The problem with most of the public vs. private stuff is that 'the public' often needs something (i.e. a bridge that doesn't collapse) yet a commercial entity with the goal of maximising profit will probably have no problem with a collapsing bridge as long as it's cheaper than maintaining it.

Some needs are worth putting it in a public baseline. And sometimes grey areas work (i.e. a public service fulfilled by a private entity but then checked by a public instance). Some stuff may not need to be public, i.e. kegs of beer. It's great when you want one, but it's not a base public need and not a shared need (unlike infrastructure, health, security, for general survival in places packed with too many people like big cities). But then a commercial entity might see an opportunity to sell things as a public baseline (why have basic weather forecasts when you can add 'bbq weather compatibility forecasts' or 'can I play golf tomorrow' functionality. But now that company has a hard time getting people to pay for it because that extra stuff that you didn't need anyway isn't attractive to anyone who just wants to know if they need to bring an umbrella. So ban the simple stuff and now your complex stuff has a place in the market. It's practically setting yourself up not to win on your own merit but 'removing' any opposition. Or so it seems to us bystanders. I don't actually know why they thought this was a good idea to have a lawsuit about.

It's tricky.

Going by your logic any airline would happily see planes falling out of the sky "as it's cheaper than maintaining it".

If we had a private bridge owning/maintaining company, you really think they could afford that one "just collapses"?

The Deutsche Bahn in Germany is pretty much doing that. They pay for maintenance, the Government pays for repair. So they save money on maintenance and let the Government pay for the repairs.

And it shows, in case anybody was wondering. The percentage of trains that break down in the middle of the field, that have to detach a few carriages in some random train station so they can keep going with the rest of the train, or that barely make it to the destination but then are stuck there unable to move is truly astounding.

Planes have been falling out of the sky due to commercial reasoning. And most maintenance is done the way it is because it had to be put in to law to force a businesses to do it.

Yeah, that’s why airline have plane crashing all the time, it’s cheaper than maintaining them. /s

We literally had planes crash because Boeing was refusing to put the money down to do a proper development.

Yes, and look at their shares price.

A falling share price doesn't un-crash the planes.

No but it gives a strong incentive to behave differently. If it doesn’t, an other player take it’s place.

The stock did not move as much during the time of the Max news as it did recently due to the Coronavirus situation.

That doesn’t necessarily mean a plane designed entirely be civil servants would be better.

That is correct, you get some sort of mix or grey area. I think there was an interview with some of the engineers with an airplane manufacturer that described the changes after a merger where both companies were general commercial companies with profit in mind (and shareholders etc) but one had a company culture of doing it right and the other wanted to lower that down to 'right enough' hoping to make a bit more money that they didn't actually need on top of the billions of profit. But that's what minmaxing with do...

That’s way too simplistic. Antonovs when they were ‘public’ Also had problems. Being public doesn’t immunize them against cost-benefit decisions.

Have you seen early aviation, before the government put all the regulations in?

There is more to it. Usually people don’t like to take plane from airline if they have a lot of accident.

If i build a bridge and it collapse, how I’m making money now? If I have other bridges, people might stop using them if they are known to collapse and kill people.

Unless of course they need to get from point A to point B and you have a mono(duo,oligo)poly on bridges on river C flowing between them.