<story><title>Net neutrality</title><url>http://blog.samaltman.com/net-neutrality</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>snitko</author><text>I wonder. I wonder. I live in Russia and I have 2-3 very good providers on the block constantly competing with each other and offering better connection and prices. They would show up on time and connect you very fast. They fix things quickly (in my government maintained house, the basement once became filled with water after the rain, and the wires were damaged. Even though it wasn&amp;#x27;t their fault, the ISP came and fixed it the same day). I pay about $120 a year for my internet. It&amp;#x27;s faster than anything I saw when in the US. And that&amp;#x27;s in Russia, that authoritarian backward country. Do you know why I pay so little? That&amp;#x27;s because we have the free-est goddamn ISP market, government hasn&amp;#x27;t been interfering with it (it&amp;#x27;s starting to, though). Everything I see government touches is of low quality, whereas everything that&amp;#x27;s good in my country is private enterprise.&lt;p&gt;And yet, you claim free market fails. Dear american internet users. The only reason you have what you have - shitty speeds and near monopolies - is BECAUSE you have government sticking its nose where it shouldn&amp;#x27;t (I&amp;#x27;d say, it shouldn&amp;#x27;t stick its nose anywhere, but that&amp;#x27;s another story). Comcast is the second largest lobbyist in Washington. And still you want to fix the problem by introducing more of the same, that is more regulation and more government, whereas the only way to fix things is to not allow governmental interference in the first place. You can&amp;#x27;t blame evil Comcast. Why? Because if not them, someone else would lobby and win. If you can lobby, you have to or you&amp;#x27;re gone.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>spindritf</author><text>&lt;i&gt;Do you know why I pay so little? That&amp;#x27;s because we have the free-est goddamn ISP market&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Yes, but also the communist architecture. Those buildings are easier to wire and the way they&amp;#x27;re managed makes it easier to get a permit. It&amp;#x27;s the same in Poland, if you live in one of those atrocious apartment blocks[1], you&amp;#x27;ll have a pick of three, or even seven various ISPs but move to the suburbs and it&amp;#x27;s suddenly either the national telekom or some crappy wireless.&lt;p&gt;Deregulation would probably help Americans living in densely populated areas but not so much in the sprawl. And having a garden is almost a birthright. Ironically, it&amp;#x27;s the Americans in the big cities who favour regulation, and Americans outside of them who don&amp;#x27;t.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.michaeltotten.com/images/Communist%20Blocks%20Georgia%202.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.michaeltotten.com&amp;#x2F;images&amp;#x2F;Communist%20Blocks%20Geo...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Net neutrality</title><url>http://blog.samaltman.com/net-neutrality</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>snitko</author><text>I wonder. I wonder. I live in Russia and I have 2-3 very good providers on the block constantly competing with each other and offering better connection and prices. They would show up on time and connect you very fast. They fix things quickly (in my government maintained house, the basement once became filled with water after the rain, and the wires were damaged. Even though it wasn&amp;#x27;t their fault, the ISP came and fixed it the same day). I pay about $120 a year for my internet. It&amp;#x27;s faster than anything I saw when in the US. And that&amp;#x27;s in Russia, that authoritarian backward country. Do you know why I pay so little? That&amp;#x27;s because we have the free-est goddamn ISP market, government hasn&amp;#x27;t been interfering with it (it&amp;#x27;s starting to, though). Everything I see government touches is of low quality, whereas everything that&amp;#x27;s good in my country is private enterprise.&lt;p&gt;And yet, you claim free market fails. Dear american internet users. The only reason you have what you have - shitty speeds and near monopolies - is BECAUSE you have government sticking its nose where it shouldn&amp;#x27;t (I&amp;#x27;d say, it shouldn&amp;#x27;t stick its nose anywhere, but that&amp;#x27;s another story). Comcast is the second largest lobbyist in Washington. And still you want to fix the problem by introducing more of the same, that is more regulation and more government, whereas the only way to fix things is to not allow governmental interference in the first place. You can&amp;#x27;t blame evil Comcast. Why? Because if not them, someone else would lobby and win. If you can lobby, you have to or you&amp;#x27;re gone.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>saucetenuto</author><text>&amp;gt; Do you know why I pay so little? That&amp;#x27;s because we have the free-est goddamn ISP market&lt;p&gt;This is a little imprecise; &amp;quot;free&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;free of governmental interference&amp;quot; are not the same thing.  More likely it is because you have a _competitive_ ISP market.  That might in turn be because of how free your market is, but in order to really know we&amp;#x27;d have to know how your area solved the problems that led city governments to grant monopolies in the first place.</text></comment>