Thune, Cruz complain that $30 discounts go to people who "already had broadband."

Republicans slam broadband discounts for poor people, threaten to kill program::Thune, Cruz complain that $30 discounts go to people who “already had broadband.”

  • ExLisper@linux.communityEnglish
    511·
    11 months ago

    This is so sad. In Spain the government takes care of the central internet infrastructure and fiber is now available pretty much everywhere. You want to start an ISP? Just buy access to the central network and build the last mile. Every small town has it’s on ISP or two. You want fiber? Some guy will show up tomorrow and lay down a cable to your house. $20-$30 a month without any termination fees. Last time I had to connected internet in new apartment it took literally couple hours.

    USA should do the same but of course red states would block it and lobbyists for the corporations would fight it on every step. So instead they are giving free money to the telcos making sure the prices will stay high and no investment will be done.

    • andrew_bidlaw@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      123·
      11 months ago

      It was like that in Russia before big federal companies took over that business. A wild west where companies actually competed with each other, even by providing their own forums, filesharing services, torrent trackers and pirated WoW\CS servers - with unlimited traffic when it was paid-per-MB and with better speeds\ping when it became unlimited. It didn’t cost much nor for them, nor for clients, and they were very responsive if there’s some problem with connectivity. It actually created some sort of a community around ISPs where people could cooperate locally around their issues.

      I don’t want to sound like an ancap, or an annoying free market fan, but it served people way better than monopolization. And knowing how it all ended, having a small local company eyeing your traffic is probably better than having feds farming it in a centralized fashion - that’s probably the reason, since some things never left local servers at that time (sus), and it happened right at the time of big riots. Some ISPs I know were bought out in the same year.

      Having it said, even though in America it was probably just greed leading to that situation, big companies should be dismantled and localized to start to care about their clients. It means better service (they depend on ya), better privacy, probably better prices since they can’t use you to strong-arm into another area with price dumping shouldered by your bills or just charge you whatever they want. Same shit recently happened with gig economy apps everywhere. If the state has one job, it’s to hold down that bullshit of exponential growth. But just like with Anakin-Padme meme I’m having an impression there’re not many places where representatives actually represent people, not corps. And I’m happy for some countries not falling for it, at least not at all times.

      /rant

      • Facebones@reddthat.comEnglish
        7·
        11 months ago

        The “free market” of America has seen providers given huge payouts by the government to flesh out infrastructure in rural areas etc to just… Not even pretend to start and run with the cash to no consequence whatsoever.

        Multiple times.

        • xenspidey@lemmy.zipEnglish
          1·
          11 months ago

          Right, because it’s not “free market” it’s all government controlled market. Like this comment from above.

          Both parties in our country have decided that nothing should happen unless a person who is already rich gets richer. That Government should never take any action if it possibly reduces the chance that someone else would make profit off of a problem.

          Yes, that’s not capitalism or free market. That’s government interference. Big difference. Like the whole too big to fail non-sense. No, government get out of the way and let them fail.

    • ferralcat@monyet.ccEnglish
      61·
      11 months ago

      It’s nuts to me that the government isnt clamouring to run free email or cloud storage for people, and encourage them to use it. Same for phone service. It seems like an easy and relatively cheap way to get free access to a lot of data.