Quote:
Originally Posted by SaltyDawg
Well you are speaking in generalities and what ifs, but I am talking about an actual event that happened. We don't have to speculate about what would happen without governement intervention, because this actually happened.
As for your statement about Directv battling it out in civil court- good for Directv. However, there were tons of other services being blocked that were way too small to take on Comcast. This is why Comcast got away with literally lying about it for so long. Once Directv realized that Comcast was telling their custromers that Directv just sucked and that's why it didn't work, then Directv got involved too.
And your question about 20% of the customers demanding better- yeah right. For one thing, most of them are under contract with an ETF. For another thing, these customers don't even know it is happening. As I said, Comcast flat out lied about it for quite some time.
I agree with you that we don't need the government regulating everything. But this is one thing we clearly do need the government to regulate. Companies like Comcast are way too big for the average consumer to fight. Heck, Comcast is way too big for even a smaller corporation to fight (like the many legal music and video services who were being blocked on Comcast's network but were too small to do anything about it). We absolutely need to govenment to ensure our internet remains open. No ISP should be able to block any content (provided the content is not illegal like kiddie porn or viruses or something like that).
Your argument seems to be "the government can't be trusted." I don't disagree. I don't think they can be trusted either. But they can certainly be trusted a lot more than corporations like Comcast who openly admit they only have their own best interests in mind. The internet is basically a public utility now- you pretty much have to have it. And the government has always regulated public utilities.
If you are so sure the government is corrupt and won't act in our best interests, then you should be campaigning for government reform. Put term limits on everyone in congress, ban campaign contributions over $20 or so, ban lobbyists altogether, and whatever other steps may be needed to get it done. But we can't let corporations run the country just because we don't trust the government...
|
Actually, I went out of my way to specifically say I was not conjuring up hypotheticals. My examples of government abuses of power were specific and applicable and in fact directly responded to the specific examples you cited and further.
Indeed, you prove my point about DirectTV. The market cured itself.
With respect to your 20% response: exactly - you just reiterated my point, which is that more than likely considerably fewer than 20% felt harmed by this and it certainly didn't rise to the level of a serious breach, but simply an annoyance. However, if a customer felt Comcast violated its own terms, there is certainly civil relief as well as state and federal laws already in place to police contractual violations by businesses. However, an ISP is a private business and has a right to decide within the law what traffic flows through its network. The customer has a right to vote with his or her feet. The customer also has a duty to him- or herself to know the agreement they are consenting to when they choose to use an ISP, as well as options for relief if those terms are violated by the ISP. Sure, a free market calls for something other than mindless sheep, but as history shows us, it turns out a lot better than the alternative. ;D
Yes, my argument is that in this sense, government cannot be trusted. I think that history has demonstrably revealed to us that abusive government is far more rampant and egregious in nature than anything Comcast has ever done. Further, when government commits abuse your recourse is often very difficult or non-existent; when Comcast commits abuse, you fire the company and find another. When that abuse is more than an insignificant blip on the radar, sufficient numbers of people will do likewise and Comcast will have to choose whether to continue its practice and suffer starvation or reform. As I stated earlier, however, I am not arguing against all regulation, but I do believe that the laws currently in place are sufficiant; I am also aware of the present political Zeitgeist and know that until this changes, laws and regulations will not be enacted to promote healthy business but to restrict our liberties.
And we can't let government run the country simply because we do not trust some corporations. At least Comcast cannot kick down your door or sentence you to death. Every law and regulation, good or bad, that the government enacts is backed up by force of arms. Comcast can only mourn that you fired them.
But you are so right about term limits, there I completely agree with you. I do disagree with the current campaign finance laws as they now exist because they were created to limit free speech (Bob the auto mechanic cannot pay for his own ad exposing a crooked politician 60 days before an election because that is now illegal), plus the insiders with connections have already found ways to skirt laws governing contributions. So we have some work to do there. I am already working on the campaign of one US Senate hopeful who supports all of the above, as well as being involved in a number of other worthwhile endeavors and I challenge you to do similar work to see things change. There, after all, is a direct correlation between government corruption and overstep and public apathy. In fact, the same is true for the corporate world, too. We hold the key to both.