[nickpsecurity]

Amazon, Walmart, and Google were each one, focused company that got to where they were that way. Mergers of companies that scheme on their customers with oligopoly or monopoly tactics have almost always been bad for their customers. Also, if they were so great, they wouldn't be lobbying to block taxpayer-funded alternatives because it's always better when it's the private sector. The municipal versions would be slower, have worse service, cost more, and fall apart due to red tape. Yet, many that occurred despite Comcast et al's bribes to politicians were delivering better and faster service at same price or cheaper.

Better to split them up even further with regulations on things like sharing lines to force them to improve speed and service.

[rayiner]

That reasoning makes no sense. Consider the article on the front page today about taxpayer-funded cafeterias in India. Everyone rightly pointed out that these cafeterias could crowd out privately owned restaurants. There is no real “competing” with a government-backed service. (The postal service, for example, is subject to elaborate rules to prevent unfair competition with private carriers. And countries like the UK and Germany have privatized their postal services for good reasons.)

That is not to say that municipal alternatives don’t have a place. My view is that state and local governments should get rid of build out requirements that restrict the development of competition while building municipal service to areas left unserved by the market. That’s a traditional government function: serving as the safety net. But that’s not what’s usually proposed.

[xapata]

> postal service ... elaborate rules

Such as that the USPS must be self-sufficient and doesn't take tax revenue.

[rayiner]

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2016/10/25/postal-regu...