<story><title>Apple execs describe a “unique arrangement” with Netflix (2018)</title><url>https://twitter.com/TechEmails/status/1444367219509637123</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>kortilla</author><text>Absolutely not a solved problem. The utilities have no reason to innovate at that point.&lt;p&gt;In my local municipality I have no way to choose renewable energy apart from building my own power plant on my roof. That’s a complete failure of these government granted monopolies.</text></item><item><author>abvdasker</author><text>This is a solved problem. Just do what most American cities do with other natural monopolies like utilities: use careful price controls to cap margins and slow rate increases. You don&amp;#x27;t need to invent some esoteric market-based solution, &lt;i&gt;especially&lt;/i&gt; for a service where marginal costs are near zero and supply is almost infinite.</text></item><item><author>djyaz1200</author><text>Tech companies that reach monopoly scale (like Apple, Facebook, Amazon) should have to disclose all their agreements and honor a &amp;quot;Most Favored Nation&amp;quot; clause giving all companies the same pricing and access as the best negotiated agreement with any one company.  This is the most reasonable way I can think of without breaking them up to prevent them picking winners and losers as new opportunities emerge.  If you have a better plan I&amp;#x27;d be glad to hear it.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>enjo</author><text>The regulating bodies of those utilities work hard to create incentives for them to innovate. I spent four years of my career working on energy programs with major utilities around the country in which they tried to incentive reductions in energy usage.&lt;p&gt;Which is a curious statement: why would a electrical utility want people to use &lt;i&gt;less&lt;/i&gt; electricity?&lt;p&gt;The reason is because the regulatory agencies created incentives within the regulatory framework to encourage them to do it. Basically the regulators start with an outcome, bake that outcome into how utilities get paid, and then let the utility innovate to figure out how to do it. This led to meaningful reduction in energy usage across many markets.</text></comment>
<story><title>Apple execs describe a “unique arrangement” with Netflix (2018)</title><url>https://twitter.com/TechEmails/status/1444367219509637123</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>kortilla</author><text>Absolutely not a solved problem. The utilities have no reason to innovate at that point.&lt;p&gt;In my local municipality I have no way to choose renewable energy apart from building my own power plant on my roof. That’s a complete failure of these government granted monopolies.</text></item><item><author>abvdasker</author><text>This is a solved problem. Just do what most American cities do with other natural monopolies like utilities: use careful price controls to cap margins and slow rate increases. You don&amp;#x27;t need to invent some esoteric market-based solution, &lt;i&gt;especially&lt;/i&gt; for a service where marginal costs are near zero and supply is almost infinite.</text></item><item><author>djyaz1200</author><text>Tech companies that reach monopoly scale (like Apple, Facebook, Amazon) should have to disclose all their agreements and honor a &amp;quot;Most Favored Nation&amp;quot; clause giving all companies the same pricing and access as the best negotiated agreement with any one company.  This is the most reasonable way I can think of without breaking them up to prevent them picking winners and losers as new opportunities emerge.  If you have a better plan I&amp;#x27;d be glad to hear it.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>spywaregorilla</author><text>There&amp;#x27;s no such thing as choosing renewable energy on a grid. Energy is fungible. If you get on one of those &amp;quot;choose green&amp;quot; schemes, you&amp;#x27;re just getting the same energy but also buying some credits from somewhere else.</text></comment>