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by wvenable 2866 days ago
You can create an ISP and then you have to work to get people to sign up.

You can create a eBay site and then you have to work to get people to sign up.

And your argument is the hard part of making an eBay site is signing people up and hand-wave over the build part of both these things? Apples to Spaceships comparison.
1 comments
deadmik3 2866 days ago
Well, the argument is that if you don't like eBay it's easy to just go make your own. I'm not disagreeing with that. I'm just assuming that part of "making your own" is getting the other users to sign up, since an auction site with no one to bid isn't very useful. So it's the same with ISPs: if you don't like it just make your own.
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komali2 2866 days ago
You cannot make your own ISP. You can make your own eBay.

There is no competition for Comcast, there is for eBay. It appears your very premise is flawed but I welcome you to demonstrate why this isn't true.

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deadmik3 2866 days ago
Sure I can make my own ISP. It just won't be an international network with billions of people on it. But I'll set up a server in my house with my new ebay on it and connect it to my neighbor running his new facebook. We could even do it wirelessly.

It won't be that great, because he wants to share pictures of his kids and I want to sell my funko pops, but it's definitely easy. Unless your definition of an ISP inherently includes a connection to millions of people, in which case I don't understand why your definition of an eBay doesn't as well?

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wvenable 2866 days ago
That's funny because your eBay clone will have a connection to millions of people.

You also seem to forget that the "I" in ISP stands for Internet. Your connection to your neighbor is just a LAN/WAN and by definition is not an ISP.

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komali2 2866 days ago
If it's not connected to the internet, it's not an ISP.

How will you access global DNS?

Can I ask your motivations here? You seem very keen on muddying the waters in this discussion.

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wvenable 2866 days ago
> Well, the argument is that if you don't like eBay it's easy to just go make your own.

The argument isn't that it's easy, the argument is that it's possible. There is no guarantee of success but you can try. Why even start Facebook when we already have Myspace?

There are actual physical impediments to building your own ISP and natural monopolies involved. By comparison, just a lot of people using something doesn't make it monopoly.

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