i've wondered for a long time why this isn't a more common solution to these services that are almost inevitably monopolous. power, water, and internet kind of things.

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jimbokun 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

In the US the governments have actively killed them as a favor to the large corporate Internet providers.

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j-bos 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Good explainer vid: https://youtu.be/CIEQPwf9MHY

tldr: one town in the US did it and it became an economic miracle, big telcos noticed and have set up lobbying and advertising infra to ensure it never happens.

	▲	deaux 20 hours ago \| parent [-]
		The video doesn't explain much. At the end, it says this: > "The average voter doesn't understand how these systems work so there is little risk for [state] lawmakers in siding with these companies." The million-dollar question is why those lawmakers are siding with these companies when the economic miracle case exists right in front of their eyes. The answer to that question is the real explainer.

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port11 a day ago | parent | prev [-]

In Europe these were largely publicly-owned, but the neoliberal tendency to privatise everything has slowly dismantled the public corporation.

My home country's formerly public energy provider has a weird share structure: a Chinese company and BlackRock add up to a fourth of the stock. No foreign investor should really be buying up stock in critical infrastructure.

This will always upset me.