ErikViking
VIP Member
rtwngAvngr said:Huck, would you be in favor of transferring control of the internet to the U.N.?
Bandwith for Porn programs?
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rtwngAvngr said:Huck, would you be in favor of transferring control of the internet to the U.N.?
Exactly. Bad idea? Hell, its insane IMO. Wanna stop the progress and destroy the internet and waste tax money? Give control to the government through a public access network. Huck mentioned a road, good analogy, I can see this government road marked with "STOP", DO NOT ENTER, "WRONG WAY and NO PARKING signs everywhere. I don't want any part of it.rtwngAvngr said:Making free public access will open the door to onerous and freedom nullifying censorship of the internet. Bad idea.
ErikViking said:Bandwith for Porn programs?
Huckleburry said:Rightwing,
I really did miss your thoughtless comments on economic development.
Huck
Huckleburry said:What about schools. You pay for those even if you don't have kids in them. People with out cars pay for roads, and oil subsidies even though they don't use it.
Do we benefit from greater connectivity? I argue that we do. Moreover, once the platform is provided private enterprise will begin working on ways to use it effeciently. You may never fly on a airplane or see a port but you benefit from their existence. This is really no different
Max Power said:Considering that there are already plans in the works for free (ad-supported) WiFi, it's 100% guaranteed that the government would overpay.
rtwngAvngr said:Making free public access will open the door to onerous and freedom nullifying censorship of the internet. Bad idea.
Now there really should be a smiley in the shape of a dog going away with its tail between its legs...rtwngAvngr said:Exactly. "We must protect the children from porn" will be the first argument to put controls on internet content. Go away, commie.
Huckleburry said:Said, the techonoly we are rolling out here is not WiFi. It uses a different frequency (low spectrum educational) and is quite a bit better than the WiFi connection. Also it will not interfere with existing WiFi networks.
Huckleburry said:Baron,
The Ocean network is a is a symetric 32 color spectrum. Each color can carry about 10 million Gigabits of data. That is quite a bit more bandwidth than anyone could possibly use. Do not confuse your computers ability to process data with the networks ability to carry it. I can think of several infinite goods. For example Linux. Like I said, infinite goods do not fit in the market model unless you introduce monoply power and artificial scarcity.
I conceded that there would be fixed costs associated with establishing the network. However, when we spread these costs across the entire population they effectively go to zero. This is true becuase the price drops to marginal cost in a market economy. In the case of a infinite good the marginal cost is equal to zero and therefore the price is zero. Thus capturing the entire area under the demand curve. The only way to bring the price above marginal cost is through monopoly or oligopoly power.
Said, the techonoly we are rolling out here is not WiFi. It uses a different frequency (low spectrum educational) and is quite a bit better than the WiFi connection. Also it will not interfere with existing WiFi networks.
Huckleburry said:Someone from the heritage foundation made a very similar argument. You are correct, no good can be fully infinite. Yet there comes a time when measuring becomes an excercise in frustration. For example, Space. We are pretty sure that space is not infinite. But does it matter? Space is so big that measuring it is really not usefull because the human brain cannot process size on that scale. So physists are correct when they argue against the infinte void but there argument is useless because space is too big to fill. The internet is very similar. There is a limited amount of bandwidth, you are right there, but there is so much bandwidth that measuring it has become effectively useless. Bandwidth has become similar to space and like space is expanding daily.
Regarding the Austrian view. I think it is pretty harmful to the model that it discredits monopoly power when there is empircal evidence supporting its existance. A model that makes no attempt to reconcile documented occurances in the economy seems pretty flawed. Am I to assume that monopoly power can not exist even though there is a large corpus of empirical evidence documenting its exitstance? It seems to me that you are choosing to bury your head in the sand rather than confront a major flaw in your model.
Next, why does public use of the internet automatically mean big brother intervention. Have you ever walked on the sidewalk? Because a side walk is a public good. Did sidewalk usage automatically entail a total loss of all rights? Did big brother come and takle you and make you the walking automoton that you seem to fear so much? From the sounds of things it did not which leads me to wonder about the other flaws in your model.
And what about exclusivity? Yes people without wireless capable computers would not be able to use it. But does that mean they would not benefit from a nomadic network. What if there power bill goes down because the electric company becomes more efficient or the health insurance. Incorrectly you assumed that this would only affect consumers. In reality it would benefit suppliers as well.
Finally this is not government usurption of a private good. Internet is far from ubixoutous and private firms have no interest in extending their networks beyond major urban centers.
Finally, we live in a society where government views economic developement as one of its roles. If you would like argue the approriateness of this role be my guest just do it else where. The fact of the matter is this...Things that are essential to commerce are gererally involved in the government. This is true of the legal system as it is true of the majority of our infa structure. Connectivity has been empircally linked to economic development therefore connectivity ought to be a public concern.
To recap...The austrian model is broken
bandwidth is not infinite but measuring it is pointless
and the government participates in the econonomy.
Huck