[tom910]

> The Free Market Lie

Why is it a lie if Switzerland actually uses a free market and gets bonuses from it? Yeah, the idea with 1 common infrastructure is a positive aspect. It's interesting how they solve an issue with maintenance. But still, low prices and good quality of service are benefits of the free market.

[mdavid626]

The article didn’t say free market is bad in general, it said it doesn’t work for internet infrastructure.

[catlikesshrimp]

Free market doesn't sort itself out. It has to be streamed through proper regulation.

[sschueller]

I don't know why you are getting down voted. I wrote the article and that is the point of the article. A free market requires proper and smart regulation to work for all the people to get the best product.

[tom910]

Do we know places when it actually works well? I agree about a small regulation layer, but the issue is that regulation grows over time to the point when it limits free market power. The most problematic markets in the US is over regulated by my opinion

[diordiderot]

Hence why the EU is competing so well against the US

[Cantinflas]

That is not what the article is saying, at all.

[ragazzina]

> low prices and good quality of service are benefits of the free market.

All I see on the Internet is Americans complaining about high prices and enshittification of every product. Is your market not free enough?

[tom910]

I just checked Init7 price for 1gig internet in Zurich and the price is higher than I'm paing for 1gig in Seattle and payed in Bay Area. So, free market kinda works.

But even in this case, the article doesn't provide motivations for companies spent a lot money for building common infrastructure in rural places which usually have an issue with bad internet options

[mewse-hn]

The article makes it very clear that the fiber to the house is a natural monopoly and should be public infrastructure, just like communism. Once the fiber reaches a central office, access can be sold and metered off to a free market, just like capitalism.

What most of us in the "free world" are suffering with is blood sucking parasites that own the pipe into the house and charge prices aligned with that fact. It's anti-capitalism in the guise of capitalism.

[slopinthebag]

Why would fiber to the house be a natural monopoly?

[andriamanitra]

Because the fixed cost of deploying infrastructure (digging the fiber to the house) is extremely expensive compared to the marginal cost (of serving data over an already installed fiber). 20 different companies all digging their own fibers to the same house would be tremendously wasteful.

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

[slopinthebag]

But you wouldn’t get 20 different fibres, just one sold to 19 different companies.

[Hikikomori]

Why would roads to your house be a natural monopoly?

[inemesitaffia]

Overbuilding makes no financial sense for companies