> Wells dug with modern equipment are a perfectly good alternative to municipal water

... in certain geologic areas. And this doesn't work if you live in an apartment. I do feel like this is a big example of the "why don't you just" discussion from last week.

"Why don't you do something that works for over 40 million people all over the US" is a very far cry from "why don't you build your own power plant, datacenter, and networking infrastructure." It's a far better argument than DDG which - if my usage is anything to go by - is just a frontend for Google with convenient shortcuts to specialized searches like Github.

If you live in an apartment, you live in a multi-family building built by a developer with a lot more money than a single family can spend. They're exactly the ones who can afford alternatives, like paying the city to tear up roads and lay down a pipe to municipal water.

The point is that a well supports a tiny number of people compared to a municipal water system, but it's a real alternative. In the search engine space, DDG is just token opposition and there is no one analogous to a property developer that can afford a competitor to municipal water so it's Google or nothing.

> a frontend for Google

Bing*

"perfectly good alternative"

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

Water (or mineral) rights are often not included when you buy property within a city, too. "Just dig a well," is often literally illegal. Water rights are notoriously complicated and obscure.

Sure, but he poster is arguing that having alternatives is no reason to not declare a large company’s product a utility.

My municipality is great for wells, most houses use them, but the water company that was recently introduced is still classified a utility.

DuckDuckGo gives vastly different search results from Google. Last thing we need is the government involved in “improving” search results.

Then you can also play a tragedy-of-the-commons aquifer game with all the commercial users of water in your area. Can you afford to keep making your well deeper than theirs? There are a few towns in California engaged in the resulting endgame.

Often, cities will not allow you to use your own well, insisting you move on to city water.

Wells are regulated where I live.