| It's a property rights issue. Specifically, should private organisations be allowed to own major pieces of infrastructure? The European vision of capitalism is where you can own, say, a cafe or mobile app, and do what you want with it. However, something like a telecoms network or search engine is too important to be kept in the hands of ruthless big business, and the state needs to step in to control who said businesses deal with. They talk about preventing monopoly, but even with infrastructure, technological shifts mean any purported monopoly constantly faces real competition. (Witness how IBM lost out to Microsoft, which lost out to the internet companies). Private investment and private innovation is the best way to build infrastructure, and if the state wants to control how the infrastructure is used (and prevents the owners from cutting special deals with their largest potential customers), investment money stays away. This has happened with pharmaceuticals - one reason there's been so much investment in viagra and plastic surgery is that more useful medical patents tend to be seized by government. It's also happening in the case of European telecoms: the net neutrality rules provide a disincentive to invest in 5G. http://www.theverge.com/2016/7/10/12139700/telecom-companies... (That article is negatively slanted, but gives a decent overview). Here's the actual report by the telcos: http://ec.europa.eu/newsroom/dae/document.cfm?action=display... Yes, I would rather have decisions made by people in Brussels that understand what they're doing.
Every generation rediscovers Plato's republic. |
I'd be happy to swap my overpriced RCN internet with TalkTalk or not have to get a new wheel on my bike every year thanks to the pot-holed roads of New York.