It is. It's an all too common knee-jerk reaction in well-off western societies that when something doesn't go exactly your way, call for politicians to fix it with force. And politicians are all to happy to oblige.
In Britain, back in the early 80s when British Telecom was operated on cost, and not lining the pockets of greedy corporations, it would take weeks or even months to have a single phone line installed.
One data point is a good example, but hardly a good way to back up an argument. I will concede that I'm unaware as to whether any serious analysis has been done of the efficiency of publicly-run corporations vs. privately-run corporations in first-world, democratic countries, but nearly any data set can be cherry-picked for evidence to support any view.
Arguing that all (or the great majority of) public organizations are wildly inefficient on the basis of i) philosophy, and ii) examples, is like arguing that all (or the vast majority) of governments are dictatorships because back in the 80's, Romania was one.
The argument made, was that a service will by default be better when profit for the owners is no longer a factor. This is largely a philosophical argument, even though it's framed practically, so I will counter it philosophically;
The argument fails to incorporate some very basic and well understood market mechanism. A company whose products consumers are forced to buy (either because they are subsidised or because they have a government-enforced monopoly) are less inclined to invest and take risks in development. Why take a risk when people are already buying what you have today and can't go anywhere?
Another factor is political interference and the ensuing ICan'tBelieveItsNotCorruption. What happens when the pipes clog up before there's budget for increasing bandwidth because more people than expected are downloading and seeding torrents? Is the memo that says that it's mostly porn and piracy anyway, and we can just block the ports going to be ignored over pumping money in new bandwidth? To help people get porn? Protect the children, save money and get re-elected -- all in one firewall.
Yes, absolutely, a government run business can be more efficiently than a private one, and sometimes if can get some infrastructure in place where it simply isn't practical for for private actors to work. But it's never because they don't have to make money for their owners.
It is. It's an all too common knee-jerk reaction in well-off western societies that when something doesn't go exactly your way, call for politicians to fix it with force. And politicians are all to happy to oblige.
In Britain, back in the early 80s when British Telecom was operated on cost, and not lining the pockets of greedy corporations, it would take weeks or even months to have a single phone line installed.