Charging people a price relative to the cost of a service is not discrimination.

dragonwriter 44 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

> Charging people a price relative to the cost of a service is not discrimination.

Yes, it is discrimination. Treating people differently on any basis is discrimination on that basis.

It may or may not be illegal discrimination depending on the specifics and the governing law, and it may or may not be unjust discrimination depending on the specifics and the applicable moral framework, but all discrimination means is differential treatment on some criteria.

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Grombobulous 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Refusing service entirely kinda feels like more like something that fits the word “discrimination.” UPS/FedEx can refuse service to you for almost any reason.

But, perhaps you’re right, maybe the word “discrimination” is the wrong word. Either way, from a national policy standpoint there are very good reasons to subsidize rural areas for basic infrastructure services like mail and internet.

USPS from an operations standpoint is pretty much profitable. Congress basically doesn’t even allow USPS to fix itself when it absolutely can fix itself without major service cuts or privatization. For example, their pension fund can only invest in low-yield securities, while normal companies have more flexibility, so that inflates the cost of their retirement program.

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eru 2 hours ago | parent [-]

You can auction off the universal service obligation to willing bidders without having a state owned enterprise with a government monopoly.

> Either way, from a national policy standpoint there are very good reasons to subsidize rural areas for basic infrastructure services like mail and internet.

Please tell me a few.

	▲	Grombobulous an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Sure! Rural areas extract and produce many resources that urban areas depend on. Agriculture, fishing, oil, gas, uranium, wood, maple syrup, etc. You can’t get workforces to live in those places or businesses to operate there if there’s no roads, internet, mail, schools, hospitals, etc (or if those things are prohibitively expensive). Don’t forget that subsidy doesn’t always mean the difference between whether it’s expensive or not, it can also mean the difference between having and not having. Another reason is that too much regional wealth inequality can be bad for national stability. It can lead to things like civil wars and unrest.