If you believe this, then you're falling for the exact same two-faced argument the cable providers said to the FCC back during the first net neutrality debate. I.e. they told the FCC net neutrality will absolutely DESTROY infrastructure investment, and did an about-face and told Wall Street that it wouldn't put a dent in investment.

"Fool me once...shame on...shame on you. Fool me, can't get fooled again!"

Your argument may have merit in rural areas (quite frankly, I don't know). But in the two biggest metropolitan areas in California, I haven't seen more than one service provider for cable, and one service provider for DSL. When I called the company that didn't offer service, they specifically said "that's [X Company]'s area, so by agreement we can't serve there." What competition are you talking about?

Usually the "seat moisteners and business preventers" are the last to go. They are that because they have some ability to not get fired. The ones who tried to change the company for the better tend to be outcasts, and are usually the first ones to go.

Just to nitpick, accountants (the ones in accounting roles) have absolutely no power. You mean HR/finance/management.

So...Google is strong arming ISPs to deliver the bandwidth they promised (which you paid for), and that's bad all of a sudden? And I think you can't fathom the amount of traffic that YouTube gets, so your sense of "margin of error" is probably orders of magnitude off. And at the end of the day, if I don't get my HD stream, then I don't have an HD cat video stream. I don't fucking care if it's within your "margin of error".

If you don't like this tool, well, go find something else that is reasonably objective, not "optimized" by the ISPs, and comes even close to the confidence of this data. Good luck with that.

Charging money for work? Preposterous!

Where is said camera, microphone, and gps unit in the Fiber box? You mean Android? Sure, but don't mix products together. That's like saying the government's NSA and NTSB are the same thing.

They don't have monopolies? How not? Because you can dig or hang your wires on utility poles without applying for permits? Because AT&T/Comcast/whoeverthefuckelse won't reject these proposals and forcibly mothball them at the said permit application level? You know, monopolies don't come just from the law explicitly saying they're monopolies, but also from laws that lead to stifling of competition.

I don't know, altruism? For public good? Utilities have monopolies, yet they're priced competitively. I guess it's more precise to ask, "what's 'competitive pricing' in a monopoly?"

Uh, that's a misleading statement. Sure, every city is served by a dozen ISPs...but any given home in that city is most likely only served by two crappy ISP that don't compete with each other. At least, I'm paying more for way less speed than Google fiber.

I think the first three cities are trial projects. Then they're ramping up to more cities. However, it'll take time, since I'm pretty sure they don't have nearly enough manpower to service all of continental USA in one go. I mean, no point promising fiber 20 years from now when they don't even know the schedule two years out.

What? You mean, like T-Mobile Galaxy S4? That's not subsidized by the carrier? Then why is there a T-Mobile logo on it and costed $200 instead of $600 when it came out? What are you, a paid shill?

You do understand that the GP/TFA is comparing between electric vehicles, right? That Tesla has to haul around more battery than the BMW i3 electric, and is exactly why the Tesla has more range. I'm not sure what ANY of your reply has to do with the GP/topic. Why did you even mention gasoline?

No, there's no "fascinating question that makes this debate interesting". The government should prevent any market condition where a hostile monopoly may manifest. Full stop.

AT&T and Verizon has proven that they can and will abuse their oligopoly position and not compete. This will not change in any foreseeable circumstance short of being forced into a competitive landscape. The duty of government then is to lower the barrier to entry, which, in this case, the barrier is the amazing amount of cash AT&T and Verizon has to outbid everyone else.

And if you object to taxpayers subsidizing, then I can simply point you at the cost of running any government agency that (ostensibly?) promotes fair competition: e.g. SEC. The cost to hire lawyers, set up offices, conduct audits, litigate -- none of that is free. Do I see you label "preventing and punishing insider trading" as an "interesting debate since it has no objectively correct answer" in a cost analysis? No, of course not, because it's desirable and everything has an associated cost to begin with.

What? So let more deaf people be deaf and let them feel what it means to be deaf? That's one of the silliest things I've read.

What does that even mean? So we should stop looking for cures for cancer and stop using existing cures because people with cancer can't share their pain? I mean, It's not like existing deaf people can't get implants. Even if these people are so resistant to changing their situation and are adamant about preserving their culture, they don't have to drag others into it.