Republicans slam broadband discounts for poor people, threaten to kill program | Ars Technica

fne8w2ah@lemmy.world to Technology@lemmy.world – 502 points –
Republicans slam broadband discounts for poor people, threaten to kill program
arstechnica.com

And pull themselves up by their bootstraps as usual?

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Nationalize internet.

Hows about "Create local and municipal fiber to the curb to stoke competition and drive down prices" instead ?

Markets are extremely bad when it comes to proper allocation of essentials. Infrastructure in general should be nationalized at minimum, and heavily invested in.

The local fiber provider skipped my street altogether because spectrum has a contract with the apartments, and they don't think it's worth running fiber to compete. I wish this was a joke. The providers are literally NOT competing at all. Residential homeowners are screwed because spectrum has a chokehold on the other half of the neighborhood.

It's literally a fucking necessity so if course it's privately owned... It's so ridiculous how we treat necessities... Tell me what job you can apply to that doesn't require it to be done over the Internet?

I remember when I could walk in to a store and shake the managers hand, then things changed and I got looked at like I was crazy "just go online and apply, why are you here?"

Full agreement, way ahead of you. Instead of having a robust, publicly funded infrastructure-based necessity (internet service), it gets chopped up and sold piece-by-piece with price-gouging and local monopolies like warlords.

Yuuup. Looking at you optimum. I have one option. :/

My coop power company installed fiber, so my ISP is a coop. IMO I'd rather this that purely nationalized.

Co-ops are cool, but markets in general have far too many disadvantages for me to advocate for market-based Socialism over a non-market solution.

Short of a complete revolution, market Socialisim is probably the most viable path out of capitalism. It doesn't have to stay there, and shouldn't, but it'll be a whole lot less messy than a revolution.

Depends on the country, honestly. In America, I'm more inclined to believe Syndicalism would work, reform won't meaningfully happen from within.

In general, I'm anti-tendency and believe that the material conditions of each space need to be analyzed independently.