Cable is a network technology with value defined somewhere between Sarnof's, Metcalfe's, or Tilly-Odlyzko's laws. Scale, and dominating local coverage, matter.
Oil is an extractive mineral resource with very low direct costs vs. use value. Absent some form of central contrl, the price has tended to fall far too low. In the aftermath of the East Texas oilfield discovery of 1930 (the biggest on the mainland lower 48), prices fell fist to $0.13/bbl, then to $0.02/bbl. That's barrels, not gallons.
The governors of Texas and Oklahoma called out their state national guards, and the Rangers in Texas, and seized wellheads at gunpoint to cut supply. The quota system imposed, run by the highly innaccurately named Texas Railraod Commission, lasted until 1972. Daniel Yergin's book The Prize covers this in detail.
A similar control program applied to strategic minerals was created after WWII, originally called the Hobard list, and remains in effect as part of the Defense National Stockpile Center.
Cable is a network technology with value defined somewhere between Sarnof's, Metcalfe's, or Tilly-Odlyzko's laws. Scale, and dominating local coverage, matter.
Oil is an extractive mineral resource with very low direct costs vs. use value. Absent some form of central contrl, the price has tended to fall far too low. In the aftermath of the East Texas oilfield discovery of 1930 (the biggest on the mainland lower 48), prices fell fist to $0.13/bbl, then to $0.02/bbl. That's barrels, not gallons.
The governors of Texas and Oklahoma called out their state national guards, and the Rangers in Texas, and seized wellheads at gunpoint to cut supply. The quota system imposed, run by the highly innaccurately named Texas Railraod Commission, lasted until 1972. Daniel Yergin's book The Prize covers this in detail.
A similar control program applied to strategic minerals was created after WWII, originally called the Hobard list, and remains in effect as part of the Defense National Stockpile Center.
Raw material and networking economics differ.