6 Responses to “Should Verizon (or whoever your ISP is) be paid twice/thrice for you to access Google?”

1. 1 kent
   10/31/2005 at 1:58 pm

   The closet Capitalist in me disagrees. AS LONG AS THERE’S REAL COMPETITION for what they provide, they can charge twice, three times, whatever. They made the investment. If they overcharge, they lose business to cable companies, power lines, wireless, etc.
   If you buy shares of a stock in the hope of making a return of 20% per year (high hopes, indeed), and some unforeseen event occurs making it possible for your return to be 40% instead, you don’t have to return your dividend checks to the company. You just hope this good fortune offsets some other investment that didn’t go as well as planned. The phone companies made speculative investments in the “pipes,” and for a couple of years it was clear that they had overinvested, had overcapacity, and had to eat the cost of those investments. They almost certainly did not expect Google to become a competitor, but fortuitously they did, and AS LONG AS THERE’S COMPETITION for the service they provide, they can charge everybody in sight as far as I’m concerned. If Google doesn’t like their price - or their competion’s - they can install their own pipes…or threaten to do so! And anyone jealous of SBC’s returns, can simply invest in SBC.

2. 2 chris
   10/31/2005 at 2:15 pm

   “they can install their own pipes…or threaten to do so! And anyone jealous of SBC’s returns, can simply invest in SBC. ”

   yes kent
   now that is how the leaders of this country should think!!! or maybe they already do.

3. 3 ChronoFish
   10/31/2005 at 4:19 pm

   Capitolism is good and I am not advocating against it. Historically the phone/network system has always been treated special - much like the airline industry. Sometimes they are a “utility” sometimes they are “private corporation”. It all depends on the situation (and side) you want to argue at the time (See e911).

   The problem has always been that large service providers don’t want competition AND don’t want government oversite. You can’t (not) have both.

   I do believe that the “market” will reject the notion of private “selective service” networks - that’s pre-Internet thinking (think Compuserv, Prodigy, old AOL, etc).

4. 4 kent
   10/31/2005 at 4:25 pm

   Don’t get carried away, Chris. I’m talking about free market capitalism, not cronyism, tax cuts for the rich, petty small-mindedness, lies and corruption. You’ll know we have leaders when we’re actually moving forward, and in a direction that the citizenship supports.
   BTW, where’s my dolphin?

5. 5 chris
   10/31/2005 at 4:38 pm

   kent
   cross your fingers,
   if the weather gods permit i will be fishing friday night returning late saturday.
   cross your fingers…think fishy.
   chris

6. 6 nav
   11/1/2005 at 3:21 pm

   I want one.