Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why is it that only government can provide some things well? Can you prove it both logically and empirically?
Some goods and services are dominated by up-front costs. That makes usage-based billing economically harmful by discouraging usage of a use-it-or-lose-it resource that has already been paid for. It also makes competition extremely inefficient because each competitor has to duplicate the high up-front cost of e.g. building a last mile network. The result when left to private enterprise is generally a monopoly that cha…
Net neutrality
211–220 of 270 posts
Re: Net neutrality
#212Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Predatory pricing. Offering a lower price to consumers than your competition is not coercion against a competitor. >Buying up necessary capital. Offering a higher price to suppliers than your competition is not coercion against a competitor. >Paying other companies to not deal with you Entering into exclusive deals with other firms is not coercion against a competitor.
And when you go bankrupt because you're unable to run your business, you'd consider that completely voluntary?
Re: Net neutrality
#213I don't see how a normally libertarian-leaning group of people have embraced regulation rather than deregulation as to this issue. Why do local ISP markets tend towards monopoly, even though it has been illegal since 1992 to grant local cable monopolies? Two words: universal access. It's the same principle that led municipalities to grant taxicab monopolies, of the kind that stifle companies like Uber today. The idea…
Re: Net neutrality
#214Earlier quoted context omitted.
>it has to drop prices on the whole line of products of its own. Why? >And who's to guarantee another company C isn't going to use the situation, knowing full well company A cannot afford another round of predatory pricing? The competitiveness of a market depends on the costs of entering it. If the amount of capital needed to enter the market is significant, new entrants willing to risk that much will be much less fr…
> Why? Suppose you produce socks and another company does the same and tries to compete. You produce 1 million socks a month and another company only 10 thousand. You obviously can't just drop prices on 10 thousands socks of yours, because that would still allow your competitor to stay in business - since there is demand for the rest of 990k of socks at your high price, your competitor would simply grab another 10k o…
Except that with internet access, you can do exactly that. Any new competitor is going to have to choose to wire up a particular set of neighbourhoods with a particular 10 thousand customers in, and they're going to need a decent proportion of people in those neighbourhoods to sign up in order to make a profit. You can easily cut prices just for customers served by your smaller competitor whilst leaving them the same for everyone else - it doesn't matter that there's still demand elsewhere, because your competitor doesn't have infrastructure elsewhere.
Re: Net neutrality
#215Earlier quoted context omitted.
If one of those 2-3 providers bought the others should the government intervene in the free market to stop it? BTW do they operate their own wires to the building? If not is the owner of the wires allowed to compete in the market, raise prices or deny service?
No. If one of them grew and bought others and provided excellent service no one could outcompete, what's the point to interfere? I'm not against monopolies per se. I'm against monopolies that are created using government power. However, if this new monopolist started providing shitty service, competitors would emerge immediately. Granted the government wouldn't prevent them from emerging by demanding to purchase expe…
Would the new competitor you envisage need to run their own?
Re: Net neutrality
#216Re: Net neutrality
#217Earlier quoted context omitted.
And when you go bankrupt because you're unable to run your business, you'd consider that completely voluntary?
How is it not voluntary? I started it. I knew upfront I could fail. Has anyone else forced me to fail?
Indeed, even your decision of whether to start the company is influenced by the same market pressures.
Re: Net neutrality
#218Earlier quoted context omitted.
> And yet, you claim free market fails. Seriously? You have a cheaper/better internet access in Russia compared to the USA and suddenly the Russian (extremely corrupted) political and social model (a modern monarchy of sorts) became a model economy over the US? PS. I can't find the source, but I've read that in the last Russian elections more than 35% of the population wanted to return back to communism .
I never said anything about the "Russian model". I simply suggested that where government stays out of the way, you get cheaper and better services. The quality of our internet has nothing to do with our government or social model, but with how free market and free trade work. If you had free market in Telecom industry in the US, you would also enjoy the same quality and prices.
Re: Net neutrality
#219Earlier quoted context omitted.
I never said anything about the "Russian model". I simply suggested that where government stays out of the way, you get cheaper and better services. The quality of our internet has nothing to do with our government or social model, but with how free market and free trade work. If you had free market in Telecom industry in the US, you would also enjoy the same quality and prices.
But does the government really stay out of the way? Maybe my view is biased, but I always had the impression that in Russia a lot was about party and influential people connections.
While Russia does have it's political elites and corruption (Like pretty much every other country) they aren't idiots, they have been on the other side of free markets and there are few there that know it's value.
Re: Net neutrality
#220Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Why? Suppose you produce socks and another company does the same and tries to compete. You produce 1 million socks a month and another company only 10 thousand. You obviously can't just drop prices on 10 thousands socks of yours, because that would still allow your competitor to stay in business - since there is demand for the rest of 990k of socks at your high price, your competitor would simply grab another 10k o…
> You produce 1 million socks a month and another company only 10 thousand. You obviously can't just drop prices on 10 thousands socks of yours, because that would still allow your competitor to stay in business Except that with internet access, you can do exactly that. Any new competitor is going to have to choose to wire up a particular set of neighbourhoods with a particular 10 thousand customers in, and they're g…
And indeed, you can. In this example you have to realize that what government is selling to consumers is the service of preventing eventual rise in prices after the competition is weeded out. If, as a consumer, I am worried about such predatory pricing as in your example, what is to prevent me from signing a contract with a company which specifically states "you are not allowed to raise the price"? Then this contract can be enforced by whichever private court and protection agency I hired (how this would work is a matter of a separate post, but I recommend reading "The Machinery Of Freedom" by David D. Friedman on that subject).
However, I don't really think you'd need that contract. What would really happen is that many companies would have infrastructure in many places (as is the case in my country) or you would have alternative connections (as, again, is the case in my country with a 4g operator Yota). Or you would have willing rich investors if they see that opportunity exists to disrupt the market. Finally, people may move and stop using the service if they dislike it.
There are all sorts of opportunities. Government is just one solution with a very high cost indeed: you have many people die in bloody wars which are run for your tax money and on your behalf (as is the case with both of our countries, I suppose). And no, however you wanted it, with government you can't have only the good things and none of the bad ones. It's logically impossible, because for a politician the economic incentives are always in the wrong place.