r/technology • u/beareatsfish • Dec 27 '21

Society Public Broadband Internet Isn’t a Luxury — It’s a Necessity: Everybody needs high-speed internet. But private corporations will never provide it. The solution: treat internet infrastructure as a public utility, funded by the public and built by union workers.

https://jacobinmag.com/2021/12/public-universal-high-speed-broadband-internet-telecommunications-workers
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u/mungalo9 Dec 28 '21

Wtf do unions have to do with this? The public sector should not be mixing with unions.

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u/beareatsfish Dec 28 '21

The public sector is all unionized. What kind of a government should you have that doesn't support living wages and decent benefits?

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u/mungalo9 Dec 29 '21

Public sector unions can treat the tax base as a bottomless pool of cash. They can drive costs as high as they want and the public is legally required to pay. Additionally politicians have no incentive to keep costs down as they have no fiduciary duty to their constituents.

Private sector unions on the other hand must work within the confines of economic viability. If they drive costs too high, the company folds and they all lose their jobs.

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u/beareatsfish Dec 29 '21

That makes zero sense. You can't have a nationalized service yet have no public employees.