What's the point of billionaires? O

[Virginiá]

I don't see a real issue with billionaires, provided that they are largely prohibited from having an out-sized influence in politics via their wealth, and that they are also prohibited from consolidating entire industries to the detriment of everyone else. The problem these days is that both of those issues are severe problems. Money is/has been ruining government and, you could also say due to this money, corporations are being allowed to consolidate way too often. You see this issue in almost every industry - Food, IT (especially), banking, etc. This is having a lot of negative effects on society.

I don't think most people would really have it out for wealthy people if the government would take care of these 2 main issues. But yet here we are.

[Virginiá]

So, in what way is IT consolidating too much? And how is that having negative effects beyond those when I was young, and wealth was not the issue it is today?

ISPs and their regional monopolies are choking the life out of consumers and it's no wonder people hate them so much. Google, as much as I like them, has become far too powerful. They are extending themselves everywhere. It's not that I think they are particularly harmful now (in fact, it is basically only them who can/and is competing with ISPs to make service better for people). It doesn't take much to see just how much control they have, though. I could say CPU designers as well, as it seems the only real players are Intel and AMD, but I don't think they are an issue (not that they couldn't be eventually, though).

Now, I wasn't meaning to generalize everything-tech, but there are very important parts of these industries that are too big and too powerful. It just happens that ISP/Search monopolies and what they have become are either a major threat to innovation or are on their way to becoming one sometime in the future. I may have a different idea of when the government should step in, but the fact that we have what we have right now seems proof (to me, anyway) that the government is not doing its job.

Historically, I can't comment. I'm pretty young and I don't know how it was. However, if it was worse decades ago, then that doesn't make me feel better about this. Why hasn't the government broken up ISPs already when it's been obvious for years that they are critical to the development of the Internet but yet are abusing their power to try and control and manipulate their position to increase profits at the expense of others? Google, which I do admit I see somewhat altruistically (maybe naively), is very clearly in a position of power that could be just as bad as it is good, if they so chose to be that way.

Finally, I have to say that I'm not a big fan of just waiting until everyone is being gouged and pissed off by overbearing and incontestable corporations. Corporations should not be allowed to even be in a position where they can exert overwhelmingly control over entire industries, regardless of their agenda. But, that's just me, maybe.

[Virginiá]

The government (FCC) was just in a huge fight last year with the ISPs over net neutrality, with the content providers winning over the ISPs. How much competition are you looking for?

Yes, I followed this pretty extensively. I'm rather eagerly awaiting the recent lawsuit verdict as well.

I don't consider myself too greedy for competition. For ISPs, I simply want enough that forces the providers to offer actual, decent customer service, good prices, good service and no bullsh**t limitations. Comcast is likely to hit my area with data caps this year and given my usage, I'll have to pay that extra $30 for unlimited data. It's things like this that really drive home how little competition there is. They would not dare do this if there were more providers in the area all competing for customers, but since that is generally not the case, they roll out whatever messed up plans they feel like.

I only have 2 choices in my area. Comcast or Dish. Though, I might as well only say 1 choice because the other is not even an option for me. Google Fiber's incursions into zero-competition areas has really shown just how much we are losing out. Suddenly, AT&T and others are dramatically upping broadband speeds, dropping costs and all sorts of other good stuff. Our system simply does not work the way we envision without adequate competition and ISPs are a prime example of this (in my opinion).

[Virginiá]

But the lack of ISP competition in your area is not the result billionaires and their corporations.

That's true. I sort of went off the rails, didn't I? Infrastructure investment is heavy and I wouldn't expect a myriad providers to materialize. But, where this fits in is individuals and corporations using their wealth to bribe lawmakers into passing laws prohibiting say, local governments from setting up their own fiber networks for their community. There are other things, such as letting newcomers use utility polls and some other infrastructure. These kinds of things are not practical with a powerful incumbent provider that can use the wealth they obtained from being that sole incumbent to manipulate the laws and regulations of the state.

To be fair, I'm an open access girl. If it was my call, I would mandate line sharing to significantly reduce the initial infrastructure costs and expand competition. Existing ISPs could receive some limited reimbursement, I suppose? They have already received so much money at both the state and federal level and have consistently failed to hold up their end of the agreement in terms of broadband expansion, though. I believe some EU countries do this and they don't have any real problems with it. In fact, I believe we did this with DSL for some time, no?

[Virginiá]

The poor Democrats who are atheists and whine about Christmas decorations everywhere instead of looking for jobs should be thankful for billionaires who are at higher tax rates to pay for their welfare checks.

Of which middle class folks pay more than poorer people. I imagine you're a flat tax person?

I'm really glad this whole "up by your bootstraps" worldview doesn't dominate policy relating to social programs, because if our system was built around those ideals, the country would have a much more crushing layer of poverty. So many conservatives think that if they just yank those EBT cards away, everyone will magically get jobs and hearty paychecks. Meanwhile, they cut education funding to reduce the quality of knowledge people have. They refuse to invest in infrastructure, so the economy as a whole suffers and there are less jobs to go around.  They fight collective bargaining power tooth and nail so workers have no ability to negotiate better wages and are left completely at the mercy of the corporations (who, as of the past 40 years, have largely left wages stagnant). They fight basically any pro-worker regulations to ensure fair pay, overtime compensation, benefits, you name it. They try to cut any and all social programs so there is little to help people when they fall down. The list goes on and on.

Sometimes I think the only people Republican establishment politicians are looking out for are businesses, under some misguided (or corrupt) idea that those businesses will take care of the workers. Their policy positions almost seem fine-tuned to make life very difficult for workers at, or near the bottom. Too bad the worker-business social contract was broken a long time ago.