"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.