Comment by ocdtrekkie | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ocdtrekkie | Hacker News Reader

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Google has almost no competition in several different market categories, and not just regionally, but on a global scale. I have three ISPs which offer about comparable service offerings, and four major wireless carriers. And no wired ISP even can say it has national coverage.

Tech monopolies are bigger, they have more money, and they've spent more of that money convincing you ISPs are the big bad.

I'm not opposed to regulation, but regulation needs to apply to tech companies as well as ISPs equally. And you'll discover that support for regulation vanishes as soon as that comes into play.

People have forgotten that tech companies now also do infrastructure and ISPs now also do services. So when tech companies are trying to get ISPs regulated, they're trying to lock down their competition. (Unsurprisingly, Google Fiber was known for trying to dodge being classifed as a telecommunications company specifically so it wasn't subject to the same regulations it's competitors weer.)

You are lucky to have 3 comparable ISPs. In the area where I live each town has at most 2 ISPs. One of them provides DSL and the other cable. This means if you want speeds above about 5Mbps you have 1 choice. We were forced to switch to cable because our DSL provider couldn’t even manage to maintain a consistent connection much less the 5Mbps we were paying for. All this to say there are plenty of places where there is effectively 0 competition between ISPs.

On the other hand if I don’t like Facebook I can choose not to use it or I can use another social media platform. If I don’t like Google I can easily use an alternative (at least for all of the consumer products I use from them). I can’t easily go to a new ISP that is comparable if I don’t like my ISP.

You are missing most of the point: ISP competition and tech competition are not dissimilar, and their placement in the product market is not dissimilar. They should be subject to the same regulations. But the tech companies pushing these regulations are strongly opposed to being subject to these same regulations.

Most people cannot easily leave tech companies easily, even if they believe they can. You actually can't leave Facebook, for instance, if you want to talk to your friends who are on Facebook. You can't leave Gmail without finding every contact and online account you have and updating your email address. (This is why AOL still has so much email!) Similarly, most people have options for ISPs, both wired and wireless, though it may be a worse service offering.

Heck, life generally is filled with that kind of inertia.

It's not easy to change banks or brokerage houses. Does it make sense that someone with $1M at Vanguard gets a bunch of special perks and lower fees? Not fair!!!

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