At least cable companies used to be pretty much a natural monopoly, or at least only had to compete with the traditional Telco that still used copper wire on the one hand, and with satellite TV on the other. There’s only so much wiring and infrastructure that will fit in any town.
It has not always been possible to use different OS’s. Many to most programs only run on Windows. If you want to use those programs, you have to use Windows. I have always wanted to move away from Windows but I have always been stopped by the application lock-in. Also even your Net provider often mandates Windows. If you use a non-Windows OS and you have problems with your Net connection, your Net provider will often refuse to help you as they say, “We only support Windows OS.”
You do not have any choices with cable. Cable prices are far above what they would normally be in a competitive environment. Can you please explain to me why I should pay $50/month just to fucking watch TV?! Yeah, I want to watch TV. That ought to cost me, max, $30/month, right?
And the cable companies do not compete at all with the satellite assholes and the broadband phone company assholes. The telcos are now offering TV, and the satellite companies always have.
Well you have a choice:
- Evil cable company monopoly offer: $50/month just to watch TV (way overpriced).
- Stupid satellite company monopoly “competitive offer”: $75/month just to watch TV, plus $300 to buy the dish (some competition).
- Evil Telco monopoly offer: $50/month just to watch TV (like they are competing).
As you can see, they are hardly even competing with each other! They are all monopolies, and each one is offering to sell you ridiculously overpriced monthly TV coverage. Isn’t that stupid?
Yeah, you got a choice in cable companies. Check out this choice! You can move to different cities so you can get screwed by different cable companies!
Live in City A offer: Evil cable company A.
Options:
- Move to City B offer: Evil cable company B.
- Move to City C offer: Evil cable company C.
- Move to City D offer: Evil cable company D.
Wow, that’s a lot of choices! You actually get to choose which asshole company you let fuck you over!
There was an easy way around all this bullshit. Have the state lay the cable lines everywhere. Or I would say have the state take the cable lines from the cable companies (I guess we would have to reimburse them). Now that the state owns the lines, all sorts of cable companies can now compete to use the lines. See?
