> At the end of the day, we need investors to pour money into telecommunications infrastructure, which is very expensive. If you make that unprofitable, they'll spend their money on WhatsApp or Twitter or other things that are less regulated. And when that happens, who is going to build the pipes? Google?
Maybe, if they find that market growth is limited by infrastructure. Though of course having the end providers get into the infrastructure business has some of the same problems that having infrastructure companies turn the pipes into selective tollways.
Ultimately, though, I'm not sure we want telecom infrastructure itself to be the place for economic profits (meant in the technical sense of the term). We've done a lot better by letting the innovation happen on the ends. Infrastructure should be boring, predictable, low-risk, modest but reliable reward.
Maybe, if they find that market growth is limited by infrastructure. Though of course having the end providers get into the infrastructure business has some of the same problems that having infrastructure companies turn the pipes into selective tollways.
Ultimately, though, I'm not sure we want telecom infrastructure itself to be the place for economic profits (meant in the technical sense of the term). We've done a lot better by letting the innovation happen on the ends. Infrastructure should be boring, predictable, low-risk, modest but reliable reward.