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Man who built ISP instead of paying Comcast $50K expands to hundreds of homes

(arstechnica.com)
1135 points carride | 1 comments | 10 Aug 22 13:23 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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qwe----3 ◴[10 Aug 22 13:35 UTC] No.32411651[source]▶
> over $30,000 for each of those homes to get served

This doesn't seem very efficient to me.

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fourthark ◴[10 Aug 22 13:46 UTC] No.32411831[source]▶
At $55/mo, he'll start making a profit in 45 years.
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TrueGeek ◴[10 Aug 22 13:53 UTC] No.32411957[source]▶
From the article: he had $2.6MM in help from the "American Rescue Plan's Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds".

He's being paid by the government to bring Internet access to homes in the state that aren't currently wired for it.

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Bloating ◴[10 Aug 22 14:05 UTC] No.32412153[source]▶
Gotta pay your fair share, so it can be granted out for someone elses gain
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xavxav ◴[10 Aug 22 14:18 UTC] No.32412388[source]▶
Today you help finance someone’s fiber, tomorrow they help finance your hospital/fire dept/etc, that’s the whole idea of public works.
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Bloating ◴[10 Aug 22 14:31 UTC] No.32412627[source]▶
Sounds more like how crony politics for personal gain works. Alternatively, you could finance the hospital, fire depart, or whatever without an middle man siphoning off "their fair share"
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1. pentae ◴[10 Aug 22 14:47 UTC] No.32412892{3}[source]▶
So if you want to see this theory in action go to developing countries with an elite ruling class where they don't disperse funds to social works and see how nice it is, behold their lame GDP, etc.

The country I live in SE Asia is a good example. It's quite libertarian out here and yeah being able to pay for private hospitals is nice, but generally speaking your quality of life is lower, quality of goods is lower, average person is less educated, traffic is a crippling problem due to poor planning, it goes on and on. And despite labor being super cheap, roads are a mess, sidewalks are few and far between and if you do get one it's crowded with junk.. Only 10% of the country pays taxes, the inequality with the rich is massive, and if you're not in the top 1% you're basically a poor.

I recommend everyone in a rich english speaking country spending at least a year or two living in a developing country to get some perspective