(Replying to PARENT post)

There's no reason the government actually needs to build the infrastructure itself—but since infrastructure is a natural monopoly (only room for one set of roads, one EM spectrum, etc) the government needs to "regulate it into existence", setting laws to incentivize cooperative building of neutrally-owned infrastructure by interested players, rather than the natural monopoly leading to a real monopoly/oligopoly.
👤derefr🕑10y🔼0🗨️0

(Replying to PARENT post)

> rather than the natural monopoly leading to a real monopoly/oligopoly.

Of course you realize that there's debate about whether government makes this scenario more or less likely.

👤jMyles🕑10y🔼0🗨️0

(Replying to PARENT post)

The notion of natural monopoly, while superficially plausible, is an ahistorical ex post rationale for government intervention.[1]

Any day now some guy or gal will visit my home to hook up my Google Fiber. How can that be if if Time Warner Cable has a natural monopoly? Oops, I should say that TWC, AT&T, DIRECTV and Dish have an oligopoly. Before you protest that I lump guys who launch satellites together with guys who hang wire on poles, remember in a dynamic world supposed natural monopolies are not safe from substitutes.

[1]https://mises.org/library/myth-natural-monopoly

👤timtas🕑10y🔼0🗨️0

(Replying to PARENT post)

That sounds a lot more appealing to me than the government actually building the thing.

With the EM spectrum for instance, the unlicensed 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands have been pretty useful. Google actually tried to get the 700 MHz spectrum (in the 2008 auction) licensed in a way that would probably benefit consumers quite a bit, though I'm not sure how well that worked. It's odd that Google had to do that when it's ostensibly the government's job to ensure good use of this limited natural resource, but I think the idea was good.

👤nulltype🕑10y🔼0🗨️0

(Replying to PARENT post)

That's my opinion, as well. But corporations have realized that they only need to go one step up and regulate the regulators, so they still get to keep a monopoly (in a more dangerous way)...
👤jotm🕑10y🔼0🗨️0