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by DoctorMemory 4407 days ago
No, this is a terrible piece. The argument of, "if these ISPs are evil why do business with them?" makes me think he is not a respected name in the tech industry but a trollish hack. As for the comment of ”the free market is the only true way to handle this" it completely ignore the monopolistic aspect of most US internet provider markets where the "choice" is a single large company and if you are really lucky a small name company that leases the lines from the large company. That isn't a free market. Pull your so called libertarian head out of your a$$ and take a hard look at the way these corporations are using your ideology to rob you of your freedom.
2 comments

Ugh, what an ugly comment. Please don't do this on HN.
You are right I apologize for the language I used. I am not apologizing for saying it is a terrible article. All of the points he make assume that consumers have a wide range of choice. Some people do, a large amount don't. @massyset you are very privileged to live in a city with 6 large ISPs. Many places I have lived have one cable and one DSL provider. The most has been 2 big name cable providers but they didn't cross each other's territory.
I never said consumers have access to a free market. I'm saying access to a free market would help solve the issue.
I live in a US city and have six choices for high speed internet access. This is a thriving free market. People are very quick to employ the coercive machinery of government to fix ills that do not exist.
For the past decade, I've only lived in cities with one choice for high speed internet access. There is no free market where I live.