[toomuchtodo]

People hate costs being foisted on them (new receivers) by government. If DAB is that much better (and cost effective), that government should've paid for new receivers with the FM->DAB cost savings (the US gov subsidized digital TV broadcast receivers when the transition occurred).

[ajmurmann]

You know "the government" is us, the people of the country, right?

[toomuchtodo]

In a game of telephone sort of way. The will of the people appears to get mangled severely on the way to government leadership.

Norway's government cut off 50% of its population from public broadcasts with this change. And their electorate is okay with that? I find that hard to believe but perhaps their electorate finds that acceptable for the cost savings.

[ajmurmann]

It does. Maybe we should fix that instead of constantly trying to disempower it. Conversations in the US in particular always get conducted as if government had to be bad and is out definition disconnected from the people. We have technologies like approval voting to name one that could improve this. It's insane that you have to hijack one of two parties to bring any change. We must have a functioning government! We must stop working around that.

How the government makes decisions aside, for this concrete case, the money the government pays with is ultimately the tax payer money. So why not buy the received yourself? I don't want a receiver and I don't want to pay for yours. I don't even understand why it's not all just internet at this point.

[ams6110]

> Conversations in the US in particular always get conducted as if government had to be bad...

Yes, that is generally the classical conservative point of view (as distinct from the current Republican party, which has been imploding for a while now).

This point of view holds that government should be small and basically its responsibilities are common defense, protecting and defending individual rights, and bringing bad actors to justice.

> We must have a functioning government! We must stop working around that.

Beyond the above definition, there can be no "functioning" government, because the more power given to government the more corrupt and self-serving it becomes. This is due to inherent imperfection in human nature and can't be avoided.

[Asooka]

So how did that work out for you when the FCC decided to kill net neutrality?

[xoa]

>So how did that work out for you when the FCC decided to kill net neutrality?

Exactly as it’s supposed to? The Republicans have had eliminating Net Neutrality as part of their platform since at least 2012, and are generally hostile to consumer protection and the like in general. Conversely, the Democrats have supported it, to the extent that Hillary Clinton made it an explicit part of her technology platform. It’s right there on her website still.

Even more then that, when the political coalitions were being formed, the American people had every chance to influence what would go into each coalition. America could have ensured that both supported it. They didn’t, so instead we ended up with two very distinct coalitions on a range of issues, with NN as one of them. The Republicans promised to scrap it. The Democrats promised to keep and enforce it. America democratically voted to hand total power for this cycle over Federal government to a single coalition, the Republicans. There was no significant fraud whatsoever. There were no major national emergencies causing disruption. The Republicans won and have proceeded on policy just as they said they would (as expected, since most politicians work to keep their campaign promises).

Please explain what in this doesn’t reflect “our will” as expressed by the electorate? We all know how it works, what the dates are, etc. It’s easier now to get information and organize and get involved then at any time in history. If America had voted differently we’d have had a different result, simple as that. It’s our government, we are not ruled by anything but a democracy. If we don’t like the results it’s our responsibility to make it change.

[ajmurmann]

My statement wasn't about the decision making part, but about the other commenter's suggestion to have"the government" pay for the new receivers.

[tomjen3]

They should just operate both.