Saturday, October 1, 2005

Google in San Francisco: 'Wireless overlord'?: Responding to a proposal to blanket the city with free wireless Net service, some fret about privacy, others welcome the shake-up. (Via CNET News.com.) As expected, some people try very hard to find convoluted, even paranoid explanations for something that may have a very simple explanation. At least, something for which I can find a very simple explanation. Here it is. Google has shown that a major public utility, search, can be free for its end users through advertising support without the crutch of government regulation. In contrast, traditional broadcasting is also free to its end users, but gets free subsidies in the form of free licenses for a valuable public commodity, bandwidth, and an artificially restricted supply through government regulation. Now, what other industry relies on government regulation to get monopoly rents? Telecom, of course. Question: would it be possible to make telecommunications free to the end user in an unregulated environment, by using efficient provisioning and support from advertisers and online businesses? We don't know, but it would be interesting to try to work out the technical and economic in real life. After all, no one knew how to support search before Google and others ran their successful experiment. How's that for a simple explanation? 8:55:51 PM

gas prices: Many make the argument that current gas prices won't change behavior. The arguments are generally that people only respond to a fairly quick change and that people have no choice - they must drive. (Via tingilinde.) I would agree if people in the US stayed put in one place. But they move a lot, and when they look for housing somewhere else, driving costs may start to play a role. Sustained high transportation costs may also subtly increase people's acceptance of denser housing. Old cities in the Northeast have surprising amounts of (re)developable land fairly close in, often in sites that once held obsolete industries and businesses that required lots of land. Here in Philadelphia, development of condos and townhouses is proceeding at a torrid pace. Not because of transportation costs yet, but that could change. Unfortunately, the physical and social infrastructures of the city have been decaying over many years, so it would take concerted investment and creative policies and politics to make the city attractive again for middle-class families, who have different needs than the young professionals and wealthy empty nesters whose demand is fueling the redevelopment. 7:22:30 PM