Tired Of Being Ripped Off By Monopolies, Cleveland Launches Ambitious Plan To Provide Citywide Dirt Cheap Broadband::Cleveland has spent years being dubbed the “worst connected city in the U.S.” thanks to expensive, patchy, and slow broadband. Why Cleveland broadband sucks so badly isn’t really a mystery: consolidated monopoly/duopoly power has resulted in a broken market where local giants like AT&T and Charter don’t have to compete on price, speeds, availability, customer…

  • BearOfaTime
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    6
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    8 months ago

    Lol, so all the regulation protecting them is “natural”?

    • hperrin@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      17
      ·
      edit-2
      8 months ago

      No, those come after they gain a monopoly. Those regulations weren’t there when the “free market” turned them into a monopoly.

      There are certain products and services that form a monopoly naturally when they operate in a free (or even relatively free) market. Those are referred to as natural monopolies, ISPs are among them.