It's always fun watching individualist libertarians wrestle with the concept of a natural monopoly.
Please provide an example of a "natural" monopoly that came into existence without government enforcement.
Cable companies? Municipal monopolies.
Copyright? Government monopoly.
Patents? Government monopoly.
And now, suddenly, Congress is throwing a hissy fit. Why? Because, as it turns out, it isn't a burgeoning industry made up of companies like Prodigy and CompuServe still. Instead, it's made up of massive media and telecommunications conglomerates like Comcast, AT&T, and Verizon with hundreds of billions of dollars on the line, and they are not happy with having an appropriate classification applied to them, given that it's a lot more fun to be a misbehaving behemoth.
The FCC answers to Congress. When your boss is not happy with your work, your boss is not throwing a "hissy fit".
Also note that there are corporations both for and against Net Neutrality. I hope you don't think that Google, Netflix, and Facebook pushing Net Neutrality is purely out of the goodness of their hearts. They're pushing rules that benefit themselves
I'm not sure what it looks like from where you're sitting, but there were some pretty obvious shenanigans at play with the whole Comcast/etc vs Netflix deal. Traffic to/from a particular site doesn't suddenly degrade in quality only on a particular ISP, and only when an argument about getting paid extra starts, only to magically vanish the moment that site agrees to pay up, all on its own. And that's after all the lawsuits that were launched to overturn previous, far less extensive regulatory attempts.
There's nothing magic or shady about paying for more bandwidth and getting more bandwidth.
The degradation in speed is consistent with a continued growth in Netflix subscribers on a fixed amount of bandwidth.
Do you think it's strange that you get higher performance upgrading to a 6 Mbps DSL plan from a 1 Mbps DSL plan? Use more, pay more.
For one thing, isn't the core fallacy of libertarianism that they try to reconcile respecting property rights with lack of government intervention, when the concept of "property" is only enforceable either by governments or by force of arms?
Libertarian isn't anarchist, so enforced property rights is only a problem for the libertarian anarchist. Minimalist government types do not have to deal with that fallacy, though they still have to figure out what a "minimalist" government actually looks like.
For another, for there to be a completely open and free market in cabling, there would have to be limitless capacity, and there certainly isn't. Put too many cable voids below the roads and you'll be undermining the foundations of your streets, so you'd have to find somewhere else to put them, and back yards are the only space you've got left.
If there are unlimited resources, you don't need a market.
Markets are for distributing scarce resources, and they do work pretty well for that. For example, food is not unlimited. Do you buy food from a market, or is it carefully distributed by a central agency?.
You're going to have to rethink this point. I think you're getting at the concept of natural monopolies - but that's not a actually a natural phenomenon. Natural monopoly is an argument that an artificial monopoly is the best solution to the nature of a certain problem.
Yes. Comcast says "We'll let you access data at this speed." They then turn around to the source as say "Pay us money so your traffic can go through at this speed." Why does Comcast get to double-tip on this?
Because they own the network. They're selling access to the network, not bandwidth to a particular endpoint or a particular set of data. (which is why it's not actually double-dipping to charge both Netflix and users for network access)
If you don't understand this and why it is, why does your opinion matter?
Very few people are really entirely altruistic. I know I'm not one of them. Not by a long shot. And that's why, even if it's flawed sometimes, we really do need government regulation.
Who is writing the government regulations?
Why do you think greedy humans writing and enforcing government regulations solves a problem with human greed?
Netflix has been growing its number of subscribers constantly for the past few years.
Comcast didn't need to reduce Netflix's bandwidth. If they only kept it the same, then when (X+Y) people try to use the same amount of bandwidth as (X) people used to, they'll see a corresponding reduction in service quality.
If you want to accuse Comcast of decreasing Netflix's bandwidth, you're going to have back up it up.
So your choice. Regulated public ownership. Regulated localized monopolies. Unregulated libertarian fantasy of every american with a dream driving backhoes through your yard.
Your unregulated libertarian fantasy violates the property rights of the backyard owners, which means you're not working from a consistently libertarian fantasy.
In other words, a strawman.
The short of it, is that Comcast is selling the service, guaranteeing a certain speed, not providing it due to intentionally avoiding upgrading their routers, and then telling their customer that the issue is Netflix's fault because they wont pay up.
But the customers do have that speed. Just not to Netflix. And the current state of the Internet makes it the source's responsibility to pay to push packets.
If instead of Netflix, it was a small company that didn't purchase enough upload bandwidth to service Comcast's customers at the rate the customers expected
Yes, I am.
Are they not both people with the Right to their Freedom of Speech? Or do you think KKK members should be treated as second class citizens with less rights than gay people?
Does the Right to Freedom of Speech of one group of people necessitate coercing actions from another group of people?
It's one thing to prevent people from censoring KKK members; it's another thing to force people to serve them in their business.
You think KKK members would purposely choose to go to a bakery owned by a group they hate and ask them to make a cake depicting that hate? I think your scenarios is pretty ridiculous.
But still worth answering. Because that's what the people refusing to bake cakes or take photos for gay couples think it is like.
Better figure out just how far you are willing to coerce someone to do business in a hypothetical situation where no one is harmed, before you start doing it with real people, where harm can occur.
Once again though. a business that serves the public must serve the public. The only exception i can think of here might have to do with being asked to create something that depicts something illegal. an illegal act or an illegal organization.
So it follows that you think a black business should be forced to serve KKK customers if the KKK customers demand it.
Which might include all sorts of legal activities: Catering for a white pride event, baking a cake with racist slogans, and printing and distributing event flyers.
That might better serve the public good, but have the honesty to acknowledge the costs of it.
No, you don't, which is why that side of the argument loses. Nobody is saying you have to celebrate same-sex marriage, just that the sexual preferences of the people involved in a business transactions shouldn't matter. How in the hell are you supposed to determine that anyway? If you own a cake shop do you make all your customers sign an affidavit that they're straight? Force them to reveal the gender of their spouse?
Does a business owner have Freedom of Speech?
Say a black family owns a cake store, and some KKK members wants them to bake a cake with various KKK anti-black slogans. The KKK has the Right to their Freedom of Speech to make such a cake.
Does the black family have a right to decide not to do business with the KKK? Or do you think the government should step in and force them to bake the cake with the threat of losing their business and their livelihoods?
Put simply, even from first principles, the idea of a solar-powered commercial airplane is just a non-starter.
And you haven't even touched on the safety/risk aspects of relying on "fuel as you get it from daylight" to transport commercial quantities of people.
At best, a "solar-powered" plane will be an electrical battery/cap-powered plane that is charged with solar-panels.
It is hilarious and tragic that an AC response accuses you of not having enough imagination. The sad thing is that he is the one who is not using his imagination to consider the costs, challenges, and risks.
Of course, I don't expect to have the local police or military shooting at me (although we do seem to be moving towards a police state); but thugs and gangsters are always able to get their hands on powerful, illegal weapons.
So when's the last time you were pinned down by machine gun fire from a thug/gangster? How much body armor do you wear for that?
How about a drone attack with a Hellfire missile? 155m artillery round? 500 pound bombs from an aircraft? Battleship 16" shell?
Well tell me then. How has your particular deity communicated with you? What was the nature of that communication, and what did this deity tell you?
You fail reading comprehension.
"I'd be happy to change this discussion to the topics of your choice, right after you acknowledge that "refuses to communicate" objectively does not apply to the Christian god. Or the Muslim one. Or any other religion which has prophets and a holy book."
Acknowledge the point and then we'll switch topics.
I would also like you to explain what goalposts I moved. Empty accusations are unbefitting a serious discussion.
Show me that you have the intellectual integrity to acknowledge valid points, and we can continue. Or not. Your choice.
"If it ain't broke, don't fix it." - Bert Lantz
