Why the fuck can we never get ISP executives on trial for anti-trust charges?
I don't have to use Google, but I'm forced to use Comcast.
this post was submitted on 30 Oct 2023
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The right people greasing the right palms.
Three words: Open widespread corruption.
You see back in the days it used to be Bell Systems (AT&T) that ran a huge vertical monopoly on telecommunications. Being the peak of some major consumers rights cases around that time, Bell was split up into like 7 different companies to free the market in a very big anti trust case.
AT&T of course has clawed its way back to the top, but it avoids anti trust cases by not holding an outright monopoly. Their argument is "Yeah but there's also comcast", ie an oligopoly.
An oligopoly, which is still very bad, is not a monopoly, so congress continues to take huge funding bribes which we call lobbying, and let both AT&T and Comcast do whatever they want so long as no one company takes over.
Both company execs and shareholders get rich and go home to sleep on a big pile of money, while you as the consumer curse out both for their crappy prices and overwhelming control.
Oh and AT&T wastes government funds on not expanding fiber networks because they can earn the same amount without caring about the consumer because no alternative other than maybe Comcast exists with a superior service or offer.
The thing with last-mile ISPs is that it doesn't make sense for 6 different companies to lay fiber optic in the same neighborhood.
In that case, socialized infrastructure is the better solution.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
WASHINGTON, Oct 30 (Reuters) - Sundar Pichai, CEO of Alphabet Inc (GOOGL.O) and its subsidiary Google, testified Monday in a once-in-a generation antitrust fight with the U.S. government that the company sought to make browser use and internet search easy and secure.
If the government wins, the company may be forced to scrap some business practices that have helped it stay on top.
In testimony Monday morning, Pichai took a couple of swipes at Microsoft's (MSFT.O) browser, Internet Explorer.
The government, in cross-examination, will likely also ask about the billions of dollars paid annually to smartphone makers like Apple (AAPL.O) and wireless carriers like AT&T (T.N) to be the default in search on their devices in order to stay on top.
The clout in search makes Google a heavy hitter in the lucrative advertising market, its biggest revenue source.
Google has argued the revenue share agreements are legal and that it has invested heavily to keep its search and advertising businesses competitive.
The original article contains 317 words, the summary contains 162 words. Saved 49%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!