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Comcast Launching $9.95 Low Income Broadband Plan
MojoKid writes "Comcast is launching 'Internet Essentials,' a new initiative offering discounted Internet access and home computers to families that meet low income requirements. The program was mandated as a requirement of Comcast's acquisition of NBC Universal, earlier this year. In that way, it's very similar to AT&T's Naked DSL program, which AT&T was required to offer as a condition of its merger with BellSouth. Internet Essentials will be available wherever Comcast offers broadband, which means 39 states."
Precisely!!! I don't mind this if it's a business decision by Comcast to win market-share/mind-share. But if they're doing it simply due to some utopian whims of politicians who want to 'bring internet to low income households', screw them. If internet access is a right, food is a right, a car is a right, a home is a right, a job is a right and so on.
The horrors!
Seriously, rights don't exist in and of themselves. They're just things that society has decided are important and should exist for everyone. In the revolutionary era, freedom of speech was all that we could afford to give to everyone. But as society has gotten richer, they've decided to expand the universe of things that everyone is supposed to have (FDR's "freedom from want", to give an example). This is a good thing! Now, it's possible that this particular way of trying to improve the living standards of the poor is going to have unintended consequences, but that's the argument you need to make.
That aside, Comcast is a monopoly in most of it's markets, and the capital costs are too high for that to realistically change. Regulators are necessary to keep them from purposely restricting investment and access and reaping monopoly profits.