Skripka
[H]F Junkie
- Joined
- Feb 5, 2012
- Messages
- 10,791
What the heck are you talking about? You obviously don't work in the field. A single aerial span can easily cost thousands of dollars in parts and labor and that's only a couple hundred feet. Underground work is exponentially higher.
What I'm talking about is the consumer has zero ability to know what ISP service infrastructure costs. None. Companies intentionally obfuscate or outright don't tell people what stuff costs. People love to act indignant at the stupid lay person...But the only way IRL to know, for a lay person, what it costs to put down/up a line is when they individually have to pay for it themselves because they live at the edge of town/service.
The fault for consumers not knowing what it costs to build an ISP service out...lies entirely with the ISPs.
It's hard when you have existing companies with regional and local monopolies doing everything they can to stop it.
No, companies buying out governments to prevent competition is not a free market. It's crony capitalism.
No it is called capitalism. Dub it crony all you want. This is how capitalism has ALWAYS WORKED IRL. You want to get philosophical and semantic, fine....then you must admit that "free markets" don't exist now, and never have existed before, and never will again. Because your landlord will ALWAYS take money from a company to be an exclusive provider even were their more competition. He wants to turn a profit, like any capitalist does. That is how he does it. That is what free-as-in-freedom to contract means.
I put $10,000 on a table for you a landlord and tell you that you can walk home with it for being an exclusive dealer of my service....you'll act indignant and aghast at this obvious "cronyism" and "corruption" and be all high and mighty...but you know what? At the end of it, you'll take the money. At the end of it, it is only about $$$, not morals or ethics, or economic theory.
Capitalism and "free markets", where anyone and everyone top-to-bottom-of-the-food-chain can contract....is not about consumer choice. It isn't even about making consumers happy. It is about progressively bigger fish getting more of the action. And in the end, the consumer being boned anyway.
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