[jjmarr]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_monopoly

Competition theory assumes that if firms are abusing their market position by overcharging consumers, competitors can enter the market and undercut them.

When you have a market with very high barriers to entry (government regulation + physical infrastructure costs), you can't just start your own internet service provider to undercut existing Korean telecommunications, because you won't make enough money to pay your investment back.

[stephen_g]

Yes, this is called a ‘natural monopoly’. It’s the case with most infrastructure - basically there is little incentive for a private company to be more efficient than a public utility, since anybody building competing infrastructure is infeasible, but because they want to make profit there is incentive for them to charge more and to cut costs in other ways (like not investing in more than the bare minimum of maintenance). So it generally tends to work out worse for the customers.

Unfortunately some people genuinely believe the private sector will always deliver services cheaper and more efficiently than the public sector, so all around the world this mistake keeps being made. And the continual failures seem to never affect the firm belief of the adherents to that theory…

[achenet]

It's like people who support drug prohibition... ample evidence that something doesn't work won't stop people believing it.

[downrightmike]

The EU forces telcoms and ISPs to allow competition on their infra. Decent prices and good service

[tchalla]

Germany checks in.