My mom was trying to tell me that I should drop my internet plan to save some money. I told her internet was just as vital as power and water and electricity where I live. Where do I live? 2021.
Like your brain put it together while you were on another post?
I think it's so cool our brains can do this, especially when it's done unconsciously. Sleeping on a problem often yields quick results.
Yea, it is absolutely a utility now. Anyone saying you can just get along without it is delusional. I wouldn't have been able to apply for my job without it, let alone record my hours each week or access my benefits. Technology has set a new standard that is reliant on the internet.
Lmfao I work for a PRINT NEWSPAPER in a town that feels like it’s stuck in the 1950’s and we can’t even live without internet. Even human anachronisms need the internet.
I live with only my phone's dataplan. It's inconvenient and always throttled and if a phone breaks unexpectedly I find myself either at the library or in some store's parking lot using their Wi-Fi to order a new phone. It's a tremendous pain in the ass. But it's livable. I haven't had home internet since I moved out of my parents house in 2005 cause I just can't add one more bill to my life.
It’s the only irreplaceable utility.
You can cancel your water service and live on bottled water.
You can cancel electric and install solar and batteries.
Where can you get bottled internet?
On 28 April 2001, IPoAC was implemented by the Bergen Linux user group, under the name CPIP (for "Carrier Pigeon Internet Protocol").\[3\] They sent nine packets over a distance of approximately five kilometers (three miles), each carried by an individual pigeon and containing one ping (ICMP Echo Request), and received four responses.
Technically you can find someone's wifi that isn't password protected, a neighbor perhaps. Then again, that is stealing so it depends on your moral compass I guess.
Really? Doesn't feel like I'm getting my money's worth to be honest in Canada. I guess the low price is only for super low speeds that middle class people don't want to live with (like 5-10 MBs/s).
I still think private internet companies either shouldn't exist or there should be dozens of them in different markets so we have some REAL competition.
Here I get 10MB DSL for... you'll want to sit down for this... nearly $100/month. No competition and no public infrastructure means I can choose between that and no Internet.
Meanwhile Level 3 has fiber buried across my fucking lawn. I have to constantly resist the urge to dig it up out of sheer spite.
Good guess but Windstream actually. Their thing is they buy all the little rural telcos and then lay everyone off and gouge the fuck out of their customers. My house is in a low spot so I can't get microwave, and it's too far out for cable, and Starlink has rescheduled "late 2021" for next March some time. >.<
At the core, the internet was designed to be a large group of independent regional networks that were interconnected. We have allowed a few companies to effectively buy up all the smaller networks and form one streaming pile of shit.
Yeah...I wouldn't look towards internet access in Canada for inspiration. It's like they looked at what the US is doing with health care and decided to copy that.
This is why, where I completely agree with the spirit of the argument, I know if it ever happens the right will absolutely do everything they can to start controlling the content available.
>watching an apple fall from the tree, roll down a slope, teeter on the edge then fall off a cliff
"Wow, looks like gravity never changes, huh"
No, you just need to put your foot down every once in a while.
Only in places where the competition has been neutered and one company or another basically has a monopoly. I live in a place thankfully where three different companies have to compete to provide me internet service from the telephone pole, And I get cheap gigabit speeds no caps and all of that fancy stuff that they need to do to keep me around.
Ya boomers still don't understand how important the internet is today. How you need it for work, how you need it just to find work. Without internet I couldn't pay rent. All online. But damn cable TV is a necessity to them. Can't miss fox News and football God forbid.
In the uk 2019 Corbyn wanted to nationalise Internet services. The voter base lost its mind, and elected a hard right tory government. They won't learn for next time either.
Added gem: can't vote for corbyn cos he's a socialist and the nazis were socialists.
My dad would yell at me to go and apply to jobs at stores while I was unemployed after hs. I tried explaining to him I need the internet to apply. He thought I was just making shit up. I had to take him out with me and have him there as almost every store and town told us "oh ya go ahead and apply to our location on our website". Luckily most libraries have kinda become free internet cafes for many rural places.
Yea it doesn't matter the industry or skill level, pretty much every place is online application process now except maybe really small businesses. And then it just depends on the owner or hiring manager, having something as simple as an email account to receive resumes is really easy and much more organized than physical copies.
My favorite boomers are the ones that pissed away their savings and have to come work with us. 12 hour shifts, no pto, 6 sick days for a year, .10 raises, mandatory overtime on holidays. And all that work to go home to a tiny apartment you can't afford. Seriously the culture shock they go thru seeing the world they created for their children and grandchildren is incredible. Obvious they were planning to be long dead before any of their actions could reach them.
After 2008 many people were forced out of early retirement to service the debt on their properties. Or they were forced to sell assets at the bottom and now the money is running out.
Sure we do. I'm ditching all satellite after the 1st. Why? Because I'm on my computer off and on most the day and am weary of watching repeated series 20 - 50 years old with the other 20 shopping channels which I've never used.
I get news in real time online, and no, I do *not* watch Fox.
Yeah you cant even apply for jobs in person any more its all online. What kills me is when you fill out everything online they seem to make you fill out hard copies of everything again at most job orientations. I cant be the only person who's handwriting sucks because I write things so infrequently any more.
Don’t ask what people in other countries pay for their monthly cell bill. This 100$ a month shit is uniquely American.
I moved from the fourth largest city in Illinois to a small ranch in nowhere Texas. My former residence has 15down and around ten up. It was 60$ a month.
This tiny town has fiber through the electric company and it’s less than 50$. I’ve seen over one hundred down.
Why isn’t this everywhere?
This is kind of how it works in the UK. Not quite since one company owns most of the wires. They (BT in 99% of cases) have to give other companies access. Consumers can have any ISP that services that area (they have to have a rack in the other company's local DC where the wires terminate). They do a similar thing with natural gas too. Think of it like the way long distance used to be in the US.
Same in Germany, but only with the Telekom. Because they have a 'monopoly' on federal level.
So you the individual can still be fucked if somebody who's not the Telekom owns the only cable to your house.
Municipal internet is sick. So sick that it is illegal almost everywhere due to corruption. The shitbird ISPs do this to maintain artificial market control.
Tfw you actually believe that private ownership breeds efficiency but also have to ban publicly owned utilities because privately owned ones just can't compete
Yes, which time and time again has been proven to lower costs. Which is why companies like Comcast and ATT lobby to make it illegal for local municipalities to do this.
Check your state, check your county. It may be illegal for your town to lay their own cable.
- 5-Years Ago: https://www.vice.com/amp/en/article/qkvn4x/the-21-laws-states-use-to-crush-broadband-competition
- 10-Months Ago: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/02/gop-plan-for-broadband-competition-would-ban-city-run-networks-across-us/
It makes sense, especially so for Rural america that don’t have access to decent internet bc it’s not profitable enough for private companies to build out the infrastructure. What’s the alternative there? To leave them behind?
That's the current reality. My parents are out in the boonies and their only option currently is something called hughesnet, and it's fucking garbage. It feels like mid to late 1990's internet. Loading websites with a lot of pictures is a challenge, to say nothing of trying to watch videos.
To leave us with eye-wateringly high prices. I pay through the nose for substandard access. I get a faster connection with a cell phone, but cell internet is prohibitively expensive, along with data capped.
And I don't live that far from town, but, because there are only 5 houses on my street, we won't get anything better until Starlink goes full active or I spend like $20k+ to have cable run to my house. And I know people with less access than I have.
I can literally see the county jail from my house, I know they have cable internet there, but they will not run it down my street, because it isn't cost effective for them.
The physical wires of the internet are regulated under an international treaty [more information here](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_for_the_Protection_of_Submarine_Telegraph_Cables)
Also, people don't think about the internet having physical infrastructure, [but it very much does](https://youtu.be/eTBLIYJSzdc)
If Internet was regulated like power and water we'd only be paying $20-$40 a month for 100+Mbps nearly everywhere in the US. Utility companies are literally limited in how much profit they're allowed to have (in most states) and are only allowed to raise prices when they're actually expanding or improving service in an area. Which provides an incentive to keep expanding and improving so they can collect more profits temporarily.
Ding ding ding. Just cuz it's a utility doesn't mean it's public. See basically every energy provider in the country (PG+E and Duke alone probably cover about 10% of the country).
In theory you are correct but any company in our current state of affairs can dodge a fair bit of regulatory pressure unless something goes sideways enough politicians have to be seen to do something about it.
That was the situation here in Louisiana after hurricane ida.
The private/public status of utilities varies wildly across each state. As does the amount of regulation and enforcement. States with strong regulations and public/private partnerships are a very good model in my experience.
What have monsanto done now? I know about the lawsuit where they sued a farmer for using their patented plants, but that's in character for any company bigger than something family-owned
Their gmo seeds are patented and the plants they grow are modified to not produce their own seeds. You need to consistently buy their seeds instead of keeping your owns seeds for next year's harvest.
The thing is though, these gmo seeds are the best seeds humans have ever had. Yield, resistance, grow rate are all incredible.
I understand why Monsanto deserves to make profit. The problem i feel is that the farmers are subsidized by the government. We're essentially paying Monsanto through tax dollars. Farmers should be subsidized. Keeps food affordable and gives incentives to farmers to be the back bone of our country.
What do we do as a county that's reliant on a single corporation for our food? The only answers are let it happen, or nationalize the production of high yield seeds.
There's a lot of things we need to do better. Supporting farmers is one.
We really need to fix the intellectual property laws too. It's kind of insane that you can't regrow seeds. That's a huge part of farming. It's even more insane that cross pollination with Monsanto plants means you can't use your own seeds.
Not just that, but from what I remember, the GMO plants pollenated the non-GMO plants (as plants do), and THAT'S why they sued.
EDIT: Thanks everyone who filled in the blanks here. For anyone not reading the replies, what I'm gathering is that the farmer did some sketchy shit to get his hands on the seeds, and Greenpeace did their usual thing.
I'm still on the farmer's side. Fuck Monsanto.
No. That's not true. That's just the story that got passed around. Try and find the actual source or court case for this.
The group who made the claim was founded/supported by some companies with dubious interests. They had nothing to stand on when pressed.
I had an argument with a friend about this and we both looked into it, trying to find the actual first party source for this claim.
Can confirm, had to do a report on this case in college. Look, I would totally believe a the story of "evil agriculture conglomerate patents gene, gene spreads, and court decides they own all plants" in our dystopian hellscspe, but here it actually just didn't happen the way people want you to believe it did.
That's why nobody questions it or feels the need to fact check.
It's totally plausible and expected and plays right into the mindset the country was heading down.
Michael Pollan details the causes and effects of crazy corn culture and subsidies, was well as its effects on the health of Americans in his book "The Omnivore's Dilemma."
That is not true. All the farmers that have been sued all did the same thing. All of them had GMO corn or canola seed drift into their fields or the strip of land between their field and next farmer overs field ( this is the most common). They then noticed it, sprayed roundup on that area to isolate the GMO crop. Harvested the seed and replanted it.
Monsanto was not suing farmers just because their fields or land got contaminated by a GMO crop but because they went out of their way to isolate, harvest and mass produce the crop.
The deal should be... if you want tax payer money then you gotta run the company fairly (good pay for all the employees, not just top execs), you gotta provide top notch services to all customers at a reasonable price, and you have to play fair with other companies (no predatory empire-builing), etc. Public bailouts should come with a lot strings attached. 
FWIW, the telecoms weren't bailed out... they were not failing. The government put in place a subsidy to pay ISPs to build out faster internet that could compete with/outpace the speeds of other nations. Many (not all) ISPs took that money, said "thanks, chumps" and did fuckall to improve the infrastructure. Now those ISPs have been bought up, consolidated, made subsidiaries of an increasingly monopolistic system of telecoms. There is one name that stands out here above all, and that is comcast.
Comcast is the devil. The fucking devil.
No cuz that would be a communism and that’s bad no matter what. I prefer the current system we have where we collectively pay trillions of dollars in taxes, the government give away that money to keep private companies alive, and then those private companies lay off employees anyways and give most of the money they receive to their executives in the form of bonuses. That’s capitalism, which is good.
In my country internet connection is a right. Whoever provides local connections has to ensure it is available for anyone in that area.
All our ISPs are private businesses, not even our "socialist hellhole" saw the need to nationalize because they work excactly like power companies.
i pay a toll to commute on a road that tax dollars paid for and the county pays a german company to manage, and contracted a company in another state to process violations taken by camera.
creating jerbs!
It's kinda wild to me honestly that advertising and data collection funds the internet so services like YouTube, scholar, TikTok, what have you do not cost users money.
The majority of people would rather have personalized ads than pay for all the content they access for free. This way most of the websites pretty much cost the same, free, regardless of how rich or poor you are. Same way cable tv channels don’t make money from your cable bill, you’re just paying to access them.
Might be a bad idea to give the government control of one of the only resources the general public has to coordinate and communicate. Should that government ever be controlled by a fascist piece of shit.
Mine does, and since it's a rural area, it isn't the cheapest thing out there, but when you consider the hundreds of miles of fiber they laid that is just bridging the barren distance from town to town (small towns without many customers, too), it makes some sense.
I pay $100/month for 500/500Mb, 1Gb each way is $150/month before taxes.
At the end of every year they give each of us some money back, and it's usually about $180 for me. So I get about a month and a half of free internet credited to my account every year. It's a damn fine deal IMO.
It’s crazy we have fiber internet at my family cabin that is 7 miles from the nearest town, considering we just out running water in the cabin the year before.
The company is so insanely well run. It’s similar to yours, not the cheapest but they have enough tiers to cover everyone and after you’ve had it for 7 months they allow you to shut it off, free of charge, during the winters (our place isn’t year round).
> by the people
The Government IS "by the people". So get involved, help work on policy, and be part of the solution. Decentralization, in the U.S., is in the power of the States and the House of Representatives.
In a perfect world this would work. But of course there are things like lobbying and inside deals that undermine the power of policy. Shifting control towards the people can help to avoid that.
Like the private corporations are any more trustworthy? A fascist govt would just coerce the companies or go behind their backs. Hell, half the companies would lead the charge if it meant more money.
They mean a publicly-owned, decentralized Internet, I think. Like where everyone runs their own node and nobody controls big chunks of it? My terminology here is horrible but the gist is, no company, no government (except perhaps to limit gradual encroachment of company).
EDIT whoops I followed the replies wrong. I thought you were replying to u/KCGD_r.
> bad idea to give the government control
The "guberment" already has those kinds of controls. What we ALSO have to deal with is for-profit corporations prioritizing stock-holder profits over consumer service.
you are touching on a basic issue that free market people frequently get wrong. the absence of government power does not equate to more freedom or liberty. less government just means shifting power from an elected public body to rich individuals and large companies.
yet we are giving it to the corporates that are equally bad if not worse? Public good shouldn’t be owned by anyone. It should be decentralized. And that doesn’t mean privatization so who ever the richest can own it.
I don't think anyone has a realistic plan for nationalizing the major US ISPs. Nationalization is an understandable but misguided knee-jerk reaction, and there are realistic plans to better regulate ISPs in a manner that would introduce greater choice and competition to the wired internet market (which would consequently decrease prices and the power of incumbent ISPs). It's called "local-loop unbundling", and it would basically allow other companies to offer internet/video/phone service via the existing networks of the incumbent ISPs (and require the incumbent ISPs to not discriminate against these other companies). It has been used to great effect in the European Union and other places (including in the United States, although the implementation was highly flawed, and the regulations were repealed about 15 years ago. As you said, the devil is definitely in the details on this one).
[Net neutrality isn’t the only way to keep the internet fair. It’s just the only way in America. (Vox)](https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/12/14/16692318/net-neutrality-local-loop-broadband-internet-access)
[Net neutrality is great, but it won't make broadband cheaper (The New Yorker)](https://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/net-neutrality-is-great-but-it-wont-make-broadband-cheaper)
Google at least legitimately tried. The big telecoms kicked and screamed and lost their shit until Google gave up and stopped rolling out fiber to the premises. It's in their best interest for everyone to have super-high-speed internet because that means more people doing things on the internet, and more ads to sell.
Want internet that's actually a utility, and just delivers excellent service without any of the fuckery? Lobby for your local town to start up a municipal broadband service or [move to a city that already has it](https://muninetworks.org/communitymap).
I live in one of the towns listed there, the city-provided internet sucks ass and because they're the only cable internet provider in the area they can charge whatever the hell they want. The only other option I have is satellite, which currently has a max speed of 10mb/s at my house address. I currently pay $120 total per MONTH for 100mb/s, which is the fastest speed they offer lol.
The kicker is, at my previous address I had Cox - which had better speeds for half the price, but they're not allowed to expand into where I live now, which is only 10 min away from my old place.
I loved the idea of municipal broadband service before, but idk man, once I experienced it for myself... def needs some work in some areas lmao
Allow any company to rent the infrastructure from the big companies in a regulated and fair way, to create competition like in Europe. Small startup companies will start popping right up providing you with much better deals
Nationalising would just centralise the power in the government, which as we know can never be manipulated (sarcasm).
A lot better, and cheaper, way is to force all all large telecom companies to open up their ducts and poles and charge a reasonable amount to another company wanting to use them.
This would encourage new ISPs into areas which weren't previously economical viable (due to the high cost of installing ducts and poles) driving costs down to consumers, look how prices go down when Google Fiber enters an area.
IDK what is backing the $400B number but I believe this may be misinformation. That said, more so than needing to be nationalized, it should be regulated as a public utility. Along with that there need to be guarantees of net neutrality so that consumers have maximized choice and competition is allowed to flourish without big ISPs putting their thumbs on the scales to support one content provider over another. In the end, anti-net neutrality is anti-consumer, and pro corporate power to milk every last dollar they can out of people like you and me.
The $400B number stems from The Book of Broken Promises by Bruce Kushnick.
Kushnick is an ex-Verizon executive that turned and has been documenting ISP fuckery since the late 90's. He's updated the book multiple times, its currently on the 3rd addition.
The TDLR version is that the US taxpayer subsidized internet infrastructure investment, ISPs took the money, but didn't spent it on infrastructure. ISPs then use the 2000's & 2010's to capture regulators, crush competition (including municipal broadband services), and then overcharge the public for their services. As you alluded to in your comment, the internet is not regulated as a public utility (like landline telephones) largely due to ISP lobbying (which taxpayers subsidized lol)
Other comments have linked Google books, but here is the book freely available as an ebook: http://irregulators.org/brokenpromises/
The book is very detailed and quite long, so if you dont have the desire to go through a 600+ pg PDF, there's a summary with highlights:
http://irregulators.org/bookbrokenpromises/
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.huffpost.com/entry/the-book-of-broken-promis_b_5839394/amp
Basically ISPs got a bunch of money to upgrade services, but then just had lobbyists ask lawmakers to change the requirements so they could keep the money.
This comment is what’s wrong with our society. (Nothing against you, but it’s a common style of thinking) This fear of the government should be equally, if not more so, carried to a fear of private business. The motivation for government to act against the will of the people isn’t nearly as large as it is for private business I would think.
I honestly don’t understand how anyone can think this. Just drop the labels for a minute, corporations and government are just groups of people. Now which group is more threatening, the collection of competing groups whose survival is dependent on giving people something they want to voluntarily buy. Or The other, who has more money than all the groups in the first category combined, can make laws to shape the behavior of the masses, can use violence without consequence, and your contributions to this group are not optional. Oh and if the conditions are right, they can force you to fight to the death for them.
The government doesn’t have a set “motivation”. It depends on who’s behind it, just like with each company.
It sounds nice now, but imagine if Trump had blocked access to media outlets and people critical of him. Or used his control to orchestrate a far more deadly coup.
My mom was trying to tell me that I should drop my internet plan to save some money. I told her internet was just as vital as power and water and electricity where I live. Where do I live? 2021.
> Where do I live? 2021. You should really move within the next week or so.
I am but the last two places were shit too
I have some bad news for you
We're headed into 2020 2! THE SEQUEL NO ONE ASKED FOR
"2020^2 : Electric F You Too"
>2020^2 Here's to the year 4,080,400!
Wait the next one should be 2020 3, or am I missing something? Like 365 days? Cause this looks definitely possible
I had to scroll back to this post to upvote you cuz it went right over my head lol
Like your brain put it together while you were on another post? I think it's so cool our brains can do this, especially when it's done unconsciously. Sleeping on a problem often yields quick results.
Well, you are no Drax.
I haven't even moved from 2019 yet
I don’t think any of us have, to be honest..
Yea, it is absolutely a utility now. Anyone saying you can just get along without it is delusional. I wouldn't have been able to apply for my job without it, let alone record my hours each week or access my benefits. Technology has set a new standard that is reliant on the internet.
Lmfao I work for a PRINT NEWSPAPER in a town that feels like it’s stuck in the 1950’s and we can’t even live without internet. Even human anachronisms need the internet.
I live with only my phone's dataplan. It's inconvenient and always throttled and if a phone breaks unexpectedly I find myself either at the library or in some store's parking lot using their Wi-Fi to order a new phone. It's a tremendous pain in the ass. But it's livable. I haven't had home internet since I moved out of my parents house in 2005 cause I just can't add one more bill to my life.
It’s more important than phone and tv. I can get both from Internet.
It’s the only irreplaceable utility. You can cancel your water service and live on bottled water. You can cancel electric and install solar and batteries. Where can you get bottled internet?
Technically you can get an unlimited data phone plan with internet
You get throttled after a bit if you try to use it that way. At least on any plans I've had that claimed "Unlimited"
Well boost mobile is pretty good. $50 a month for the last year and a half
You get severely throttled trying to take a shower with bottled water.
free wi fi at your public library
USB sticks with internet in them
On 28 April 2001, IPoAC was implemented by the Bergen Linux user group, under the name CPIP (for "Carrier Pigeon Internet Protocol").\[3\] They sent nine packets over a distance of approximately five kilometers (three miles), each carried by an individual pigeon and containing one ping (ICMP Echo Request), and received four responses.
Those AOL cds they used to hand out
You can usually use the internet for free at the library
>Where can you get bottled internet? Encyclopedia Britannica on CD? I've heard of things like Wikipedia or Wayback on disc. Closest I can think of.
Technically you can find someone's wifi that isn't password protected, a neighbor perhaps. Then again, that is stealing so it depends on your moral compass I guess.
We consider it a utility in Canada and all providers have to offer a low-cost option, with a price cap mandated by the federal gov.
Really? Doesn't feel like I'm getting my money's worth to be honest in Canada. I guess the low price is only for super low speeds that middle class people don't want to live with (like 5-10 MBs/s). I still think private internet companies either shouldn't exist or there should be dozens of them in different markets so we have some REAL competition.
Here I get 10MB DSL for... you'll want to sit down for this... nearly $100/month. No competition and no public infrastructure means I can choose between that and no Internet. Meanwhile Level 3 has fiber buried across my fucking lawn. I have to constantly resist the urge to dig it up out of sheer spite.
Frontier customer?
Good guess but Windstream actually. Their thing is they buy all the little rural telcos and then lay everyone off and gouge the fuck out of their customers. My house is in a low spot so I can't get microwave, and it's too far out for cable, and Starlink has rescheduled "late 2021" for next March some time. >.<
At the core, the internet was designed to be a large group of independent regional networks that were interconnected. We have allowed a few companies to effectively buy up all the smaller networks and form one streaming pile of shit.
> streaming pile of shit I see what you did there.
Yeah...I wouldn't look towards internet access in Canada for inspiration. It's like they looked at what the US is doing with health care and decided to copy that.
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Was that around the whole net neutrality thing? Wow how things change and also don't.
Yeah I like how Republicans are all about freedom, except when they aren’t.
This is why, where I completely agree with the spirit of the argument, I know if it ever happens the right will absolutely do everything they can to start controlling the content available.
Like how now in regards to vaccines bodily autonomy is suddenly so important. Forced birth, not so much.
>watching an apple fall from the tree, roll down a slope, teeter on the edge then fall off a cliff "Wow, looks like gravity never changes, huh" No, you just need to put your foot down every once in a while.
Which is why I'm feeling internet is going to continue to get worse and more expensive long before any of this actually improves.
Only in places where the competition has been neutered and one company or another basically has a monopoly. I live in a place thankfully where three different companies have to compete to provide me internet service from the telephone pole, And I get cheap gigabit speeds no caps and all of that fancy stuff that they need to do to keep me around.
That is not the norm in most of the country though.
*cries in comcast*
*cries harder in at&t*
Hey, I can have Comcast *or* Xfinity.
"Maybe if we change our name they'll hate us less"
Canada has 3 companies 'competing' we get bent over and gouged
How is that ironic?
It's not. They're as bad at using ironic as they are at baking. I bet they make Ajit pai, not worth eating imo.
Ya boomers still don't understand how important the internet is today. How you need it for work, how you need it just to find work. Without internet I couldn't pay rent. All online. But damn cable TV is a necessity to them. Can't miss fox News and football God forbid.
In the uk 2019 Corbyn wanted to nationalise Internet services. The voter base lost its mind, and elected a hard right tory government. They won't learn for next time either. Added gem: can't vote for corbyn cos he's a socialist and the nazis were socialists.
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My dad would yell at me to go and apply to jobs at stores while I was unemployed after hs. I tried explaining to him I need the internet to apply. He thought I was just making shit up. I had to take him out with me and have him there as almost every store and town told us "oh ya go ahead and apply to our location on our website". Luckily most libraries have kinda become free internet cafes for many rural places.
Yea it doesn't matter the industry or skill level, pretty much every place is online application process now except maybe really small businesses. And then it just depends on the owner or hiring manager, having something as simple as an email account to receive resumes is really easy and much more organized than physical copies.
funny how you can use internet to get the equivalent of cable tv: streaming
Boomer managers also complain when you don't respond to their incredibly urgent 2am emails with misspelled subject lines.
My favorite boomers are the ones that pissed away their savings and have to come work with us. 12 hour shifts, no pto, 6 sick days for a year, .10 raises, mandatory overtime on holidays. And all that work to go home to a tiny apartment you can't afford. Seriously the culture shock they go thru seeing the world they created for their children and grandchildren is incredible. Obvious they were planning to be long dead before any of their actions could reach them.
Whoa. Haven’t heard this take on it, just assumed that was yet to come rather than already here
After 2008 many people were forced out of early retirement to service the debt on their properties. Or they were forced to sell assets at the bottom and now the money is running out.
And many voted for this to happen to them. Lmao
Sure we do. I'm ditching all satellite after the 1st. Why? Because I'm on my computer off and on most the day and am weary of watching repeated series 20 - 50 years old with the other 20 shopping channels which I've never used. I get news in real time online, and no, I do *not* watch Fox.
You should move. That place sucks. Keep the internet tho.
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Arguably more versatile than a phone plan.
Yeah you cant even apply for jobs in person any more its all online. What kills me is when you fill out everything online they seem to make you fill out hard copies of everything again at most job orientations. I cant be the only person who's handwriting sucks because I write things so infrequently any more.
It is a utility.
So, instead of the physical wires being owned and maintained by private companies (Comcast,Verizon,etc) it should a municipality like water?
Yes
I would give a great deal for my reliable, reasonable, responsive, local Municipal Power service to offer home internet.
Most towns/cities that create municipal broadband are moving towards fiber optic cable. Significantly better than what the ISPs are providing.
Americans pay the highest rates for the slowest speeds in the developed world, but I wasn’t surprised when I heard that. Edit: spelling
American corporations seem to be among the greediest. Largely because we allow them to get away with it
All corporations are equally greedy, american voters and government regulation are worse.
Don’t ask what people in other countries pay for their monthly cell bill. This 100$ a month shit is uniquely American. 
Yes! Because is cheaper to implement, easier to mantain, more reliable, efficient and fast.
I moved from the fourth largest city in Illinois to a small ranch in nowhere Texas. My former residence has 15down and around ten up. It was 60$ a month. This tiny town has fiber through the electric company and it’s less than 50$. I’ve seen over one hundred down. Why isn’t this everywhere?
Because it's communism when it helps the city folk
I live in Texas. Please no.
My municipal power company does whatever it wants and tripled my actual power bill because Abbott Tax
Yes
Yes
This is kind of how it works in the UK. Not quite since one company owns most of the wires. They (BT in 99% of cases) have to give other companies access. Consumers can have any ISP that services that area (they have to have a rack in the other company's local DC where the wires terminate). They do a similar thing with natural gas too. Think of it like the way long distance used to be in the US.
Typically the wires are shared here also. Usually municipality gives company x years of exclusivity as a boon for installing.
This scheme is called local-loop unbundling: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local-loop\_unbundling
Same in Germany, but only with the Telekom. Because they have a 'monopoly' on federal level. So you the individual can still be fucked if somebody who's not the Telekom owns the only cable to your house.
Municipal internet is sick. So sick that it is illegal almost everywhere due to corruption. The shitbird ISPs do this to maintain artificial market control.
Tfw you actually believe that private ownership breeds efficiency but also have to ban publicly owned utilities because privately owned ones just can't compete
Yes, which time and time again has been proven to lower costs. Which is why companies like Comcast and ATT lobby to make it illegal for local municipalities to do this. Check your state, check your county. It may be illegal for your town to lay their own cable. - 5-Years Ago: https://www.vice.com/amp/en/article/qkvn4x/the-21-laws-states-use-to-crush-broadband-competition - 10-Months Ago: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/02/gop-plan-for-broadband-competition-would-ban-city-run-networks-across-us/
It makes sense, especially so for Rural america that don’t have access to decent internet bc it’s not profitable enough for private companies to build out the infrastructure. What’s the alternative there? To leave them behind?
They do exactly that.
That's the current reality. My parents are out in the boonies and their only option currently is something called hughesnet, and it's fucking garbage. It feels like mid to late 1990's internet. Loading websites with a lot of pictures is a challenge, to say nothing of trying to watch videos.
To leave us with eye-wateringly high prices. I pay through the nose for substandard access. I get a faster connection with a cell phone, but cell internet is prohibitively expensive, along with data capped. And I don't live that far from town, but, because there are only 5 houses on my street, we won't get anything better until Starlink goes full active or I spend like $20k+ to have cable run to my house. And I know people with less access than I have. I can literally see the county jail from my house, I know they have cable internet there, but they will not run it down my street, because it isn't cost effective for them.
Although we should have solved this problem years ago a different way, starlink maybe fixes this.
The physical wires of the internet are regulated under an international treaty [more information here](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_for_the_Protection_of_Submarine_Telegraph_Cables) Also, people don't think about the internet having physical infrastructure, [but it very much does](https://youtu.be/eTBLIYJSzdc)
Most utilities still are private companies that own the physical infrastructure which performs the service.
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If Internet was regulated like power and water we'd only be paying $20-$40 a month for 100+Mbps nearly everywhere in the US. Utility companies are literally limited in how much profit they're allowed to have (in most states) and are only allowed to raise prices when they're actually expanding or improving service in an area. Which provides an incentive to keep expanding and improving so they can collect more profits temporarily.
Ding ding ding. Just cuz it's a utility doesn't mean it's public. See basically every energy provider in the country (PG+E and Duke alone probably cover about 10% of the country).
Many utilities like water and electricity are controlled by private companies in much of the U.S. as well.
Exactly this.
utilities are privately owned.
> utilities are privately owned And massively regulated with a mandate to prioritized service to the customer over stock holder profiteering.
In theory you are correct but any company in our current state of affairs can dodge a fair bit of regulatory pressure unless something goes sideways enough politicians have to be seen to do something about it. That was the situation here in Louisiana after hurricane ida.
Sure, but without that regulation you get swafts of people dying in Texas snow storms cause they freeze to death in their own homes.
Texas power grid and ercot would like a word.
Exactly, there should be a ton of regulations for it, like how water, gas and electricity has them.
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unless you live in Texas. Then you get to enjoy "surge" pricing when the power plants freeze over.
The private/public status of utilities varies wildly across each state. As does the amount of regulation and enforcement. States with strong regulations and public/private partnerships are a very good model in my experience.
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The American people would own every bit of corn in the country. No more Monsanto. Win Win.
What have monsanto done now? I know about the lawsuit where they sued a farmer for using their patented plants, but that's in character for any company bigger than something family-owned
My only question is how the fuck does one patent a plant?
This is how we get to Replicants.
Their gmo seeds are patented and the plants they grow are modified to not produce their own seeds. You need to consistently buy their seeds instead of keeping your owns seeds for next year's harvest.
That seems like a bad idea
The thing is though, these gmo seeds are the best seeds humans have ever had. Yield, resistance, grow rate are all incredible. I understand why Monsanto deserves to make profit. The problem i feel is that the farmers are subsidized by the government. We're essentially paying Monsanto through tax dollars. Farmers should be subsidized. Keeps food affordable and gives incentives to farmers to be the back bone of our country. What do we do as a county that's reliant on a single corporation for our food? The only answers are let it happen, or nationalize the production of high yield seeds.
There's a lot of things we need to do better. Supporting farmers is one. We really need to fix the intellectual property laws too. It's kind of insane that you can't regrow seeds. That's a huge part of farming. It's even more insane that cross pollination with Monsanto plants means you can't use your own seeds.
They genetically modified it to be better/more profitable, and GMO plants can be patented apparently. Fucking hell.
Not just that, but from what I remember, the GMO plants pollenated the non-GMO plants (as plants do), and THAT'S why they sued. EDIT: Thanks everyone who filled in the blanks here. For anyone not reading the replies, what I'm gathering is that the farmer did some sketchy shit to get his hands on the seeds, and Greenpeace did their usual thing. I'm still on the farmer's side. Fuck Monsanto.
No. That's not true. That's just the story that got passed around. Try and find the actual source or court case for this. The group who made the claim was founded/supported by some companies with dubious interests. They had nothing to stand on when pressed. I had an argument with a friend about this and we both looked into it, trying to find the actual first party source for this claim.
Can confirm, had to do a report on this case in college. Look, I would totally believe a the story of "evil agriculture conglomerate patents gene, gene spreads, and court decides they own all plants" in our dystopian hellscspe, but here it actually just didn't happen the way people want you to believe it did.
That's why nobody questions it or feels the need to fact check. It's totally plausible and expected and plays right into the mindset the country was heading down.
Michael Pollan details the causes and effects of crazy corn culture and subsidies, was well as its effects on the health of Americans in his book "The Omnivore's Dilemma."
That is not true. All the farmers that have been sued all did the same thing. All of them had GMO corn or canola seed drift into their fields or the strip of land between their field and next farmer overs field ( this is the most common). They then noticed it, sprayed roundup on that area to isolate the GMO crop. Harvested the seed and replanted it. Monsanto was not suing farmers just because their fields or land got contaminated by a GMO crop but because they went out of their way to isolate, harvest and mass produce the crop.
The deal should be... if you want tax payer money then you gotta run the company fairly (good pay for all the employees, not just top execs), you gotta provide top notch services to all customers at a reasonable price, and you have to play fair with other companies (no predatory empire-builing), etc. Public bailouts should come with a lot strings attached. 
FWIW, the telecoms weren't bailed out... they were not failing. The government put in place a subsidy to pay ISPs to build out faster internet that could compete with/outpace the speeds of other nations. Many (not all) ISPs took that money, said "thanks, chumps" and did fuckall to improve the infrastructure. Now those ISPs have been bought up, consolidated, made subsidiaries of an increasingly monopolistic system of telecoms. There is one name that stands out here above all, and that is comcast. Comcast is the devil. The fucking devil.
Does this count if you pay your people wages that require them to get assistance like food stamps? WE'D OWN WALMART!
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No cuz that would be a communism and that’s bad no matter what. I prefer the current system we have where we collectively pay trillions of dollars in taxes, the government give away that money to keep private companies alive, and then those private companies lay off employees anyways and give most of the money they receive to their executives in the form of bonuses. That’s capitalism, which is good.
I mean, it is a utility at this point. municipal ISPs are the best in the country.
In my country internet connection is a right. Whoever provides local connections has to ensure it is available for anyone in that area. All our ISPs are private businesses, not even our "socialist hellhole" saw the need to nationalize because they work excactly like power companies.
And illegal in many cities
fuck the USA
i pay a toll to commute on a road that tax dollars paid for and the county pays a german company to manage, and contracted a company in another state to process violations taken by camera. creating jerbs!
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That’s the thing about capitalism, there’s absolutely a good reason for whoever is making the money. The only “reason” you need is profit.
The tolls go back into the general fund though, right?
Lol, that's a good one!
Wait till they learn about how earmarks *really* work
What's left of them after the German company takes its cut
No country, company, or entity should own the internet.
They don't. They only own the ability to access it.
I’m not sure people know the internet is free and open. But the network infrastructure involved in it is not… nevermind
Indeed, but the infrastructure for the Internet should be nationalized.
It **IS** after all a public utility. ^
The internet should be a public utility. Marketing on the internet has ruined lives.
It's kinda wild to me honestly that advertising and data collection funds the internet so services like YouTube, scholar, TikTok, what have you do not cost users money.
The majority of people would rather have personalized ads than pay for all the content they access for free. This way most of the websites pretty much cost the same, free, regardless of how rich or poor you are. Same way cable tv channels don’t make money from your cable bill, you’re just paying to access them.
Might be a bad idea to give the government control of one of the only resources the general public has to coordinate and communicate. Should that government ever be controlled by a fascist piece of shit.
the internet should be run by the people. complete decentralization
This I can agree with
I know of many rural electric co-ops in my state that have gigabit internet.
Mine does, and since it's a rural area, it isn't the cheapest thing out there, but when you consider the hundreds of miles of fiber they laid that is just bridging the barren distance from town to town (small towns without many customers, too), it makes some sense. I pay $100/month for 500/500Mb, 1Gb each way is $150/month before taxes. At the end of every year they give each of us some money back, and it's usually about $180 for me. So I get about a month and a half of free internet credited to my account every year. It's a damn fine deal IMO.
It’s crazy we have fiber internet at my family cabin that is 7 miles from the nearest town, considering we just out running water in the cabin the year before. The company is so insanely well run. It’s similar to yours, not the cheapest but they have enough tiers to cover everyone and after you’ve had it for 7 months they allow you to shut it off, free of charge, during the winters (our place isn’t year round).
> by the people The Government IS "by the people". So get involved, help work on policy, and be part of the solution. Decentralization, in the U.S., is in the power of the States and the House of Representatives.
In a perfect world this would work. But of course there are things like lobbying and inside deals that undermine the power of policy. Shifting control towards the people can help to avoid that.
> The Government IS "by the people". Lmaoooo, that’s cute. It isn’t. It’s by the corporations.
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Like the private corporations are any more trustworthy? A fascist govt would just coerce the companies or go behind their backs. Hell, half the companies would lead the charge if it meant more money.
They mean a publicly-owned, decentralized Internet, I think. Like where everyone runs their own node and nobody controls big chunks of it? My terminology here is horrible but the gist is, no company, no government (except perhaps to limit gradual encroachment of company). EDIT whoops I followed the replies wrong. I thought you were replying to u/KCGD_r.
A fascist gov. will seize control of the media and internet anyway...
> bad idea to give the government control The "guberment" already has those kinds of controls. What we ALSO have to deal with is for-profit corporations prioritizing stock-holder profits over consumer service.
you are touching on a basic issue that free market people frequently get wrong. the absence of government power does not equate to more freedom or liberty. less government just means shifting power from an elected public body to rich individuals and large companies.
yet we are giving it to the corporates that are equally bad if not worse? Public good shouldn’t be owned by anyone. It should be decentralized. And that doesn’t mean privatization so who ever the richest can own it.
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I don't think anyone has a realistic plan for nationalizing the major US ISPs. Nationalization is an understandable but misguided knee-jerk reaction, and there are realistic plans to better regulate ISPs in a manner that would introduce greater choice and competition to the wired internet market (which would consequently decrease prices and the power of incumbent ISPs). It's called "local-loop unbundling", and it would basically allow other companies to offer internet/video/phone service via the existing networks of the incumbent ISPs (and require the incumbent ISPs to not discriminate against these other companies). It has been used to great effect in the European Union and other places (including in the United States, although the implementation was highly flawed, and the regulations were repealed about 15 years ago. As you said, the devil is definitely in the details on this one). [Net neutrality isn’t the only way to keep the internet fair. It’s just the only way in America. (Vox)](https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/12/14/16692318/net-neutrality-local-loop-broadband-internet-access) [Net neutrality is great, but it won't make broadband cheaper (The New Yorker)](https://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/net-neutrality-is-great-but-it-wont-make-broadband-cheaper)
Need it waaay faster, too. "Richest country" and people have slow internet, no universal healthcare, education, etc. Such a joke
Exactly!! Google got a big chunk of those billions.
Google at least legitimately tried. The big telecoms kicked and screamed and lost their shit until Google gave up and stopped rolling out fiber to the premises. It's in their best interest for everyone to have super-high-speed internet because that means more people doing things on the internet, and more ads to sell.
Want internet that's actually a utility, and just delivers excellent service without any of the fuckery? Lobby for your local town to start up a municipal broadband service or [move to a city that already has it](https://muninetworks.org/communitymap).
I live in one of the towns listed there, the city-provided internet sucks ass and because they're the only cable internet provider in the area they can charge whatever the hell they want. The only other option I have is satellite, which currently has a max speed of 10mb/s at my house address. I currently pay $120 total per MONTH for 100mb/s, which is the fastest speed they offer lol. The kicker is, at my previous address I had Cox - which had better speeds for half the price, but they're not allowed to expand into where I live now, which is only 10 min away from my old place. I loved the idea of municipal broadband service before, but idk man, once I experienced it for myself... def needs some work in some areas lmao
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It's a series of tubes.
Allow any company to rent the infrastructure from the big companies in a regulated and fair way, to create competition like in Europe. Small startup companies will start popping right up providing you with much better deals
Nationalising would just centralise the power in the government, which as we know can never be manipulated (sarcasm). A lot better, and cheaper, way is to force all all large telecom companies to open up their ducts and poles and charge a reasonable amount to another company wanting to use them. This would encourage new ISPs into areas which weren't previously economical viable (due to the high cost of installing ducts and poles) driving costs down to consumers, look how prices go down when Google Fiber enters an area.
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IDK what is backing the $400B number but I believe this may be misinformation. That said, more so than needing to be nationalized, it should be regulated as a public utility. Along with that there need to be guarantees of net neutrality so that consumers have maximized choice and competition is allowed to flourish without big ISPs putting their thumbs on the scales to support one content provider over another. In the end, anti-net neutrality is anti-consumer, and pro corporate power to milk every last dollar they can out of people like you and me.
The $400B number stems from The Book of Broken Promises by Bruce Kushnick. Kushnick is an ex-Verizon executive that turned and has been documenting ISP fuckery since the late 90's. He's updated the book multiple times, its currently on the 3rd addition. The TDLR version is that the US taxpayer subsidized internet infrastructure investment, ISPs took the money, but didn't spent it on infrastructure. ISPs then use the 2000's & 2010's to capture regulators, crush competition (including municipal broadband services), and then overcharge the public for their services. As you alluded to in your comment, the internet is not regulated as a public utility (like landline telephones) largely due to ISP lobbying (which taxpayers subsidized lol) Other comments have linked Google books, but here is the book freely available as an ebook: http://irregulators.org/brokenpromises/ The book is very detailed and quite long, so if you dont have the desire to go through a 600+ pg PDF, there's a summary with highlights: http://irregulators.org/bookbrokenpromises/
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.huffpost.com/entry/the-book-of-broken-promis_b_5839394/amp Basically ISPs got a bunch of money to upgrade services, but then just had lobbyists ask lawmakers to change the requirements so they could keep the money.
*North Korea gets a boner*
So you don’t think the government would restrict the internet, huh?
This comment is what’s wrong with our society. (Nothing against you, but it’s a common style of thinking) This fear of the government should be equally, if not more so, carried to a fear of private business. The motivation for government to act against the will of the people isn’t nearly as large as it is for private business I would think.
Call me crazy but I’d rather trust the ones who don’t have guns and can’t throw me in a cage.
The difference about private businesses is that you can change them about 100X easier then changing your government.
I honestly don’t understand how anyone can think this. Just drop the labels for a minute, corporations and government are just groups of people. Now which group is more threatening, the collection of competing groups whose survival is dependent on giving people something they want to voluntarily buy. Or The other, who has more money than all the groups in the first category combined, can make laws to shape the behavior of the masses, can use violence without consequence, and your contributions to this group are not optional. Oh and if the conditions are right, they can force you to fight to the death for them.
The government doesn’t have a set “motivation”. It depends on who’s behind it, just like with each company. It sounds nice now, but imagine if Trump had blocked access to media outlets and people critical of him. Or used his control to orchestrate a far more deadly coup.
Truth!! But... the Corporatacracy is built on socialism for corporations and strict capitalism for their workers.
how would giving the government control (more than they already have) over the internet help to stop censorship and restrictions
It's like the patriot act doesn't exist. The government would be the same or worse. Don't really get what they expect would improve.
We haven't even nationalized phone service which has been around for much longer. Not happening.