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Ask HN: Why don't we turn government into a subscription service?

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Re: Ask HN: Why don't we turn government into a subscription service?

#21

Post by valty »

hackerlight wrote: post #12

One area where this already exists is private schooling. In practice it leads to underfunding of public schools because the people with money are the people with political power. If their kids went to purely taxpayer-funded schools they would be higher quality and everyone would be getting a better education. (I know in the US things are a bit different, and there are are high quality public schools). The argument th…

Schooling is a tricky one for the free market, and it ultimately gets a bit morally dubious.

I guess you are trying to sell the benefit of a highly-educated country to those who choose private schooling, and getting them to pay for this.

It boils down to how much are you willing to pay for another child's education and what is the acceptable standard of that education.

But if we think about the supply of education, a lot of it is about good teachers, and ultimately someone has to be stuck with the worst teacher in the country. And also class sizes.

Re: Ask HN: Why don't we turn government into a subscription service?

#22

Post by valty »

Bostonian wrote: post #2

'Why don't we let companies compete to offer these benefits, and let people pay for what they want?' That's what education vouchers do, and many Republicans do support them. For national defense there is a free rider problem -- the military would protect your country regardless of whether you individually "subscribed". The general answer to your question is that the federal government largely exists to transfer money…

Subscription tiers for national defense is funny to think about.

Priority assistance / 24/7 support / merch

Re: Ask HN: Why don't we turn government into a subscription service?

#23

Post by valty »

withinboredom wrote: post #19
valty wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nobody would pay for the fire department But they essentially do via their taxes. Implying people understand they need to fund it. If we imagine a very transparent flow of information regarding fires...people would readily see the need for it. Like how we buy insurance. All roads could be toll roads. We have technology to track exact usage of roads. Why should cyclists pay for the entire road? If someone doesn't pa…

Surely you can see how insane this idea is IRT pollution. If companies aren’t forced to NOT pollute, they will pollute. Government very rarely (at least in the West) regulates industries for the sake of regulation. Usually, those regulations exist because companies wouldn’t self-regulate and “do the right thing.” History has shown time and time again that if given the choice, a company would rather poison and kill it…

> If companies aren’t forced to NOT pollute, they will pollute

If no one buys their products, or any products with them in the supply chain, then they won't pollute.

Visibility into these supply chains wasn't possible before internet/technology. A free market relies on consumers paying attention which so far they haven't been, because we are too used to relying on the government...and then complain so much about government.

You definitely see consumers driving improvements through their purchasing. Definitely in areas such as sustainability.

I guess regulation addresses a time lag situation. But if a private market developed for a companies that regulates other companies with subscription fees, then this would solve the problem and do it in a better way. Although I'm not sure how the threat of jail can fit into this. Can penalties be strong enough? Is bankruptcy a strong enough disincentive to lie to private regulators.

> They are there to stop a single fire from burning down the city.

Interesting point. Definitely has non-excludability.

I remember this scene in Gangs of New York where the firemen fight each other back when it was privatized (don't know if this was real).

> rich have freedom of movement but the poor do not

A lot of transport is private. Maybe the poor have more money if they don't have to pay so much in taxes.

Re: Ask HN: Why don't we turn government into a subscription service?

#24

Post by fragmede »

valty wrote: post #15
fragmede wrote: post #6

There are two things. One is that something things it doesn't make sense to have multiple companies offering multiple versions. Specifically, right in front of my house, there's no place for a dozen companies to put multiple roads for me to get to work on. it's a highly un-free market because of physical limitations. For those, a simplistic model makes sense. Everyone contributes to a pot which is used to pay for mai…

> If you don't have, and don't plan on ever having kids Then you don't pay for their services, and other people pay more. Most people don't want an uneducated population so they pay for them. Government is this strange beast where we continuously seem to vote and pay for all these things we value at the ballot box, but then given the individual choice we change our mind. Or its a matter of "I won't if they don't". Wh…

> By not voting for the "zero tax" party,

In the US, one of the parties champions small government, which implies lower taxes, and they get plenty of votes.

People are generally good, but they are also selfish as all hell. Everyone could use a bit more money though, and therin lies the problem. If there's any way I can get more money, I'm going to do it. Civic education be damned, the only thing I'm going to fund is things that go back into my pocket. I don't need the police (until I do), I don't need firefighters (until I do), I don't need school teachers at all. Sure, the long term effects of that are going to be bad, but I need just a little bit of money now to help with things, and someone else is gonna pay for those things, so why should I bother. People are gonna min-max the system because they care about what they care about. Schoolteachers are going to give all their money to the schools, because it goes back into their pockets, and the military is going to fund the military.

Money itself is a construct. We could just abolish it. With machines, we have long surpassed the need for everyone to work. We can have one cadre of people who do the work of feeding and housing everyone, and then everyone else gets to go out and play. Unfortunately, reality kicks in, humans are gonna human, and that's not gonna work. So we're left with money to organize our society, and we give money to the government to spend on what they spend our taxes on.

Re: Ask HN: Why don't we turn government into a subscription service?

#25

Post by valty »

fragmede wrote: post #24
valty wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you don't have, and don't plan on ever having kids Then you don't pay for their services, and other people pay more. Most people don't want an uneducated population so they pay for them. Government is this strange beast where we continuously seem to vote and pay for all these things we value at the ballot box, but then given the individual choice we change our mind. Or its a matter of "I won't if they don't". Wh…

> By not voting for the "zero tax" party, In the US, one of the parties champions small government, which implies lower taxes, and they get plenty of votes. People are generally good, but they are also selfish as all hell. Everyone could use a bit more money though, and therin lies the problem. If there's any way I can get more money, I'm going to do it. Civic education be damned, the only thing I'm going to fund is…

> small government

A different spin on "small".

I wonder if you could have micro-governments instead on a per-topic basis with their own mini-budgets.

These omnibus spending bills seem absurd.

The tax should be incurred/realized at the point of the benefit received.

Imagine getting a monthly bill on your estimated tax spend with details of everything it is spent on and how that benefit flows through to you. This might make people more receptive to government.

Also thinking about a Government+ premium subscription service. How can the government offer added benefits to raise more money for things. I guess this is charity.

Re: Ask HN: Why don't we turn government into a subscription service?

#26

Post by fragmede »

valty wrote: post #25
fragmede wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> By not voting for the "zero tax" party, In the US, one of the parties champions small government, which implies lower taxes, and they get plenty of votes. People are generally good, but they are also selfish as all hell. Everyone could use a bit more money though, and therin lies the problem. If there's any way I can get more money, I'm going to do it. Civic education be damned, the only thing I'm going to fund is…

> small government A different spin on "small". I wonder if you could have micro-governments instead on a per-topic basis with their own mini-budgets. These omnibus spending bills seem absurd. The tax should be incurred/realized at the point of the benefit received. Imagine getting a monthly bill on your estimated tax spend with details of everything it is spent on and how that benefit flows through to you. This migh…

Attribution is incredibly hard but would be amazing to see. My tax dollars 15 years ago paid for a child's education, and that child is now a productive member of society. A magic system that showed my tax dollars flowing through to that child having a stable job and a home instead of being out on the streets and committing violence, being a drug addict, would be eye opening.

The idea of Government+ rankles me. We have lost sight of the founding preamble, that all men are created equal, under God. It has evolved to include people of all color, and other genders, and religion is not as much of a focus, but those parts are okay. What i have a problem with is the idea that rich people are better than poor people. In charging money for things, the poor get excluded, and Government+ will leave them behind. Charge money for things because that's how the system works, but also recognize that having carpool lanes instead be express lanes where they just charge money to use them is classist.

Re: Ask HN: Why don't we turn government into a subscription service?

#27

Post by valty »

fragmede wrote: post #26
valty wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> small government A different spin on "small". I wonder if you could have micro-governments instead on a per-topic basis with their own mini-budgets. These omnibus spending bills seem absurd. The tax should be incurred/realized at the point of the benefit received. Imagine getting a monthly bill on your estimated tax spend with details of everything it is spent on and how that benefit flows through to you. This migh…

Attribution is incredibly hard but would be amazing to see. My tax dollars 15 years ago paid for a child's education, and that child is now a productive member of society. A magic system that showed my tax dollars flowing through to that child having a stable job and a home instead of being out on the streets and committing violence, being a drug addict, would be eye opening. The idea of Government+ rankles me. We ha…

> showed my tax dollars flowing through to that child...would be eye opening

I agree. Charity's often use this for marketing. Making clear the direct human impact of your donation. Tech companies like Apple do this a lot too.

But when a government talks of its successes in statistics...I don't think about my tax spend. I think that it was my (and other people's) vote for that team that did that. And typically not even the team...rather the leadership of the political party.

It's like a shift in the marketing approach.

We sent 100bn to this country to help out with this.

vs.

Average Joe paid 10$ of his income last year which helped pay for this and that for these people. One of those people today was Sally... One of those people 15 years ago was Tracy...

Re: Ask HN: Why don't we turn government into a subscription service?

#28

Post by wordhydrogen »

valty wrote: post #16
wordhydrogen wrote: post #3

It’s an interesting thought experiment. However there are lots of services which are in-fact inherent monopolies. Take electricity transmission or your ISP for example. They have a common set of infrastructure which is hard to share among many competing interests. Who gets to decide what should be upgraded, to what, and when? How does one divvy up costs infrastructure changes which did not benefit a significant set o…

> inherent monopolies I've learned to be careful about this "natural monopoly" term because it turns out to be very debatable. Recently with fiber deployments is a good example...see London/UK experience. I feel like if people realized the benefits to having many companies compete for everything, then they would choose services that did not act like monopolies and to create barriers of entry. The consumer ultimately…

Interesting points.

I still think some services are more prone to being naturally competitive while others are more prone to being naturally centralized. Everything is on a spectrum. Good government regulation tries to balance these natural tendencies.

I’d be curious to hear more about your thoughts on “natural monopolies”. I’ll have to look up the fiber deployment as I am not familiar with that.

> If consumers were smarter they could break monopolies without government intervention necessary.

True but that is the nature of being human. We have evolved to use heuristics and biases due to fundamental time and energy budgets with bounded computational abilities. If one looks at the assumptions made in the efficient market hypothesis it’s pretty easy to see that many of those assumptions are simply not fully true. Though they are useful simplifications for modeling at times.

> Interesting to think about what would happen if you hired two people to do one job and made them compete against each other on every task.

Oh man I’d hate to think what office politics/drama would turn into. Still would be an interesting experiment.

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