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New From AT&T: Family Visit Plans
As I was reading this Bob Frankston quote on Doc’s blog, I was imagining what would the world be like if our entire road system, including the roads in our neighborhoods have been built privately and we had to pay fees to use them.
You’d probably see packages advertised on TV announcing the new Family Visit plans for only $19.95 per month. Pay one low rate and visit all the relatives you want. Malls would have to pay huge hookup fees to the road networks because of the “extra traffic” they’d generate. Interchanges would not just exchange cars, but money also as cars transfered from one operators road network to another’s. If you wanted a public driveway (not one NAT’s behind the road network’s local barricade) you’d have to pay $10 more per month. And of course more cars would be able to pull into your driveway than would be allowed to leave.
Posted by windley on June 19, 2007 8:31 AM
Comment from william at June 19, 2007 6:43 PM
One way we could still make this private roadway reality happen would be to auction off our nation's highways and maybe even strategically located national park lands to the highest bidder.
There is precedent in the broadband world. The FCC has and continues to auction our wireless spectrum to the highest private bidder. That in turn creates private tax collectors out of our service providers. By forcing all providers to participate in an auction for spectrum, we can maximize the dollar amount they are able to extract from consumers. The irony is that these are the very citizens who collectively own the spectrum to begin with.
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