Used to be comcastfor home Internet. Then Twc. Now comcast again. When it changed to TWC my bill went down about 12 bucks a month and speed was better hoop fam
You summarize Adam Smith well. I never question the Invisible Hand. In fact, I'm feeling it right now.
It's not just TV though. They also control over phone and internet and block all attempts at getting other cable companies in the area. I'd love to have Fios fiber internet but they'll never get in here. There is no competition. They all have their set areas and thats it. We don't get Cox cable. Time Warner. Verizon Fios. All these companies SHOULD be competing against each other but instead whoever has the existing infrastructure completely owns the area.
Yep. At least DirecTv and Dish Network get to go after the same customers. In almost all cases competing Cable companies can't.
There's no phone company where you live? That's a shocker. If they're able to somehow block competing cable companies, it's only with the government's help. Get the government out of the way and see. On the other hand, the cost of running cable and the infrastructure to support high speed internet is quite high. There's no incentive to build out areas where other companies are established because they're not going to get 100% of the other company's subscribers to switch. I have TWC here, but there's Cox in nearby towns. If I were willing to pay Cox to pull cable to my house, they'd do it. Or Cox could buy out TWC or the infrastructure here and offer better service. Google is willing to run even better infrastructure for all of Kansas City, Austin Texas, and Provo Utah (so far). So the competition is coming. Once you get Google and their 800Mb/sec bandwidth, you'll likely complain about the company and competition again.
Interestingly enough: http://www.wired.com/opinion/2013/0...-government-for-dismal-broadband-competition/
If "local government" was the name of a company doing exactly what local governments were doing, you'd call it a smart move to raise revenues.
No, I wouldn't. I would keep government out of commerce entirely. If you don't want comcast, verizon offers 4g LTE home internet. For $90, you get 16G of data, which is enough to stream quite a bit of netflix. Edit: you know, SCOTUS ruled corporations are Persons for exactly this scenario. Govt. should not favor one company or industry over another. Equal protection.
