Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Cablecos, Telcos Working To Strengthen the Duopoly

Posted by kdawson on from the let's-you-and-hiim-collude dept.

The LA Times is running a piece on cooperation among cable companies and telcos. No, not cablecos cooperating with telcos; rather, both industries working on industry-wide initiatives aimed at getting a leg up on the other. AT&T, Verizon, and Qwest have been working on a site, Moveroo.com, aimed at easing the pain of people moving within the US — by making it easier for them to hook up with the incumbent telco at their destination, for instance. Odd that there is no mention of which cable services might be available where they are heading. The cablecos are cooperating on a more ambitious initiative to standardize targeted advertising nationwide, using data gathered from the set-top boxes used by Time Warner, Cox, Comcast, Cablevision, Charter, and Bright House Networks. The article quotes a spokesman from a utility consumers' action group: " [The spokesman] said these moves by the telecom and cable industries may be good for the respective businesses, but they almost surely won't be good for consumers. 'All they're doing is creating obstacles to each other's industry from gaining an advantage,' he said. 'That's not competition.' Well, it is. But not the kind that benefits customers."

1 of 113 comments (clear)

  1. The Free Market by mosb1000 · · Score: 0, Troll

    The thing that always gets me about liberals is their constant instance that government regulations will do a better job than the free market would. They complain that the "hidden hand" is bit of hand waving that libertarians use to justify their own selfish ends. In reality the "hidden hand" is guided by the individual decisions of people trading goods.

    Any yes, if individuals have enough information when making decisions, the "hidden hand" is quite good at taking resources from where they are available and putting them where they are needed. When it doesn't work, it is always a case where poor information had lead to poor decisions.

    In reality, liberals are just arrogant people who think they know how to spend your money better than you do. That's not to say that they aren't well-meaning, they're just hopelessly misguided.