> Google and Apple creating their own monopoly-like business in turn (locking you in their walled gardens as much as then can). It certainly looks like a pattern, with consumers not having much of a choice in the end.
Agreed but you can still choose those, you can't really choose your local ISP now they want to inspect packets, control which ones they slow down and have access to all your private data to sell. They lobbied for that and Google/Apple made innovative products to get you to come onboard and willingly give that away. I prefer at least my monopolies to get their market share by providing products people want and love.
The only major problem with capitalism is monopolies/big fish controlling everyone else.
There indeed has been a real failure to break up monopolies, especially ISP monopolies that control access to the internet.
You can still choose away from Google/Apple but there should eventually be breakups if competitors do not surface and Google keeps pulling stuff like AMP and Apple with ebook pricing manipulation and other areas. But net neutrality isn't about Google/Apple winning, they will win if NN is under FCC or FTC, it is about ISPs and them slowing competitors down because they have the levers.
You can choose your ISP about as much as you can choose your mobile OS. Sure, maybe you have one or two choices of ISP. But is it any different one level up the stack? Your mobile OS is either Android (Google) or iOS (Apple). What makes one monopoly different from the other?
ISP monopolies control all my access to the internet, that is the difference. They affect everything I do on my mobile (whether Android or iOS or other), desktop and all businesses built on top of it. ISPs control a layer that everything runs on and they have monopolies all across the US. Is that smart? ISP/Broadband mafia wants a cut of everything, with data caps and overages they are already taking a cut of digital purchases while I subsidize their ads they serve me.
Android or iOS are just OSs and there have always been a small amount of those that are market leaders. It is nice to have 2 instead of one that we had on desktop essentially for a while. There are lots of other mobile OSs (Windows, WebOS, linux phones) though but those two are the top. They don't have a location lock or local monopoly on anyone, they won their users through innovation and products people wanted. The exact opposite could be said of ISPs today even though they were innovators in the 90s'/00s when there were many.
I have zero choice of my ISP in my location I have Cox at 100Mbps which is decent and CenturyLink at 12Mbps which is not even comparable. Cox gigablast and CenturyLink fiber is two miles over but stopped installing new when Google Fiber left. Competition could easily get us to gigabit everywhere but their competition is fake and their efforts resides in their past local monopoly areas. I'd literally pay for my line to be ran to my house but they won't. They want to eek out every last revenue cent with degrading service (data caps, overage charges) while the cost goes up, no speed improvements. I'd gladly pay more for more product.
Lots of ISPs delay is they want people to have to switch to their content/tv systems again instead of cord cutting, they are doing this by removing unlimited, adding data caps, and slowing service. They are either going to get people to switch or drive up the costs to offset losses due to cord cutting. People are cord cutting because it is a better product elsewhere and cost is too much.
Broadband companies originally disrupted the telco dial-up internet companies. I sometimes think it will take satellite internet from like SpaceX or some new innovation and current ISPs will be dropped like a hot rock, like phone lines for cable internet back on the 90s/00s.
Do you think it is smart to only have 1 provider in most of the US for broadband? Would you want that in your area?
Agreed but you can still choose those, you can't really choose your local ISP now they want to inspect packets, control which ones they slow down and have access to all your private data to sell. They lobbied for that and Google/Apple made innovative products to get you to come onboard and willingly give that away. I prefer at least my monopolies to get their market share by providing products people want and love.
The only major problem with capitalism is monopolies/big fish controlling everyone else.
There indeed has been a real failure to break up monopolies, especially ISP monopolies that control access to the internet.
You can still choose away from Google/Apple but there should eventually be breakups if competitors do not surface and Google keeps pulling stuff like AMP and Apple with ebook pricing manipulation and other areas. But net neutrality isn't about Google/Apple winning, they will win if NN is under FCC or FTC, it is about ISPs and them slowing competitors down because they have the levers.