Socialist Seattle City Councilmember Kshama Sawant has embarked on her latest campaign to inflict economic damage on the city that elected her in 2013. The symbolic socialist is attempting to change the course of the tech revolution by eliminating so-called “profit-making billionaires” from the industry – you know the Bill Gates and Paul Allen’s of the world who, unlike Sawant, have contributed so much to our region’s economy.
According to Sawant, a “digital divide” between large tech companies and smaller businesses exists. That’s why the large companies must be purged.
Sawant has never hid her opposition to rich people, in the tech industry or otherwise, but now she’s acting on her bizarre ideology. The socialist is even on record advocating bringing Microsoft and Amazon “into public ownership under democratic workers’ control to be run for public good, not private profit.”
Sawant is beginning her campaign by targeting telecom giants Comcast and CenturyLink—convenient targets considering the companies are often referred to as the most hated companies in America. The socialist has proposed establishing a city-owned broadband Internet utility – because, of course, the city is so well-known for its management abilities. Sawant plans for the government-controlled network to use and expand Seattle’s existing fiber network, allowing homes and businesses to access it and eliminating the need for Comcast and CenturyLink.
The City of Seattle has warned that operating its own broadband service would be too expensive, but that hasn’t stopped Sawant. Rather, she is choosing to ignore reality—as she so often does. The Puget Sound Business Journal reports,
“Developing the infrastructure for municipal Internet would cost anywhere from $440 million to $660 million – the difference depends on how the public finances the project. Current studies show it could either be through a property tax (about $22 a year for a house worth $450,000) or bonds.
“Residents would pay anywhere from $45 to $75 a month.”
Currently, Seattleites pay an average monthly Internet bill from a private company of $56 a month. Sawant’s proposal would—ironically—only add to costs. A whopping 40 percent of the city’s internet users would have to sign up for a $75 monthly bill in order for the city to even break even. Inevitably adding to costs, Sawant has also proposed outfitting tent cities with Internet access.
Sawant proposes to get around the inevitable higher costs by—surprise, surprise—raising property taxes. Crosscut reports,
“Alternate funding paths include either a partnership with the private sector – for which Sawant expresses zero enthusiasm – or removing the need for the service to attract customers, at least initially. This is the council member’s proposed path, accomplished by funding the project through a citywide property tax hike.”
On her path to destroy what she views as evil profit “takers”, it’s Sawant’s way or the highway—much like the $15 minimum wage push in Seattle. Sawant has refused to entertain less complicated and cheaper ways to bridge the “digital divide” and, by doing so, revealed her true agenda. Crosscut,
“One option, proposed by recent Seattle CTO Bill Schrier, is to subsidize Internet subscriptions for low-income individuals and small businesses. This, he argues, would immediately eradicate the ‘digital divide’ at a fraction of the price of a municipal network, and without a lengthy battle with telecoms.
“Sawant dismisses the option out of hand, even as a stopgap measure.
“‘If you offered subsidies, what options would they have? You’d be subsidizing them to use Comcast,’ she says. ‘What does that achieve anyway?’
“With this statement, Sawant hits on the central drive behind her municipal broadband campaign. The core purpose isn’t necessarily to expand Internet access, or make it cheaper, though both are desired outcomes. It’s to diminish the influence of powerful, profit-oriented interests in tech.”
Sawant has no plans to limit her war on the tech industry to Comcast and CenturyLink. The socialist recently made bizarre comments criticizing what she appears to view as worthless competition among various products.
Sawant said of smartphones, “Does it benefit us to have an endless range of phones where, actually, we could have a few models of really well-functioning smartphones, and not have all these massive resources being devoted to having a little bit of an edge here, a little bit of an edge there? Rather than having those resources dedicated to solving the basic problems of society?”
She continues her bizarre tirade against competition by stating (emphasis added), “How do we bring the global economy to function in an efficient way, where resources are directed to the most pressing needs, rather than this nonsense of competition? The alternative would be these technological companies, or any other company really, being democratically owned by humanity, by people, precisely because we all have an interest in solving these basic problems.”
Sawant fails to understand that the very competition she derides is all that is needed to lower Internet costs in Seattle. In fact, not only would additional healthy competition for Comcast and CenturyLink bring costs down, it would also bring quality up. It’s basic economics—something Sawant has great difficulty understanding.
The socialist has proposed establishing a city-owned broadband Internet utility – because, of course, the city is so well-known for its management abilities.
From your Crosscut link:
For nine hours this past April, the Internet blacked out across much of Seattle, due to a damaged Comcast fiber line. Businesses ground to a halt, employees were sent home. Two months later, on June 1, it happened again.
Obviously, the free market will solve this problem, without city intervention.
Wait, what?
Internet service in Seattle – and many other major cities – exists in a “duopoly”, in which only two major companies have near-exclusive dominion over the entire market. In Seattle, this is Comcast and CenturyLink, another company with a horrendous customer service rating. That arrangement, aided by the considerable political influence of telecoms, leads to a lack of competition over price and service, and little incentive to upgrade infrastructure. It’s a big reason American cities often trail most of the developed world in both Internet quality and cost.
Yes, thanks to the beauty of private enterprise’s intervention, the network developed and popularized at American taxpayer expense serves America poorly. Why on earth an elected official might see political gain in fixing this must truly mystify you.
You’re one of the ones that would pay a lower rate, aren’t you?
I haven’t run the numbers. It’s interesting that even this post admits city-provided service may be less expensive than our uncompetitive duopoly:
“Residents would pay anywhere from $45 to $75 a month.”
Currently, Seattleites pay an average monthly Internet bill from a private company of $56 a month.
(Please tell Shift that 45 < 56 < 75.)
Sawant’s proposal would—ironically—only add to costs.
Unless 45 was less than 56. Who can say for sure?
A whopping 40 percent of the city’s internet users would have to sign up…
More Shift-y mathematics. If there are two providers, is the average share of each currently above or below 40%?
…for a $75 monthly bill,
Or a $45 monthly bill.
But we can understand Shift’s concern. If Seattle’s citizens become used to public internet service at lower cost and higher reliability, maybe they’d consider having other services, such as water and electrical power, provided by the city as well. Shift can tell us that would never work!
A simple solution is to open up Seattle to more providers and costs would go down. Does anyone pay 1,600 for a computer with a 7mhz processor, no hard drive, no internet but did have a dot-matrix printer like I was forced to pay in 1990 because nothing cheaper existed?
A simple solution is to open up Seattle to more providers and costs would go down.
So, how many providers do we need before we finally get good service? Why wouldn’t any new-comer just do what our existing “competitors” do — provide poor service at high cost? Why make more effort than the existing “competitors” who are already raking in the $$$ for poor performances?
As I mentioned, there are good reasons Seattle’s citizens get our water and electrical power from city-owned entities.
What are those “good reasons Seattle citizens get water and power from city-owned entities”? Are there private alternatives to judge this claim by? What choice does a Seattle citizen have?
What are those “good reasons Seattle citizens get water and power from city-owned entities”?
Because private industry proved expensive and unreliable when supplying these vital commodities. (That’s also the reason WSDOT operates ferries on Puget Sound.)
When did you get water from a private company? When exactly was private industry proved expensive and unreliable? The one and only reason Seattle citizens get water and power from city-owned entities is they have no choice. SPU and City Light is are only games in town and have never been proven cheaper and more reliable. I also have only one choice for power. PSE has been granted the monopoly franchise by government. (There’s a franchise for you. Does your unelected blowhard billionaire commissar want to drive them out of business, too?)
It’s not like the inferiority of investor-owned utilities has ever been any great secret:
…the prevailing business model for investor-owned utilities is flawed, antiquated and deeply ineffective.
But that’s those anti-investor, business-hating Bolsheviks at Forbes for you, right?
Why stop there? The Seattle Times dominates local print media and the capitalist pigs charge a usury rate just to look at their website. Maybe your tsarina can start a government newspaper that will put them out of business. We’ll call it Pravda. KOMO, KIRO and KING have gotten too big for their britches with all their greedy competition. All we really need is one government ran station, Tass. What could possibly go wrong? Government control of everything is for “the people”, after all. Look no further than the stellar success of Obamacare for an example.
That’s not really the same. Unlike Comcast, The Seattle Times does not go after contracts with cities to deny access to competition.
Wouldn’t it be easier (although with much less ink) for the silly clowncil to renegotiate these Comcast contracts that deny access to competition? Unlike Comcast, The Seattle Times doesn’t have the market presence for contracts that deny access to competition. Not that they have to. They have their market dominance all sewed up.
You mean like terminate the contract altogether? That would definitely be easier. Do you see this happening though? I don’t – the only way I see change happening is if something or someone with authority steps in.
Quite frankly, the Issaquah Highlands is a great example of a fiber network done right. City run and provides services that are better than Comcast at a much cheaper price. I have to wonder if it is because they aren’t out to make as much profit as is possible.
I’m still confused by the Seattle Times analogy. There is literally nothing stopping someone from trying to start a newspaper and selling it to whomever they want. If this newspaper was better, I’m sure people would subscribe. Whether the ST has market dominance or not makes literally no difference here.
Let’s see…a contract between Comcast and the City of Seattle…Who would possibly have the authority to renegotiate or terminate the contract? The Silly Clowncil, perhaps? How did Seattle get stuck with such lousy contract to begin with? Somebody with the authority had to sign it. If the communist agitator wasn’t solely in the pursuit of ink in an election season, she wouldn’t have opened her yap.
There is literally nothing stopping someone from trying to start a cable TV/internet provider and selling it to whomever they want. If this cable TV/internet provider was
better, I’m sure people would be customers. Whether Comcast has market
dominance or not makes literally no difference here.
That doesn’t actually work here.
The cost of entry for a digital newspapers literally cost nothing to publish and disperse. An ISP though, and one that provides the level of service that is considered competitive these days is nearly impossible to enter unless you have significant (hundreds of millions) backing.
You are right, it would probably be better if the city (all cities for that matter…as it’s an extremely common practice) would stop signing these contracts – I’m definitely not opposed to this. Will this happen though? Likely not.
Just out of curiosity, why are you against city run fiber? Historically, cities that setup their own fiber are huge successes, and add (not replace) to the competition. It lowers prices across all providers (even Comcast) and tends to provide levels of service that the competition can not provide, or in Comcast’s case, forces them to provide faster service at a lower cost.
Apparently you didn’t read the article. This isn’t about adding another service to compete with Comcast and CenturyLink. It’s about eliminating competition from Comcast and CenturyLink by tax and mandate. Go back and read the loony part about only offering a handful of cellphone options. The communist agitator wants to end “the nonsense of competition” where she and her ilk make all the decisions for the proletariat, whether we want them or not. Is that really what you want?
The Seattle Times doesn’t dominate the market because of it’s website. My granddaughter can set up a website. Their market dominance comes from driving the competition out of business. If you’ll notice, I didn’t say anything about any digital newspaper, so the cost of entry just skyrocketed.
Apparently you didn’t read the article.
Neither did you. The proposal wouldn’t legally eliminate competition, it would simply create a city-owned competitor.
Go back and read the loony part about only offering a handful of cellphone options.
That was material irrelevant to the city-owned internet idea, presumably included because (a) Shift hates Sawant to such an extent, any pretense of rationality concerning her has been completely discarded, and (b) a city-owned ISP is such an obviously great idea, even Shift understands there’s no point in opposing it.
I just assumed he was trolling after that last response. To suggest the article was focusing on anything other than internet, was laughable. Difficult trying to rationale with stupid.
So you didn’t catch the part about only having 3-4 cellphone choices eliminating that nonsense of competition?
You mean the red-herring that was the last 2 paragraphs in an otherwise internet centric article? Yes, I saw that – that was not what the article was about. It was, however, a definite reason for the writer to dislike her more.
I’m beginning to understand where you are coming from with the tax and mandate thing (I guess the mandate is that you would have to pay the tax), however I don’t agree that the article is about this, and frankly increasing taxes to pay for this project doesn’t bother me one bit given how it helps the constituents.
The entire “tirade against competition” with the cell phone example as a way to defend the stance of the writeup doesn’t make sense. City run fiber would be /adding/ competition. In cities that have Google Fiber, or other city run networks, Comcast has lowered prices significantly to remain competitive.
Keep in mind, not everything thinks she is loony and there are a lot of people that thinks these are great ideas. You don’t need to agree with it, and I’m sure you will vote likewise.
What you dismiss as a red herring is the sum total of her ideology. Unless you want to claim she didn’t, she’s said all this and more. What doesn’t make sense is why someone who advocates the takeover of private companies for “the public good” and sees competition as “nonsense” would have any interest in a venture that would increase competition.
“removing the need for the service to attract customers, at least initially” You don’t need a crystal ball to see “initially” turning into “ever” at a high rate of speed with a government program run by economic nitwits. No enterprise in America (outside of government) has ever succeeded by removing the need to attract customers. You want a city fiber optic system? Cool. Sell some bonds to finance it. Then those who think it’s a good idea will buy the bonds and the city can pay them back with interest when it’s up, running and profitable. If it’s never intended to be profitable or competitive, use the hammer of mandated property taxes so everybody pays and pays and pays if they want to or not. If you already pay for something, why would you pay somebody else for the same thing?
How exactly does one “Rationale with stupid”? Get out a dictionary and learn the language before calling others stupid.
“That was material irrelevant to the city-owned internet idea” Unfortunately for you that was material that was in your Tsarina’s personal, vast wall-of-shame
Their market dominance comes from driving the competition out of business.
Actually, the paying customers’ reading habits changed, in part due to new technologies like the internet. The shrinking market left room for only one daily newspaper, and under the government-sanctioned Joint Operating Agreement between the Times and the P-I, the latter is no longer published in print form.
Paying customers reading habits changed and the shrinking market led the Seattle Times to use their market share to crush their competitors so they would be the ONLY newspaper in town.
Uh, wasting resources to dominate a dying market isn’t really anything to brag about. (Then again, you once paid another man to be your boss, so perhaps I’m wasting my time…)
Trust me, you are wasting your time here… I guess you’ll have to be the one to break it to Paul Allen that he’s paying another man (Roger Goodell) to be his boss. Franchise owners can be so touchy about that. Good luck.
I guess you’ll have to be the one to break it to Paul Allen that he’s paying another man (Roger Goodell) to be his boss. Franchise owners can be so touchy about that. Good luck.
Yes, the difference between Seattle’s minimum wage for a small business ($10/hour) and for a large business ($11/hour) will drive the Seahawks out of Seattle any minute now, no doubt.
What difference does that deflection make? Paul Allen is a franchise owner so according to your pinheaded logic, he’s paying Roger Goodell to be his boss, no matter where the franchise is located.
What difference does that deflection make?
It’s not a deflection. There is a common assumption, made throughout this post and comment thread, that Seattle’s elimination of poverty wages will doom the franchise model here. Add to that your (unintentionally humorous) equation of the Seahawks with every McDonald’s in Seattle (a franchise is a franchise is a franchise, because the same word just absolutely cannot have different shades of meaning in different contexts), and we have the dollar-an-hour difference in Seattle’s minimum wages driving the Seahawks out of town.
Paul Allen is a franchise owner so according to your pinheaded logic, he’s paying Roger Goodell to be his boss, no matter where the franchise is located.
While, as explained above, that “pinheaded logic” is yours alone, the term “franchise” has a much different meaning to the NFL than it does to McDonald’s:
NFL teams share close to 61 percent of total revenues the league generates, which makes a great deal of business sense.
Note this is the reverse of the franchise model practiced by McDonald’s (and by you), where the money flows from of the local franchise to the corporate bosses.
You’re the moron who said all franchises are the same with your ignorant diatribe you’ve been told to put out about me being “utterly subservient to my faraway corporate masters” and “paying another man to be my boss” without the slightest clue what kind of a franchise I owned. Just because your unelected blowhard billionaire commissar tells his unpaid toadies (you) to say something, doesn’t make it true.
You’re the moron who said all franchises are the same…
You’re the one who equated the NFL with McDonald’s.
…without the slightest clue what kind of a franchise I owned.
I was working from your description of how you ran your franchise, which agreed with what Clay Fitzgerald and Nick Hanauer had already written about restaurant franchises generally. Specifically, in that thread, you wrote, “I get to use the corporate name, advertising, brand loyalty, logos, etc. in return for a percentage of my sales.” You wrote nothing about any payments received by your franchise from the arrangement, akin to the NFL sharing 60-plus percent of revenues with football teams. I therefore concluded your franchise agreed with The Wall Street Journal’s general description of franchises.
Just because your unelected blowhard billionaire commissar tells his unpaid toadies (you) to say something, doesn’t make it true.
I make no apologies for reading The Wall Street Journal.
“I was working from your description of how you ran your franchise, which agreed with what Clay Fitzgerald and Nick Hanauer had already written about restaurant franchises generally”
So you were just parroting what your unelected blowhard billionaire commissar told his unpaid toadies and sycophants to say. Got it. Do try to have an original thought occasionally.
And ignorant pinhead, NFL revenue sharing goes the other way. Teams communistically put 60% of their revenue in a pool of which all teams get an equal share, with skim off the top for the League. The teams are the individual business entities that receive the overwhelming majority of the revenues. The league is just a parasite feeding off the teams, kinda like your beloved government. Redistribution of wealth at its finest, comrade.
… NFL revenue sharing goes the other way. Teams communistically put 60% of their revenue in a pool of which all teams get an equal share, with skim off the top for the League.
Wrong. From the link I provided:
The biggest percentage of shared revenue is generated from the league’s national television agreements. TV rights fees will grow to $4.9 billion in 2014 and will increase again in 2015 once DirecTV’s agreement is extended.
Get that? The league has contracts with the television companies. The league then shares some of this revenue with the individual teams.
You’re right about the profit-sharing between teams (except for the Cowboys, who choose not to participate):
The NFL also shares ticket and merchandise revenues, with the exception of the Cowboys — Dallas keeps revenues generated from merchandise sales and does not receive any from the other 31 teams.
The league is just a parasite feeding off the teams…
Aside from the league sharing over three-fifths of its (enormous) revenues with the teams, it should be immediately obvious that teams in the same sport need a league to set schedules, rules, equipment standards, &c. It is therefore in the best interest of each team to form or join the league, even if it did cost the team money to do so. By contrast, every dollar shipped from a local franchise to corporate masters at McDonald’s is a loss to the locals — and no city ever needs a McDonald’s.
Redistribution of wealth at its finest, comrade.
Agreed:
Owning an NFL team is a money-making concept — capitalism at its best — with socialism as its model.
Do tell us how the NFL must be an impoverished, failed organization.
“no city ever needs a McDonald’s”
Who gave your unelected blowhard billionaire commissar the authority to tell his unpaid toadies and sycophant to think this?
Who gave your unelected blowhard billionaire commissar the authority to tell his unpaid toadies and sycophant to think this?
Um, the authors of the First Amendment? The Supreme Court’s ruling that money equals free speech? If you have a problem with these, just say so.
Also, you’re free to address The Wall Street Journal’s description of franchises — especially franchising’s ill effects on freedom of consumer choice — any time you like.
Historically, cities that setup their own fiber are huge successes,
Facts which do not support the pre-existing conclusions mandated by the rigidly inflexible ideology will be ignored entirely.
I’m still confused by the Seattle Times analogy.
Biff doesn’t just believe that red-baiting is an argument, but that it is a clinching argument. When he ignored my reference to the success of City Light and yelled “TASS!!1!”, in his mind, he won an irreversible victory. That this has no relevance to the question of a city-owned ISP is, to him, our problem, not his.
One only has to look at King County being $18 million over their budget for the replacement of their own telecom service to see that there are no efficiencies in dealing with them. The City of Seattle outsource much of its telecom department, to these large firms. So who really gains – not the citizens. Keep dreaming brother!
So what you’re saying is there will be no service outages or interruptions with a city-run system? How will they guarantee that? Paying their employees $15/hr? You seem to think that improves airport safety. With all the construction going on in Seattle (necessitating freak flag crosswalks and painted bike lanes), will the errant backhoe bucket just bounce off the fiber optic lines because they’re the city’s? Sounds glorious, comrade
So what you’re saying is there will be no service outages or interruptions with a city-run system?
I’m saying competition would be good for consumers. You’re free to disagree.
“For nine hours this past April, the Internet blacked out across
much of Seattle, due to a damaged Comcast fiber line. Businesses ground
to a halt, employees were sent home. Two months later, on June 1, it
happened again”
“Obviously, the free market will solve this problem, without city intervention”
“Wait, what?”
Why take this slap at Comcast for something that was a third party’s fault? Why include it in the discussion at all? Just the standard deflection for a policy that failed before it’s born, when it’s just a mass of letters.
Why take this slap at Comcast for something that was a third party’s fault?
Who is this third party, and why are they at fault?
Why does that matter? Is it automatically Comcast’s fault when one of their lines gets damaged for any reason?
“Obviously, the free market will solve this problem, without city intervention”
Take a look at the last three words of your snarky statement. “Without city intervention”. Are you seriously trying to say WITH city intervention there will be no service outages? What about when a city water main breaks? Who does the city need to intervene on then? What does this intervention look like?
Why does that matter?
Because *you* claimed a third party was at fault, genius. Why did you make a claim for which you knew you had absolutely no evidence of any kind whatsoever?
Is it automatically Comcast’s fault when one of their lines gets damaged for any reason?
It depends upon the reason. They’ve legally contracted to provide a certain level of service. If they fail to deliver, it’s fair to assume they share in the fault, at least, until proven otherwise.
Are you seriously trying to say WITH city intervention there will be no service outages?
No, genius, I’ll type it slower for you this time: if the city provides a basic level of service, then all private competitors have to meet that level.
“For nine hours this past April, the Internet blacked out across
much of Seattle, due to a damaged Comcast fiber line. Businesses ground
to a halt, employees were sent home. Two months later, on June 1, it
happened again”
“Obviously, the free market will solve this problem, without city intervention”
“Wait, what?”
Then what are you trying to say here? Exactly how is “city intervention” going to solve the problem of a builder’s backhoe hitting Comcast’s fiber lines when the free market can’t? If the city has fiber optic lines, do you think the errant backhoe bucket will bounce off them because they’re the city’s?
…solve the problem of a builder’s backhoe hitting Comcast’s fiber lines…
Is that what actually happened? (You’ve ducked that question once already, you know.) Or are you just throwing red herrings around to avoid admitting the possible merits of a city-owned ISP?
If the city has fiber optic lines, do you think the errant backhoe bucket will bounce off them because they’re the city’s?
No, but the city‘s construction permit department could easily check with the city‘s ISP about the location of city-owned fiber lines during any construction project’s permit process. (And the City Coucil could investigate any service loss resulting from a failure to follow this procedure.)
That’s it? That’s the big intervention? I wouldn’t have thought there was any subject you know less about than franchising, then you share your vast knowledge of construction. Newsflash for Comrade Clueless: The city is already deeply involved in locating utilities during the permitting process and the construction process, but not like they do it or anything. That would be a private locating company doing the work, then the city sends out a doughnut-eating bureaucrat to sign off on it. Those different colored mark and symbols on the pavement aren’t really graffiti. The City Coucil (sic) already has lackies to investigate everything to death also and nothing would change in the slightest if it was a city-owned ISP
You might want to investigate a concept called, “eliminating the middleman,” and how it reduces costs, including the costs resulting from miscommunication. (Of course, having been a middleman yourself, I doubt you’ll learn anything about the advantages — to everyone else — of not having one.)
Meanwhile, until you provide actual evidence of “a builder’s backhoe” being the cause of Comcast’s repeated failures to deliver the service it freely contracted to provide, all of your further references to it will be ignored. (Except to ask for evidence, of course.)
After a short conceptual investigation, I say: by all means, eliminate the middleman, post haste. Seeing your obvious (but not unusual) confusion about word definitions, you may want to whip out your dictionary and look up “Middleman”. A middleman is someone who insinuates himself in the “middle” (hence the name middleman)of an agreement between two party’s, say a builder who needs to know where buried utilities are so he can safely dig around them and a company that locates said buried utilities. The middleman (who sticks his nose in other people’s business) in this case is…. the city. So, yes, in this case, please eliminate the middleman.
Drawing on your mastery of construction techniques, what do you think causes virtually all buried utility failures? glowbull warming? No background checks on the lines? What about overhead utility failures? Just ask Governor Dangerfield, he’ll tell you it’s “carbon pollution”, both of which are totally Comcast’s fault and would never, ever happen with a city-owned ISP. With your attitude against Comcast, should we assume you have the same indignation with City Light when there’s a power outage? Try again, ignorant fool.
So, you still no have absolutely no evidence of any kind whatsoever that “third-party” line damage was the cause of Comcast’s repeated failure to provide the service which it freely contracted to provide. For all you know, Comcast could have installed the line improperly in the first place.
And, technological genius, the US Government’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) created the internet. The middleman here — as “interposing itself in the middle between the citizen and internet”– is the private, for-profit ISP. Why should a private company get the privilege of profiting by getting between us citizens and the public utility we all created with our tax dollars?
So, you still no have absolutely no evidence of any kind whatsoever that Comcast was at fault for any outages.
Be careful throwing around the technological genius stuff, comrade. You must quaff the Kool-aid by the 55 gallon drum. The ARPANet (the framework for the modern internet) was created by private, for-profit companies on contract with the government. My father worked for one of them. I actually saw the ARPANet in operation. A modem the size of a suitcase with suction cups for sticking the phone handset to it and miles of tractor feed paper with all the commands on in gibberish only a programmer could understand. Private, for-profit companies developed the World Wide Web after the government got out of the way. To say the internet is a public utility the government “created” is beyond stupid. Next you’ll tell me if nobody was at Kitty Hawk to take a picture of the Wright brothers, 747’s wouldn’t exist.
So, you still no have absolutely no evidence of any kind whatsoever that Comcast was at fault for any outages.
They contracted to provide the service. They repeatedly failed to provide the service. Therefore, they were at fault for their failure to deliver on their contract. (Please let me know if I have to re-type this more slowly for you.)
Private, for-profit companies developed the World Wide Web after the government got out of the way.
Gawd, the distortions and contortions you people force yourselves to undergo to cram external reality into painful conformity with your failed free-market ideology. You might as well lecture us on how the free market builds and operates spy satellites, because the employees’ W-2 forms all say TRW.
I’m sure you have the same reaction to power outages from the Glorious People’s City Light. Oh, yeah, you’ve never had so much as a surge, not to mention an outage from GPCL, have you? Nobody’s ever hit a pole in your neighborhood that resulted in a GPCL outage, you know the power they contractually failed to provide.
“failed free-market ideology”
Do you mean the “failed” capitalistic free-market economic system that transformed America from wilderness into the most powerful nation in world history in less than 200 years?
Can you really be that dense about business, economics and contract law? Private for-profit companies build and may operate spy satellites on contract with the government and their employees W-2 forms say they work for TRW, just like TRW employees who work in the credit reporting dept.
Newsflash: The government invents, builds, creates, produces or makes NOTHING, nada, zip, zero. It never has.All government can do is attach itself like leeches to productive enterprises
I’m sure you have the same reaction to power outages from the Glorious People’s City Light. Oh, yeah, you’ve never had so much as a surge, not to mention an outage from GPCL, have you? Nobody’s ever hit a pole in your neighborhood that resulted in a GPCL outage, you know the power they contractually failed to provide.
Give examples and we’ll discuss them. You might want to start by noting that residential customers do not normally buy contracts for uninterrupted power supply, and so a residential customer can go without power for a few minutes a month now and again, without such shortfalls constituting a breach of contract. (This is one reason why it’s long been a good idea to plug your personal computer into a Universal Power Supply.) But I’ll make it easy on you: if you do actually discover such a breach, I promise not to invent a wholly fictional “third party,” complete with imaginary backhoe, to act as a convenient excuse for failure of the model I’m defending.
The government invents, builds, creates, produces or makes NOTHING, nada, zip, zero. It never has.All government can do is attach itself like leeches to productive enterprises
Just keep repeating those empty glibertarian catch-phrases until you’re sure, because there’s very little evidence you’re convincing anyone else here. The internet would not exist without the government having provided the seed capital. For-profit companies would not have invested for decades to develop a public utility for which the end-user enabling technology — powerful personal computers — simply did not yet exist.
And, genius, every dollar paid to TRW to design, build, test, launch, and operate those spy satellites came from the government as well. Or do you really believe there’s a free market for pictures of obscure military bases or intercepts of encrypted communications between the governments of Inner and Outer Absurdistan?
Are you talking about the same failed ideology that transformed America from wilderness into the most powerful nation in world history in less than 200 years?
It wasn’t a wilderness, historic genius. There were entire nations living there. The US government marched them off of their own land at gunpoint, and then gave the emptied land to its own citizens to settle. Yes, government-subsidized commerce, from the Trail of Tears to TRW to the internet, has made us very rich — using the skills of Americans educated in government-run schools. Your failed ideology just keeps you from admitting how many taxpayer dollars, for how many decades, were required in seed capital to make us “the most powerful nation in world history.” But that’s your problem, not mine; I live in Seattle, where we vote to improve our lives via government intervention in your precious “free market”.
“They contracted to provide the service. They repeatedly failed to
provide the service. Therefore, they were at fault for their failure to
deliver on their contract”
Take them to court then, Clarence Darrow. I’m sure you feel the same way about the glorious people’s City Light when there’s a power outage…or probably not.
“failed free-market ideology”
Are you talking about the same failed ideology that transformed America from wilderness into the most powerful nation in world history in less than 200 years? Yeah, epic failure. Or maybe you’re talking about the failed ideology that took one of the most resource-rich nations on Earth to collapse in less than 75 years?
If spy satellites or LCD TVs or guns or anything else exist, the free market built them. This painful truth might be hard for you to hear but the government creates, invents, makes, produces, manufactures absolutely NOTHING. They’re just parasites that attach themselves for the ride.
Do you honestly think the World Wide Web is a government creation? Why would the glorious peoples government (who’s responsible for all benefits to humanity) allow a handful of people to get obscenely wealthy? C’mon, comrade.
Why include it in the discussion at all?
Yes, why would we include a failure to provide service by a for-profit internet service provider in a thread about the efficacy of for-profit internet service providers? It truly must be an insolvable mystery to you.
People pay more for the internet here than they do in Seattle.
So where is “here”?
I would imagine most states, and any other first world country in the world.
Doesn’t answer the question YOU were NOT asked. Seattle and many locales in Washington have high costs for internet access because of the typical franchise monopoly or duopoly so that there is no true competition. I still want to know where 7up98682 is that people pay more for the internet than they do in Seattle.
So, my question for YOU is why would the cost of internet access in “most states, and any other first world country in the world” be more than in Seattle?
Slow your roll there. Anyone can answer your question…if you don’t like it, go have a private conversation with someone not on the internet.
Internet access is expensive here in the states because we are willing to pay that much. Why is it not faster? We have no alternatives. The infrastructure is expensive and they are for-profits – so cutting expenses and providing the minimum possible service is the obvious choice. There are countries where gigabit internet for $40/month…how is this possible?
This is a year old, but you get the idea: http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2014/11/21/cost_of_connectivity_study_2014_americans_pay_more_for_slower_internet_access.html
I sure don’t get the impression that 7up98682 lives I another country, his screen nom-de-plume indicates a zip code in Vancouver, WA, so that much of your comment is irrelevant.
Now, Devin, STFU and mind your own business, I wanted 7up98682 to reveal where “here” is, THAT’S ALL! For you to tag on to it is rude and contributes nothing.
How is anything I said rude? You, sir, get butt hurt way too easy. Welcome to the internet.
If you don’t understand what being rude is, here’s a suggestion for you… mind your own business and quit butting in. Are you one of those types that feels they must comment on each and every post in forums like this. I asked 7up98682 a question to which you’ve added NOTHING. Now go away!
Cry a bit more. The original answer wasn’t rude. You take stuff way too personal.
Drop dead!