Quote:
Originally Posted by Apache
Back when the cable companies tried to prevent municipalities from starting their own cable companies, they usually did have a monopoly. Back then where I live you could get CBS and NBC over the air. Anything else required cable. The cable companies charged out the wazoo and did not want the municipalities under cutting them.
Apache
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Quote:
Originally Posted by BWinmill
Electricity, water, sewage, garbage collection, roads, and mail service are handled by the government in many jurisdictions. In other words, those government bureaucrats can be mighty effective.
The issue with private enterprise is pretty much as you suggested: they tackle the low hanging fruit, which leads to inequitable access to services and infrastructure. They also tend to ignore large scale projects because of the risks involved.
I'm not suggesting that government intervention is the best solution. The problem is that there are times when government intervention is the only solution.
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True. As I pointed out we only received two channels over the air. You had to have cable to view more. Cable was only available in the city limits. The local cable company did not want to invest in cable, in the county, because of the lower population density and size of the the county. The county did not get cable until the middle of the 1990's.
Apache