> Everybody benefits from infrastructure even if they don't use it directly.
...therefore, by definition, any infrastructure project is to be considered "worth it" and should be welcomed by everyone in the community. To be against government rollout of infrastructure is to be against everybody's best interest, right?
I'm not against government-provided services across-the-board. But apologists for infrastructure spending often seem to make this argument as if it's the last point to be made. The great thing about a private company "overcharging" or "underserving" a community is that citizens aren't forced to be in a relationship with that company for their services. That's not the case for infrastructure spending by the local government. It's much harder to vote with your feet than to vote with your wallet.
The fine line to walk with government spending is to find a way to incentivize competition in the local marketplace, without destroying it in the process. It's not an easy problem to solve.
> The great thing about a private company "overcharging" or "underserving" a community is that citizens aren't forced to be in a relationship with that company for their services.
But that is rarely true for any privatized infrastructure alternative. There is often direct financial relations through taxation anyways, either tax breaks for the company or outright having the municipality foot the bill(see most stadiums)
Then there is the potential resource usage itself - e.g how much of the land in that city is now dedicate to toll roads that could be free, or in the internet infra case it's often exclusive rights to the poles all of the lines are ran on.
> But that is rarely true for any privatized infrastructure alternative. There is often direct financial relations through taxation anyways, either tax breaks for the company or outright having the municipality foot the bill(see most stadiums)
How would you consider those to be "privatized infrastructure alternatives" then? To me this sounds like further evidence of citizens having fewer alternatives available because their money is being spent on things they may not (or may!) care about.
> Then there is the potential resource usage itself - e.g how much of the land in that city is now dedicate to toll roads that could be free, or in the internet infra case it's often exclusive rights to the poles all of the lines are ran on.
IDK, public rights-of-way don't seem to be the place where big disagreements are found? Passing a local law to allow common access to utility infrastructure seems qualitatively different than establishing a municipal competitor.
> The great thing about a private company "overcharging" or "underserving" a community is that citizens aren't forced to be in a relationship with that company for their services.
This is a hilarious thing to say about broadband, where the incumbents go to great lengths not to compete by carving out markets onto monopolized checkerboxes where customers are forced to use one ISP if they want anything meeting the FCCs definition of broadband, and their neighbor across the street (or next apartment building) has to choose another monopolist ISP on their block.
You can be broadly for cities rolling out their own broadbands while still pointing out that on the long term your local government growing its spending can be an issue.
10Gbps is absolutely great, but then the city might create an entire bureaucratic structure around it and in 30 years when it's not great anymore the apparatus won't die or be displaced like a company eventually would.
Which is not to say that in this scenario this is not a bit of a farfetched scenario considering that's precisely what the incumbents are doing as you pointed out.
> 10Gbps is absolutely great, but then the city might create an entire bureaucratic structure around it and in 30 years when it's not great anymore the apparatus won't die or be displaced like a company eventually would
I would fully agree with you if there was actual competition. As it is, I have no faith that terrible internet companies - especially monopolies - are guaranteed to be replaced by better ones (see Ma Bells offsprings/reconstitution).
My ideal scenario is that cities lay down the last-mile fiber and handle physical layer connectivity issues between homes/offices and an exchange (for a fee). ISPs would provide Internet connectivity, that way, you get actual competition, and the cities stick to their core competency: infrastructure.
This is all great to discuss in theory but let's be real here. A municipal ISP is a net win for the people that pay for it.
This shouldn't be controversial, and it isn't controversial for people in places where discourse hasn't been poisoned with these go no where derailing talking points.
I couldn't be talking from a more realistic standpoint. I've lived in places where incumbent ISPs don't invest in infrastructure, places where a private organization built out a cable network without any subsidies, places where a municipal provider was subsidized by federal grant money, and places where there was no public or private build outs and so I built my own ISP servicing my rural neighbors.
I'm not saying that municipal broadband is a net loss, but there are no silver bullets. Subsidies are one way that a municipality can "pick a winner", and in so doing, it can assure all of the competition loses. Sometimes that's a net win, sometimes it isn't, your claims to the contrary notwithstanding.
With regards to broadband, this is already a solved problem: build open access networks.
It is a very straightforward way for municipalities to incentivize and create competition.
As to other infrastructure projects, there are ways of calculating the public benefit to determine whether the project has positive ROI, even if no direct payments are made by the public.
...therefore, by definition, any infrastructure project is to be considered "worth it" and should be welcomed by everyone in the community. To be against government rollout of infrastructure is to be against everybody's best interest, right?
I'm not against government-provided services across-the-board. But apologists for infrastructure spending often seem to make this argument as if it's the last point to be made. The great thing about a private company "overcharging" or "underserving" a community is that citizens aren't forced to be in a relationship with that company for their services. That's not the case for infrastructure spending by the local government. It's much harder to vote with your feet than to vote with your wallet.
The fine line to walk with government spending is to find a way to incentivize competition in the local marketplace, without destroying it in the process. It's not an easy problem to solve.