Internet is very very useful to us ......... ____...

2009-08-16T23:28:30.995-07:00

Internet is very very useful to us .........

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christena
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You're making a cell phone analogy when it is ...

2009-07-17T08:47:51.526-07:00

You're making a cell phone analogy when it is more appropriate to make one to roads instead. Or electricity. Because cell phone costs are an oddity as far as infrastructure goes. (infrastructure being a means of distribution or transit).

A study of the costs and profits of cell companies would show you (I have a lot of data on this) that we would all be better off with flat rates. Like government, much of cell money is wasted. An almost unconscionable amount is spent on advertising. Customer service is terrible. Customers are not valueable because of compensation plans that favor customer swapping (a misdirection of resources). There are false subsidies (preventing users from using a technology on one network or another), and choice-limiting contracts, and heinous overcharges equal to an entire year's contract if you simply exceed your estimate of use. (this is similar to the argument against the damage of uninsured critical health care for example)

The value in the market is customer choice and innovation. The value in the pricing system is to manage conservation of resources. But there is no value in conserving communication or information, or even entertainment. In fact, the opposite is true. We should make information as consumable as possible.

The market's competitive innovation argument does not necessarily apply well to infrastructure. (and this is from a radical anarchic libertarian). It argues freedom and efficiency for capital by individuals within a state, rather than the competitiveness of a state against other states. It also means that possession of geography is open to exploitation as a tax or penalty on production, rather than as contribution by the increase of production.

For these reasons and a host of others, I originally found your question to be a 'trick' question, of asking for, and assuming, a false comparison. But, I'm sure quite a few people fall into that trap.

There is no scarcity to internet bandwidth. It's a cheap, competitive, educational form of infrastructure that helps us get past the limits of geography, where geography is simply a friction.

if there is any reason for social infrastructure, then the internet would be it.

Comments on Aplia Econ Blog: News for Economics Students: Internet by the Byte

Internet is very very useful to us ......... ____...

You're making a cell phone analogy when it is ...