I think twitter and facebook show us that when people are carefully fed only the “news” they want to see, that it doesn’t matter if the media is not consolidated.
I do worry about media consolidation too, though.
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Private companies with big fat government contracts. It’s certainly not ideal when they have near-monopoly powers and can use that to basically print money. It’s a problem.
While i despise private prisons, they typically act as employees of the government, i think.
FedEx, and the whole claim resolution industry (by clicking here you agree to our choice of mediator to resolve any claims…) seem more like industry usurping government than any of the examples you’ve given.
Certainly more than a company saying “we don’t want to do business here because we don’t like you’re legal climate.”
I thought she seemed to disbelieve the idea that we could have corporations acting in quasi governmental ways. I was trying to give examples of what i meant by that idea.
i wouldn’t guess she supports private prisons, and neither do i.
Not at all. I just don’t think any of your examples were anything like corporations usurping government functions. They are just corporations choosing where and how they want to do business, and playing different states off each other.
Yes, there’s a lot wrong with that model. I don’t see any way to put that toothpaste back into the tube, though.
But news has never been a government function in the US.
Huh?
What has FedEx done? Give you an option to deliver your packages in half the time as USPS at 5x the price?
They’re maybe competing with USPS on some level, but they have a really different business model. In the old “fast cheap and good: pick 2” adage… USPS has opted for cheap and good, emphasis on cheap. FedEx has opted for fast and good, emphasis on fast.
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BTW, I’m a big fan of both. I think the USPS is a treasure. It’s nothing short of amazing that I can drop a postcard in the mail to my friend in Hawaii and it will get there in a matter of days and it only costs me $0.36.
It’s similarly amazing that FedEx can get the same postcard there the next business morning if I want. That costs $118.10.
I think it’s a stretch to even say that they’re competing, but there are certainly more overlapping services offered by both.
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