Some random topic, always changing [ was comcast does it again Port 25 ]

[Paul Lussier]

"Ben Scott" <dragonhawk at gmail.com> writes:

> On Sun, Apr 6, 2008 at 2:47 AM, Bill McGonigle <bill at bfccomputing.com> wrote:
>>> Which government has granted the monopoly?
>>
>>  It's usually ... state for Telco.
>
>   Oh, it's worse than that.  You forgot the whole ILEC vs CLEC
> quagmire, where the company owning the COs and outside plant is
> nominally supposed to open up their infrastructure to their
> competition, thereby insuring a free market.  (Pause for laughter.)
> Strangely enough, it seems that the ILECs don't have much incentive to
> help their competition.

The original complaint I thought was over monopolies granted to cable
providers.  Do they too suffer with COs, (I,C)LECs, and the "forced
opening of their infrastructure" problems?

And, afaict, the gov't has not granted a monopoly to phone service
providers, given the ridiculous amount of choice out there these
days...

>>  Local is good.  10 year contracts not so much.
>
>   I've noticed that whenever a party is requesting government
> intervention, they always mean the government should intervene to give
> them what *they* want.  Any time the government got involved to yield
> some other end, it was clearly being subverted by nefarious forces, or
> else simply being run by idiots.  See also "the wrong version"[1].

This is the definition of the word "Fair".  Fair is "whatever one
party deems it to be".  Think about it.  If you and I are in a
dispute, whatever you want is, by definition, unfair to me, and
vice-versa.  Enter a third party mediator, and suddenly you have them
deciding, more-or-less arbitrarily, what *they* think is fair.

Also, by definition, the gov't *is* run by idiots, even when they get
it right.  Everyone gets lucky some of the time ;)

>   Author's note: If the above comes across as being overly
> laissez-faire, that's not intentional.  I don't believe the government
> should never get involved.  I just think the government is just as bad
> as the rest of the human race.

The government is the bottom third of the human race:

 - You've got policy wonks with a need to feel self-righteous, so they
   weasel their way into "public" office in order to dictate their
   opinions upon those whom they consider not smart enough to fend for
   themselves (i.e. the tax payer)

 - You've got bureaucrats who can't survive in a market-place on their
   own merits, so they get the protection of the world's largest
   union and never leave, yet never do any real work either.

 - In both cases, the above two groups are feeding off the people who
   put them there, continually finding ways to raise taxes and expand
   spending in order to justify their own existence, but seldom doing
   any real good in return.

But I'm not jaded or anything :)
-- 
Seeya,
Paul