[Frost1x]

Yea the argument that efficiency gains are passed to consumers is a tired old and often false argument. The only time efficiencies are passed to consumers are when there is real healthy competition and consumers are supporting that diversity. That's when in order to remain competitive, efficiency needs to be passed to the consumer.

Even in those situations it's not guaranteed. Markets seem to arise at or duplicate similar solutions and even if it's inefficient it's not worth he risk to find better alternatives for consumers because the competitive edge vs risk vs reward just isn't a winning mix worth pursing.

I'm increasingly convinced that most forms of free market systems work best once we have commoditization of a solution and it's just a matter of reproducing that solution, and doing so isn't too capital intensive. As you start to move away from these parameters, markets get more and more consumer hostile and self focused making the argument for them increasingly weak.

[rqtwteye]

There needs to be a focus on competitive markets instead of free markets. Competition is mostly good for customers but competition needs to be created by regulating the market to some degree. Otherwise markets will almost always be taken over slowly by the biggest players that don’t like competition.

[brayhite]

It’ll never happen in the US. Neither political party with power will break away from the corporate interests that determine what laws and regulations will pass.

The last candidate who ran on small donors and wore a proud badge of being anti-corporate interests lost twice. Politicians are figuring out how much money can be made by both acquiring legislative influence and power and accepting donations to steer their platforms, as well as passing legislation and policy that helps siphon public funds into private companies that said politicians have a financial stake in.

Changing private equity power requires benevolence, and there’s very little of that left amongst those with political power in the US.

[lelandfe]

Not to mention that the private companies will work to avoid said competition. Little wonder why ISPs refer to creating networks where one already exists as “overbuilding”

[lotsofpulp]

When I look around, there are multiple businesses usually near each other that compete. Home Depot and Lowes, Walmart and Target, Burger King and McDonald’s. ATT/Verizon/Tmobile.

But it is possible that if you pay to build out an entirely new network to a place where Comcast has a monopoly, and the customers would rather pay Comcast $5 less than whatever the lowest price you can charge is, then you would see negative returns by paying to build that network (since the cost of building out a network like that is so astronomical, and Comcast obviously does not have to pay it so their COGS is much lower).

[JumpCrisscross]

> most forms of free market systems work best once we have commoditization

It’s almost the opposite. Free markets didn’t work in the pre-industrial era because everything was commoditised. That made returns on capital paltry, which in turn made it more “profitable” to conquer capital than build it.

After industrialisation, we repeatedly saw innovation—though not necessarily creativity—in market economies outperform that in centralised ones.