Comment Re:No options. (Score 1) 229
We have a ton of monopolies in place: the electric company, the gas, the water. No one complains about any of those. But those services are regulated much better and are much easier to deal with. I've found that the power company does a great job getting stuff fixed as soon as they can.
Now consider the cable company. You want to add service? No problem--you can do that by yourself online. Want to cancel something or downgrade it?
Actually, where I live the electric company is NOT a monopoly. Once company maintains the infrastructure, but several companies compete on rates and features (free nights or weekends, fixed monthly rates, etc...) to be your actual provider. It is much the way DSL used to be when the phone companies had to allow third party providers. I can pick the plan that's best for my usage patterns and we get great customer service. Where I lived before the garbage company was NOT a monopoly and they were falling all over themselves to pick up customers. The water company in both places was municipal so not much to be done there. I'd take real competition over over-regulation any day. Unfortunately I don't think we will get to make that choice.