People Had to Be Convinced of the Usefulness of Electricity

Re:People Had to Be Convinced of the Usefulness of Electricity by zamnos on Sunday March 19, 2023 @01:20PM (#35221274)

Because the 11% became 97% via the New Deal and government investment, not through market forces. That's not reaching to bring up politics, that's the history of what happened. Rural areas are more expensive to run physical infrastructure for, for fewer people, compared to an urban or suburban environment; that underlying fact hasn't changed since the 1920's when electricity was being run. How it immediately becomes political is the question of who pays for what, and how much of my taxes are going towards something that doesn't direct benefit me.

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Re:People Had to Be Convinced of the Usefulness of Electricity by nonethewiser on Sunday March 19, 2023 @01:26PM (#35221343)

But that proves my point. There was no “new deal” that got us to 75% broadband coverage. 75% is clearly way better than 11% therefore not a valid parallel.

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Re:People Had to Be Convinced of the Usefulness of Electricity by paulryanrogers on Sunday March 19, 2023 @01:50PM (#35221628)

75% broadband coverage is a generous interpretation, especially as the floor of what is broad has grown. 25MB down, 5MB up isn't actually that broad or useful as 4K TVs and multiple simultaneous video calls become the norm.

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Re:People Had to Be Convinced of the Usefulness of Electricity by zamnos on Sunday March 19, 2023 @02:06PM (#35221782)

There absolutely has been a ton of government money funneled to, basically Verizon and Comcast shareholders to try and provide rural Internet service via the Telecomms Act of 1996 along with everything else that came after that. That the government hasn't been getting good value for its money, and 75%, and at only 25 Mbit, compared to 97% for electricity is a whole other topic.

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Re:People Had to Be Convinced of the Usefulness of Electricity by mauvehaus on Sunday March 19, 2023 @02:13PM (#35221840)

Arguably, having broadband now is more important than having electricity then. The network effects of nearly everyone having broadband are reducing access to offline alternatives (e.g. bank branches closing), whereas anything you can do with electricity can likely be done without electricity or any additional infrastructure beyond what's on the farm.

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Re:People Had to Be Convinced of the Usefulness of Electricity by photochemsyn on Sunday March 19, 2023 @02:22PM (#35221935)

https://www.usda.gov/broadband

> "USDA has been investing in rural telecommunications infrastructure for decades. Hundreds of millions of dollars are annually available in the RUS programs both by loans and grants all to support modern broadband e-Connectivity in rural communities."

> "In 2018, USDA introduced the ReConnect Program, which has invested over $1 billion to date to expand high-speed broadband infrastructure in unserved rural areas and tribal lands."

We don't let shady private corporations squat on the roads and freeways and charge tolls to anyone who wants to drive on them, why should we allow such behavior on the internet trunk fiber optic cables either - or on the copper/aluminum electricity grid, for that matter?

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Re:People Had to Be Convinced of the Usefulness of Electricity by dsfyu404ed on Sunday March 19, 2023 @03:11PM (#35222396)

>Because the 11% became 97% via the New Deal and government investment, not through market forces.

That 11% wasn't a static state. Electrification was happening, government or not.

The New Deal certainly sped it up but it takes a career politician level of dishonesty to take a government program that increased the rate of electrification and give said program credit all electrification after it's commencement.

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Re:People Had to Be Convinced of the Usefulness of Electricity by photochemsyn on Sunday March 19, 2023 @05:13PM (#35223710)

I think it's fairer to say that there was a rural demand for electricity, but that privately owned electricity grids saw no profit in meeting that demand. Electric appliance manufacturers did want to sell their product to people in rural areas, and they realized that if government built out the electrical grid, they'd benefit from it as would rural electricity consumers. That's why FDR's Rural Electricification programs were widely popular.

The only opponents were the electric power companies who realized they might lose their captive markets if the idea spread to the cities. Hence they started buying lots of politicians.

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Re:People Had to Be Convinced of the Usefulness of Electricity by oatmeal1 on Sunday March 19, 2023 @05:17PM (#35223744)

Market forces would have correctly restricted the number of people living in inefficient places to live. Rural communities are massively more expensive to create infrastructure for. Instead we have locked ourselves into supporting an abnormally large number of people away from where infrastructure can efficiently be provided.

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Re:People Had to Be Convinced of the Usefulness of Electricity by DangitBobby on Sunday March 19, 2023 @05:37PM (#35223932)

And those people living in rural areas (which are required to sustain societies, unlike urban areas) would become poorer and less educated as time went on due to the economic inefficiencies of serving them well. You are arguing for the emergence of class stratification as if that's somehow the desired version of our society, which is just insanity. There is a _reason_ we share costs as a society! Free market thinking is shallow and should not be applied here, full stop.

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Re:People Had to Be Convinced of the Usefulness of Electricity by ghodith on Sunday March 19, 2023 @06:31PM (#35224393)

Or some of them would would have moved, or not moved there in the first place, or increased the prices of their goods.

Something so cynical about such low expectations. "If we weren't in charge, they would all devolve into savagery!"

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Re:People Had to Be Convinced of the Usefulness of Electricity by DangitBobby on Sunday March 19, 2023 @10:25PM (#35226516)

Not sure I'm the cynical one here. Even so, bad things really do happen sometimes.

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