re: Holy Cow! Just signed up for gigabit service in Chattanooga, TN

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it's a valid question

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No, it's not. Anyone who is looking for gigabit bandwidth, and actually can/will regularly take advantage of bandwidth beyond even 100mbps, is not going to even consider a plan with a cap, especially one that's only a few hundred GB. Great that you're getting more than you need for a good price, but a capped gigabit connection is a sad and irrelevant comparison. You may not ever use that much data, but you also benefit very little (if at all) from a Gb connection. For those of us who understand what a Gb connection is used for (vs. the currently more conventional < 150Gb connections), it's just a silly notion to even consider a Gb connection with a data cap.

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what private gigabit services are offered in LA without a cap?

*ETA: it's an honest question b/c i don't know

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If it were an honest question, you wouldn't qualify it with "private" gigabit services. I'm not interested in comparing the benefits of municipal vs. private, nor am I suggesting CenturyLink is the case-and-point against the existence of any and all private ISPs.

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that's honestly not true. i used to say things like this but i've read academic writings on it and they changed my mind

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I think your instinct was correct, and you've been duped by some creative persuasive writing. Why do you think certain industries end up being regulated time and time again? State after state, country after country.. do you think regulators do it just for the hell of it? Capitalism breaks sometimes, just accept it.

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the problem is that "the internet" in many ways is like a tech startup that still isn't making a profit. it's a bubble

since its not been found to be profitable on its own, somebody has to pay for it. that's the issue

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What the frick are you talking about? Can I see a link to whatever you're reading here?

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this all assumes that people are going to drop TV and that is unlikely (or decades away)

"a la carte" cord cutting has been a disaster online (just look at the library gutting of netflix and amazon streaming) and offline (look at the issues ESPN is going through). there are not many people who truly "cut the cord" as most still use others' logins for things like ESPN, HBO, etc or they illegally download/stream content.

it's going to take a long time for the various markets to sort themselves out, but early returns of the "cord cutting era" aren't especially great

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Yeah, it is very unlikely as long as the same (very profitable) companies that control our internet access also continue buying up all the rights to the shows we want to watch (or use other methods to prevent us from watching them). The only way large numbers of people are going to cut the cord is if they have access to high speed, uncapped internet. The incumbents have shown that they have no interest in providing that, and we have seen that it takes a very large company like Google to make any headway here. We have also seen that the progress is slow, so yes, it will take decades at this rate.

But it doesn't have to take that long. It will only take that long because capitalism.

The math is simple, really. In most industries, companies build the production capacity necessary to satisfy the market. This is efficient. An ISP (or power, water, sewer, etc.), though, has to build the infrastructure to service an entire geographical area just to sell to a fraction of the potential customers there. Pure capitalism results in duplication of infrastructure and cost, which results in higher prices for customers and smaller profits for businesses. Either that or the incumbent buys out any potential competitor, which results in higher prices for customers and larger profits for businesses. Consumers get fricked either way. This is not ideal, IMO.

Internet service cannot be packaged up and shipped where it needs to go. You cannot go to the store and buy it. It must be built out to the site. Competition at this level is wasteful, inefficient, and costly. Sounds an awful lot like when government tries to operate in industries where capitalism works well, doesn't it?

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it's completely worth it for me. hell it's overkill and i don't even need it, but it will only cost me about $5/mo more than 100 MB speed and 100 GB less via data cap. what i have now is perfectly great for my needs.

again, what other private service is offered in LA with those options at that price point? it's a valid question

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I have a few valid questions, too. Is that promotional pricing? Is there any competition in the gigabit service areas? Do you think they are turning a profit at that price?

I don't know if any other private service currently offers something similar in LA, but many ISPs could do so in a very short period of time. It is very lucrative business, especially when used as a gateway to signing up TV customers. Which, as long as caps are in place, is pretty much forced. Now imagine if you had your way and ISPs were also allowed to throttle Netflix/etc., as well? Then your gigabit would be even more useless.

It still blows my mind that anyone could be so in favor of capitalism, yet still support such perverse anti-competitive results of it.