> The clear implication here is that California’s relative backwardness is evidenced by the shabbiness of local buildings. But that’s entirely the wrong conclusion to draw! The story here is that rich people don’t like new construction near where they live, and a lot of wealth has been created on the Peninsula in the last few decades.
Eh. What you are seemingly saying is that rich people prioritize living like how they grew up over developing the city for the future. I mean, I get it. Surely that is why many people moved to the bay area instead of say NYC. But I don't see how you can think that it isn't backwards.
Your implication is that anything that isn't "forward" is "backward". That is not how people feel about the places they would like to remain the way the are.
If you aren't keeping up with "current" you are going "backward". You can't build large headquarters for the worlds most successful companies somewhere and expect things to be the way they are.
Gigabit fiber in Stockholm is more like $70-90 depending on provider/connection. Telia being the former monopoly with a strong brand and a tier 1 provider is more or less the most expensive broadband you can buy. Symmetrical gigabit is of course also more expensive than 1000/100, 100/100 or 100/10. Prices are still a problem, but not quite that bad.
Stockholm is a great point of reference because it's one of the least "distorted." The municipal dark fiber provider doesn't receive any public subsidies, but also doesn't have public obligations (universal service, cross-subsidizing service for low-income people, building out to all neighborhoods, etc.). It charges what it needs to in order to have a sustainable network, and passes those costs along to ISPs such that the ultimate price of access is highly reflective of the "real costs" of building and operating a fiber network.
Stokab ultimately achieved 90% coverage by building out in a demand-driven way (though it took 16 years, compared to the 3-5 year timeline typically imposed in the U.S.). Which is how everything else works: at first only rich people had smart phones, now everyone does.
Universal service is an admirable goal, but the implementation is economically nonsensical. It is, in essence, a tax on telecom service. In the case of the universal service fund, it's an explicit tax. In the case of build-out requirements, it's an implicit tax: instead of taxing an ISP in cash, you're compelling it to provide a service it would not otherwise provide.
But it makes no sense to impose industry-specific taxes on telecom service. It's not like gasoline or alcohol, which warrant taxation to discourage the negative externalities they create. You tax industries that you want to discourage, not ones you want to encourage.
The downside of this economic distortion is that it suppresses competition and entrenches incumbents. There is no "minimal viable product" if you're starting an ISP in Baltimore. There is no sniping away at an incumbents' highest-margin markets. You end up not being allowed to use the tactics that startups in other industries use to take on incumbents.
Contrast how Sweden approaches broadband deployment in rural areas. It simply gives rural residents a tax credit to subsidize construction of a fiber line. It's the same way we approach other forms of welfare. We don't require Whole Foods to build stores in poor neighborhoods. We give direct aid in the form of SNAP and WIC benefits.
People are always going to have different perspectives and be curious about different things. Most people, especially those who create content, understands this. If there anything that make places like HN tedious to read it comments like your own that is negative, dismissive and argumentative. Who, with anything better to do, wants to be part of that?
This is not a matter of perspectives. This is ignoring the very titles she chose for herself and claiming that the article using those titles did so because of sexism (explicitly stated in another of cantrip's comments below).
There is nothing curious or creative here, just insidious behavior designed to start a fight without a modicum of evidence backing it.
Eh. What you are seemingly saying is that rich people prioritize living like how they grew up over developing the city for the future. I mean, I get it. Surely that is why many people moved to the bay area instead of say NYC. But I don't see how you can think that it isn't backwards.