisco, Chicago or New York, it would have been no more of an experiment than offering more cable channels to the big cities in the 1990s—It just is completely uninteresting.

On a side note, If you haven't been to KC's Startup Village, the climate is electric! It feels like something really real is going on there. It is just awesome to see someone with a coding question, you can walk literally a few doors down to a different house to ask one of the startups there. When you walk inside, you see rooms that should be living rooms with hackers on laptops and would-be dining rooms with iMacs setup on tables. Meanwhile a sleepy hacker is waking up and making breakfast in the kitchen. The climate is wonderful.

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I see it the opposite way: Deploying fiber is easy if the city gives you carte blanche as KC did. Doing something easy proves nothing. If Google Fiber wants to prove that their model is replicable they need to deploy it at a profit in a politically hostile environment.

You usually make things less politically hostile once you've deployed successfully in a few politically friendly zones. People's opinions aren't immutable.

> Doing something easy proves nothing.

Depends on the audience. Joe Random Voter, seeing his cousin's internet being super fast, will carry that knowledge back to his hometown. He doesn't care how easy it was for Google, only that it's possible.

The point is not to prove anything but to shame competitors into providing good quality service. Google Fibre is not about making money, it's about driving the industry to provide faster Internet, which Google believes will lead to more ecommerce and thus more profit.

"If Google Fiber wants to prove that their model is replicable they need to deploy it at a profit in a politically hostile environment."

Well actually no they don't. They're going to prove their model is replicable and profitable, while not deploying to politically hostile environments.

This.

Their goal is to change politically hostile environments by deploying in friendly cities. Then, residents of the hostile cities will start asking, "Why are we paying extortionate rates for shitty service?" Even if Google Fiber never gets to deploy there, the threat of it will hopefully be enough to get cable companies to act more fairly.

I think their strategy is good. Demand comes stronger after you show results. The pitch is much stronger when you say "look at all the benefits this city got for welcoming us in". This isn't about proving a point, it's about bringing fiber to as many people as possible.

Maybe... but it's probably better to work out the kinks first in some place that is easier so that you don't fail miserably in Philly.

> If Google Fiber wants to prove that their model is replicable they need to deploy it at a profit in a politically hostile environment.

Sun Tsu would flunk you out of strategy class. Why should Google engage with an evil, bribery-based, rent-seeking competitor, and their bought politicians, until they run out of relatively easier conquests, and have the revenue from those conquests funding further expansion, and their relationships with independent content creators at a much higher value from a larger customer base?

Particularly when those competitors are not seeking to confront Google, and are preferring to play rent-seeking games with anti-neutrality in their networks, thus making their end game even more brittle?

Sun Tzu

I'd agree completely if Google's goal was to make money from Fiber, but I suspect their goal is to demonstrate that fiber is economically viable and shame other ISPs into deploying it. By that standard, winning on the easiest setting seems unlikely to convince anyone.
See http://googlefiberblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/think-big-with-g... http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Many-Realizing-Google-Fib... for Google's motivations.

That could be the overarching goal but it makes sense to pilot the technology first so they understand the pitfalls before engaging in a more difficult endeavor.

I suspect wmf lives in a city that he might define as politically hostile :)

Actually I'm in Austin where we're theoretically going to witness three-way fiber competition between Google, AT&T, and Grande (although I suspect they will all find ways to avoid serving my house). I do find it sad that any thread about broadband seems to devolve into whining about how crappy it is in $MY_LOCATION.

"Meanwhile a sleepy hacker is waking up and making breakfast in the kitchen. The climate is wonderful."
...really? It sounds more to me like that hacker in the kitchen is being overworked and feels compelled to not even go home at night. Going straight from the bed to the computer (or vice versa) is an unhealthy, unsustainable lifestyle.

Sometimes its fun. It's a different situation for everyone. As a young person with no obligations, I love working late into the night on big crunches, followed by some slower, relaxing weeks.

Your music is awesome :)

Thanks! :)

>feels compelled to not even go home at night
I don't think you're following. This isn't the company that has had a Series A and Series B.
The guy in that example lives there. There was another place that was hacking away with no air conditioning; It was just a bunch of passionate 18-year-olds with their baby of an idea. This isn't a W2-health-insurance-401k lifestyle, it is a Jobs-and-Woz-in-a-garage-we're-broke lifestyle—and that is one of the huge reasons it is exciting!!!
I implore you to visit. You can't walk away from a tour not feeling energized by everyone involved.

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