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Microsoft unbundles Office and Teams globally in new attempt to appease antitrust regulators
(www.geekwire.com)
this post was submitted on 02 Apr 2024
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Nobody is forcing me to use Office or Teams, but I'm stuck with a single ISP.
Why won't regulators even LOOK at the ISP oligopoly? For fucks sake.
Turn it into a utility. Having an Internet connection is arguably more important than a phone line ever was and is up there with electricity.
It's a utility. Treat it like one.
I only have one option for most utilities. I don't get to choose which private power company I use and I certainly don't get to choose from an array of options for how that electricity is generated.
Making the internet a utility is good, but that won't make it less of an oligopoly.
Here in NL they have a decent system if you ask me. Infrastructure for power is owned by TenneT, a semi-government organisation. Then power is supplied by private companies, from whom you can choose any one you want (aka the cheapest/greenest one, depending on your wishes). They then supply power to the national grid, so you’re technically using power from all companies, but paying your share to the one you have a contract with.
My only power option announced they are raising rates every year for the next few years. Yay for capitalism I guess.
Because you probably do have at least two options for ISPs, it's just that one option is DSL and lawmakers still struggle with understanding color television.
Yes you can get dial-up, DSL, cell network data, or even satellite! These services are clearly equivalent to cable or fiber in the ISP marketplace.
My ISP overlords added fiber to my neighborhood and have stopped allowing DSL signups. Well they also didn't replace the copper in my yard (fiber is only available across the street and I've spent 3 years trying to get AT&T to come across to my side). So my options are cable, or cable, or T-Mobile hotspot (it would be against their TOS though).
Because the unbundling is happening due to EU intervention and the ISP oligopoly is in the US, and not within the jurisdiction of the EU.
Said oligopoly has those wittle reguwators on a string