[ch4s3]

There's no iron law stating that private services must necessarily decay or be under provisioned.

[card_zero]

Besides, government-run British Rail was historically shit, reaching peak shitness in 1984 when they brought out the pleading slogan "We're Getting There".

[aitchnyu]

This is news to me. When did they fall far behind other western countries?

[ch4s3]

The Stockholm subway and basically all of Japanese rail are privately run.

[stuaxo]

Fiduciary duty usually achieves this.

[drweevil]

The iron law of capitalism--maximize investor return, minimize expense, even at the expense of the core product. This is especially true when there is not adequate competition, which is the case in a lot of sectors in this country.

[ch4s3]

Destroying your core offering isn’t a core feature of capitalism.

[UltraSane]

Greed

[ch4s3]

Incentives?

[kitd]

Maybe not iron, but "common" law if you like is for privatised services to enshittify post haste.

;)