You have the right to 10Mbps



  • @dkf said in You have the right to 10Mbps:

    It will make more difference to people who live in rural areas.

    I live in the capital and we still haven't upgraded from 5 Mbps due to resistance from my father. "It works so why should we replace it with something that's more expensive!" Another quote: "How dare the government mandate that I do my taxes online? It costs actual money to buy a computer and an internet connection you know. Where is it written down in the law that I must have those in my possession?"

    5 Mbps is really enough for most things though.



  • @cvi said in You have the right to 10Mbps:

    @benjamin-hall said in You have the right to 10Mbps:

    when government goes outside its core functions of protecting the fundamental rights of humanity,

    Well, my governments' core function is looking after the interests of its citizens. "Fundamental rights of humanity" might be one aspect of it, but I'm fairly OK with going a bit further than that by, for example, ensuring access to basic services (running water, electricity, and now, apparently, a decent network connection, health care and whatnot). This specifically would align with my interests; if enough people were opposed to something like this, they could always force a popular vote (well, in one of the places, the other one unfortunately doesn't have this option, which is a pity).

    No, that's your core function. No government can look after the interests of all of the citizens--those interests conflict and are rivalrous and excludable. Governments should handle those public goods that cannot be reasonably handled by private citizens or groups. Defense, basic law and order (setting and enforcing a level playing field), protection of negative rights. That's about it. And the further the government is from the individual (in the US, federal vs state vs local), the worse it handles the interests of individuals. Just like it's hard to see a person from an airplane at cruising altitude, it's hard to see the individual from up there. You just get one-size fits none policies that, oddly enough, end up enriching cronies of the government (including government workers) instead of actually doing useful things. And manage to stifle any attempt to change things at the same time.

    Those "basic services" are a never ending treadmill--today one thing, tomorrow something else. Better to have the government get out of the way and let people who actually answer to you (at least for your money) handle those. Remember--power corrupts. And handing more power over to the government just corrupts it faster.


  • kills Dumbledore

    @pie_flavor said in You have the right to 10Mbps:

    Especially considering you can't sell cheaper plans to people who don't need anything stronger? How about people who don't want the expensive plans?

    You really should do some research before spouting this sort of shit. Nothing's stopping ISPs from offering slower speeds to people who want to pay less, but they have to offer fast speeds as well.

    In fact, it's not even that. In places that can't get 10Mbps, people will be able to demand the infrastructure is updated to support it. If there's no demand in village x then there's no obligation to upgrade village x



  • @rhywden said in You have the right to 10Mbps:

    @benjamin-hall said in You have the right to 10Mbps:

    @rhywden said in You have the right to 10Mbps:

    @benjamin-hall said in You have the right to 10Mbps:

    @rhywden said in You have the right to 10Mbps:

    @benjamin-hall said in You have the right to 10Mbps:

    @rhywden said in You have the right to 10Mbps:

    @anotherusername said in You have the right to 10Mbps:

    @rhywden FYI, @Benjamin-Hall is from the US, and I'm guessing that's how he got an idea which apparently seemed foreign to you.

    That's nice. We're talking about something the UNITED KINGDOM does. He can split hairs about the US all day long. It doesn't matter a iota.

    By the way, we Germans have the right to found our own private school.

    Does that now mean that somehow someone will be forced to finance this thing as soon as we got the idea?

    That's a negative right. The government is restricted from stopping you. That's a very different (foundationally different, in fact) thing than requiring someone else to provide you with a private school.

    And the UK conception of rights is where the US got theirs originally. It's only recently where they've diverged because people wanted to justify enslaving others to hand out privileges to favored people. Don't get me wrong--there are a lot of US people who talk the same way. And it's just as wrong.

    Oh, please cut this CRAP about slavery.

    What else do you call having to give a portion of your earnings to another private citizen at the barrel of a gun? This is different than taxes that go to core government functions (like public order and defense)--those benefit everyone and are true public goods. This is just redistribution. It's either slavery or it's theft. Which sounds better?

    Say, you really didn't get the whole "not for free" part? Again: UNITED KINGDOM.

    Not US.

    Doesn't matter whether it's free or just at a "reduced price." That only changes how much is being stolen, not the fact that theft is occurring. BTW--it has to be either free or at a reduced price (compared to the market-clearing status quo), otherwise it's would have already been provided.

    Jesus Christ, you guys are really begging the autocrats in the White House to nickel and dime you for everything.

    This is getting way too idiotic for me.

    I have some bad news for you about the White House's constitutional ability to make laws...


  • Dupa

    @benjamin-hall said in You have the right to 10Mbps:

    @anonymous234 when government goes outside its core functions of protecting the fundamental rights of humanity, it's usurping power that doesn't belong to it and enslaving humans to do so. More precisely, it's one group of people enslaving another. Whether they do it for ostensibly noble purposes out not it pretty irrelevant. In fact, cue the CS Lewis quote about the tyranny of the do-gooder.

    Haha! You silly USians with you silly ideas.

    There there, have a cookie. 🍪 This whole thingy happens far from your free country where people have the right to die on the street. It isn’t changing. All’s well.



  • @jaloopa But, once upgraded based on their demands, will they have to then pay the going rate for that faster service (including the costs of upgrading the lines, hardware, etc) or will the provider just have to eat that cost (or be limited sharply in how much more it charges)?

    As I see it, this is another case of the government "fixing" a problem that only exists because the government screwed up earlier. Without the government-sanctioned monopoly, supply and demand would work properly. They gave the incumbent major advantages and blocked others from entry, so now they are caught in a cycle of patches to fix the bugs caused by their last patches. All because they wanted their kickbacks. Ok, that last sentence is pure presumption, but my default is that pay-to-play is the standing order of most governments and companies are glad to go along if it means crushing their competitors.


  • Dupa

    @benjamin-hall said in You have the right to 10Mbps:

    @jaloopa But, once upgraded based on their demands, will they have to then pay the going rate for that faster service (including the costs of upgrading the lines, hardware, etc) or will the provider just have to eat that cost (or be limited sharply in how much more it charges)?

    As I see it, this is another case of the government "fixing" a problem that only exists because the government screwed up earlier. Without the government-sanctioned monopoly, supply and demand would work properly.

    VIA THE INVISIBLE HAND OF THE MARKET AND TRICKLE DOWN ECONOMY. AND LAFFER CURVE!

    😂 🤣



  • @kt_ said in You have the right to 10Mbps:

    @benjamin-hall said in You have the right to 10Mbps:

    @jaloopa But, once upgraded based on their demands, will they have to then pay the going rate for that faster service (including the costs of upgrading the lines, hardware, etc) or will the provider just have to eat that cost (or be limited sharply in how much more it charges)?

    As I see it, this is another case of the government "fixing" a problem that only exists because the government screwed up earlier. Without the government-sanctioned monopoly, supply and demand would work properly.

    VIA THE INVISIBLE HAND OF THE MARKET AND TRICKLE DOWN ECONOMY. AND LAFFER CURVE!

    😂 🤣

    Watch the category here, we're in Side Bar, not 🚎 .


  • Dupa

    @kt_ I love getting this downvote so fast. It’s so precious to me it proves my point so well. :smiling_face_with_open_mouth:


  • Dupa

    @benjamin-hall said in You have the right to 10Mbps:

    @kt_ said in You have the right to 10Mbps:

    @benjamin-hall said in You have the right to 10Mbps:

    @jaloopa But, once upgraded based on their demands, will they have to then pay the going rate for that faster service (including the costs of upgrading the lines, hardware, etc) or will the provider just have to eat that cost (or be limited sharply in how much more it charges)?

    As I see it, this is another case of the government "fixing" a problem that only exists because the government screwed up earlier. Without the government-sanctioned monopoly, supply and demand would work properly.

    VIA THE INVISIBLE HAND OF THE MARKET AND TRICKLE DOWN ECONOMY. AND LAFFER CURVE!

    😂 🤣

    Watch the category here, we're in Side Bar, not 🚎 .

    Exactly, we are. One can’t forget. ;)



  • Pro tip for both sides of this idiotic 'debate': if you find yourselves arguing over an allegedly meaningful term that, supposedly, everyone is expected to agree upon, you need to consider whether the word means anything or if it exists solely to act as a hot button which the dueling groups of Alpha Personalities can press in order to elicit a response.

    In this case, the word 'right' is one straight out of Humpty Dumpty's dictionary. Don't feel too bad about it, though; the same is true of anything regarding politics, government, and so forth, and really, it is those Alphas it is meant to distract, not you - if they don't stay distracted, they might realize that they have no actual role in a society larger than a troupe of chimpanzees.

    Because the third biggest lie in the world is the nonsensical and self-contradictory concept of 'limited government'. The second biggest being the nonsensical and self-contradictory concept of 'government'.

    Filed Under: We spend most of our lives lying to ourselves, but 'agency' is the biggest of those lies. To the extent that it does exist, it is inversely proportionate to 'power', meaning that the more you can do, the fewer choices you have.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @kt_ said in You have the right to 10Mbps:

    This whole thingy happens far from your free country where people have the right to die on the street.

    Oh, shit, do they, like, force you to go inside first or something? How does it work?



  • @scholrlea if we have no real agency, then we are fated to pretend we do, otherwise the whole thing comes crashing down. So either way, it's better to believe that we do have agency, regardless of the truth of the matter. And if we don't have agency, then the whole thing is meaningless anyway. We can't choose to realize that agency is a fiction, because we can't choose anything.

    Words like "rights" are claimed as shields. Who can be opposed to more rights? That means more freedom, right? And that's a good thing. But here we have the freedom to be milked to pay for things that we could provide for ourselves, if the others would just get out of the way. Not only that, but it comes with overhead--it's the cost I'd have to pay myself + a bunch.

    It's cover for creeping tyranny. And tyranny of the worst sort--the kind that comes cloaked in softness and "mercy" but only creates dependence. It inserts a third party (bureaucrats) into every possible decision so that we can't do without them--they're trying to become the glue that holds things together. That's why I fight it so hard. Oh, and the fact that I'm sick and the first part to shut down is my internal censor...🤷♂


  • Grade A Premium Asshole

    @rhywden said in You have the right to 10Mbps:

    @anotherusername said in You have the right to 10Mbps:

    @rhywden said in You have the right to 10Mbps:

    Seriously, how did you get from "a right to be provided with something" to "force someone to provide something for free"?

    In the US, "you have a right to ______" means that everyone has that right, and furthermore, the basic minimum to meet the right must be provided, regardless of someone's ability to pay for it.

    Hence why this follows: "You have to right to an attorney. If you cannot afford one, one will be provided for you".

    That's nice. Have you guys ever considered that you're not the center of the universe?

    No.


  • Dupa

    @boomzilla said in You have the right to 10Mbps:

    @kt_ said in You have the right to 10Mbps:

    This whole thingy happens far from your free country where people have the right to die on the street.

    Oh, shit, do they, like, force you to go inside first or something? How does it work?

    If you die in the street, your family has to pay a fine for littering.


  • kills Dumbledore

    @benjamin-hall said in You have the right to 10Mbps:

    the government-sanctioned monopoly, supply and demand would work properly.

    Like it does in America?

    I had a look at a broadband comparison site and it crashed when trying to scroll to the end of the options available at my postcode. Do you have 1 or 2 options where you are?


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @pie_flavor said in You have the right to 10Mbps:

    You are perfectly allowed to not create an ISP, but if you do create an ISP, it immediately has to be a good one or no dice.

    It's a minimum service level for those ISPs that are providing last-mile infrastructure. Not all of them do; some rent the use of the last-mile stuff from the infrastructure providers. There are some subsidies to support the infrastructure providers, but the regulator was getting really fucked off with the ISPs that were taking the money but not doing the build-out that it was supposed to pay for, hence this switch to a model involving more legal coercion.



  • @benjamin-hall said in You have the right to 10Mbps:

    Governments should handle those public goods that cannot be reasonably handled by private citizens or groups. Defense, basic law and order (setting and enforcing a level playing field), protection of negative rights, and basic infrastructure.

    Basic infrastructure includes stuff like roads, water, electricity, and these days, basic internet access. Education as well, probably. Health care maybe (privatizing has only been a semi-trainwreck, after all).

    There would be a few other things, too. E.g., ensuring consumer safety, and so on, which (as you say) are difficult to do individually or even as a separate group.

    And the further the government is from the individual (in the US, federal vs state vs local), the worse it handles the interests of individuals.

    I agree, actually. A factor is that the government is a lot closer to each individual around here: "my" countries have ~10M population, and a lot less per "state" and locally. It's not problem free, for sure, but overall the government seems to a decent job. Yes, there are people in the government that probably shouldn't be there (and it's surprising they manage to breathe without constant reminders), but then again, I'm not prepared to do their job either.

    Remember--power corrupts. And handing more power over to the government just corrupts it faster.

    Yes. Fortunately, there are checks in place. In Switzerland, in particular, being elected is not a mandate to do whatever for X years. If enough people disagree, they can and will stop very specific things. Sometimes people are also responsible for very stupid things, but at least it's supported by a majority of the (voting) population.


  • kills Dumbledore

    @benjamin-hall said in You have the right to 10Mbps:

    It's cover for creeping tyranny. And tyranny of the worst sort--the kind that comes cloaked in softness and "mercy" but only creates dependence

    Wow, you're reading a hell of a lot into "people should have access to faster Internet"


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @cvi said in You have the right to 10Mbps:

    it's surprising they manage to breathe without constant reminders

    I think it's dangerously wrong to think they're stupid. Often it's more that they're in it for themselves first and foremost. Breathing benefits them directly so they keep on doing it unbidden (sometimes an undesirable outcome, to be fair…)


  • BINNED

    I, for one, welcome our new socialist overlords!

    I'm completely fine with the decision, but I can't resist the troll.


  • BINNED

    @cvi said in You have the right to 10Mbps:

    In Switzerland

    Oh yeah the place where the popular vote denied citizen ship to a vegan.


  • Considered Harmful

    @jaloopa said in You have the right to 10Mbps:

    @benjamin-hall said in You have the right to 10Mbps:

    It's cover for creeping tyranny. And tyranny of the worst sort--the kind that comes cloaked in softness and "mercy" but only creates dependence

    Wow, you're reading a hell of a lot into "people should have access to faster Internet"

    No, he's reading into 'ISPs should be forced to provide faster Internet'.


  • BINNED

    @pie_flavor said in You have the right to 10Mbps:

    No, he's reading into 'ISPs should be forced to provide faster Internet'.

    Hey, mandating a minimum quality of service is bad, m'kay?

    And before anyone jumps in with "go to the competitor then!" : going by what @dkf is saying I assume there are areas where you can only get that ISP and nothing else (same thing in some areas here), and they want to insure that ISP provides a minimum level of quality, especially given that they are apparently getting some subsidies. And they probably don't want to create special case rules.

    Besides, that makes it so that, if the infrastructure provided by that ex-monopoly is being rented out to other ISPs, other ISPs can automatically provide the compliant service as well. This also helps them compete better because they can now offer better services which they couldn't unless the infrastructure they have no way of changing themselves sucks.

    And if they are building their own: who the fuck would build infrastructure that can't handle 10MBit/s in 20-fucking-17? It would be a waste of money and equipment if they did.


  • Java Dev

    Instating a law that says everyone is to have 10Mbps seems a bit excessive. In Sweden we just have guidelines that were recently updated with the goals for 2025.

    • 2020 - 95% of all houses and companies should have access to broadband of at least 100Mbit/s
    • 2023 - The entire country should have access to stable mobile internet of good quality.
    • 2025 - All of Sweden is to have access to fast broadband.

    Fast broadband in this case meaning:

    • 98% should have access to 1Gbit/s
    • 1.9% should have access to 100Mbit/s
    • 0.1% should have access to 30Mbit/s

    Note that it just says access to. So the ISP can offer any speed up to at least that. Once I get fiber it means I will already be in the year 2025 as the fastest option they offer is 1Gbit/s!



  • @luhmann said in You have the right to 10Mbps:

    Oh yeah the place where the popular vote denied citizen ship to a vegan.

    Yeah. That part isn't great -- there are a few places that are quite backward w.r.t. this. (For those unfamiliar, the requirements vary based on canton/municipality; some backward places decide by popular vote after having each candidate present themselves in person. This is not the case in the larger cities, though.).

    Edit: then again, the person was apparently a loudmouthed vegan, so I guess they had it coming. It's one of the things that you maybe don't have to specifically mention. 🚎



  • @benjamin-hall said in You have the right to 10Mbps:

    This is worse than standard taxation for redistribution, because it caters to monopolies (the only ones who can absorb the profit hit) and punishes innovation and deters market entry. Thus making everyone poorer off.

    Maybe, just maybe, it encourages innovation... You know, finding interesting solutions to the problem of "we have a legal obligation to provide unprofitable service to these people" by finding ways to reduce the cost.



  • @luhmann said in You have the right to 10Mbps:

    the place where the popular vote denied citizen ship to a vegan.

    Oh, did we do that? Must have missed it... But I'd guess it didn't have that much to do with being vegan, we just deny citizenship to anyone. Heck, we just recently refused to slightly facilitate naturalization to third-generation resident foreigners.



  • @benjamin-hall said in You have the right to 10Mbps:

    Without the government-sanctioned monopoly, supply and demand would work properly.

    I fail to understand how anyone could sincerely believe that free market could apply to infrastructure. I mean, how could there be any meaningful competition?


  • Considered Harmful

    @steve_the_cynic said in You have the right to 10Mbps:

    @benjamin-hall said in You have the right to 10Mbps:

    This is worse than standard taxation for redistribution, because it caters to monopolies (the only ones who can absorb the profit hit) and punishes innovation and deters market entry. Thus making everyone poorer off.

    Maybe, just maybe, it encourages innovation... You know, finding interesting solutions to the problem of "we have a legal obligation to provide unprofitable service to these people" by finding ways to reduce the cost.

    That is so blatantly moronic, I think I threw up a little. They'll be creative, sure. They'll innovate, sure. The style of innovation? Something along the lines of 'how can we screw over enough people to cut costs enough'.



  • @pie_flavor said in You have the right to 10Mbps:

    Something along the lines of 'how can we screw over enough people to cut costs enough'.

    As opposed to the usual "how can we screw over more people to increase our profit margin by $BUCKET_LOADS"


  • Considered Harmful

    @ixvedeusi Yes. Usually it's done lazily. But here, as @Steve_The_Cynic pointed out, they will be greatly encouraged to be innovative in that regard, since otherwise they're losing money.



  • @jaloopa
    In most urban settings, Americans have 5-7 options; in most rural settings, they'll typically have 2-3 low latency options plus satellite.

    Though that supposes a definition somewhere in the range of 3-5Mbps down (1 HD TV stream), not 25Mbps down (4K streaming). And some of those options will have data caps / pay by the GB or be throttled to 128Kbps. But they're still broadband internet.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @pie_flavor said in You have the right to 10Mbps:

    That is so blatantly moronic, I think I threw up a little.

    I guess this coming year is going to be when you're on a diet then. :face_with_stuck-out_tongue_winking_eye:

    They'll be creative, sure. They'll innovate, sure. The style of innovation? Something along the lines of 'how can we screw over enough people to cut costs enough'.

    That was the status quo and that is what is being changed so that if a user is somewhere where they cannot currently get 10Mbps from any provider, whatever (reasonably priced) package they choose, then they have a right to get a court order compelling a relevant broadband infrastructure provider to get their excrement together and fix things. The exact technology to use to achieve this target is not specified at this level of regulation, nor should it be (after all, it might be the case that in some places the most cost effective technique will be using an adaptation of mobile broadband).

    Another part will be that if someone buys a 10Mbps package, that's what they should get, not something a lot worse because of some skanky lump of ill-shielded copper that should have been replaced decades ago. Higher-speed contracts will be less stringently protected, but 10Mbps is enough for one person to watch (non-4k) Netflix while another person browses.


  • Java Dev

    @thegoryone said in You have the right to 10Mbps:

    A colleague of mine 6 miles away can't get more than 1.5mbps because the signal degrades so quickly once it hits about 5km of copper onwards that it's hardly worth their time.

    And that's a good thing about the swedish fiber infrastructure. The vast majority, even in rural areas, does involve fiber all the way into your house. Not to wherever the nearest phone cabinet is, as DSL is absolute shite as soon as you live more than a couple km away. Unless repeaters gets installed, but I guess BT are too cheap for that?

    At 2km you get ~67% of maximum speed. At 3km you get ~33% of maximum speed. So, yeah, starts dropping sharply there.


  • Java Dev

    @atazhaia Fiber is nice. My 3ms ping to the local exchange involves approximately 5 meters of copper.

    At 50 megabits. I keep being told I should get gigabit.


  • :belt_onion:

    @izzion said in You have the right to 10Mbps:

    @jaloopa
    In most urban settings, Americans have 5-7 options; in most rural settings, they'll typically have 2-3 low latency options plus satellite.

    I wonder how many renters are in situations like my own, though, where they theoretically have 5-7 options but the landlord has negotiated a contract with a certain ISP and included that ISP's package in the rent. So if I used any other option, I'd be paying for two connections to the Internet from different providers.

    Personally (every time my connection drops because the ISP IS FUCKING SHITTY), I feel this should be illegal, but philosophically that doesn't seem right, because then Internet would be treated differently than electricity, waste disposal, or water, the providers of which the landlord can also dictate. (Thus we come full circle on this thread.) Maybe it's because you can control the cost of your electricity and water but not the cost of your Internet.


  • Java Dev

    @pleegwat Once I've paid off the install fee I may upgrade to gigabit. Depends on how I feel about my speed and my use cases at that point. Only I also got this thing about keeping my home network faster than my internet connection, so that would mean upgrading that to 10Gbit. At least 10Gbit is starting to show up on high-end motherboards and computers now, just need affordable home switches to start showing up too.


  • Java Dev

    @heterodox What would you do if your electricity, waste disposal, or water is not satisfactory?


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @onyx said in You have the right to 10Mbps:

    Hey, mandating a minimum quality of service is bad, m'kay?

    My point was that you should be honest about it and not use Orwellian euphemisms to describe it.


  • :belt_onion:

    @pleegwat said in You have the right to 10Mbps:

    @heterodox What would you do if your electricity, waste disposal, or water is not satisfactory?

    That's an interesting question. I suppose I would have to move, though I'd certainly re-read the lease to see if there are any alternative resolutions available to me first.



  • @dragnslcr said in You have the right to 10Mbps:

    Yeah, how dare the UK have slightly different definitions of words than the US.

    You mean "from a particularly tedious subset of the US", the kind who are forever on the edge of declaring themselves Sovereign Citizens to further assert their unadulterated boot-strappiness.


  • Java Dev

    @heterodox If those three are basic rights, you may have legal recourse.

    I hear it's popular practice in certain parts of NL to sign a rental contract to the tune of €2000 per month, then immediately turn around and get a court order because it's illegal to charge more than €400, and there's nothing the landlord can do about it but lower the rent. Numbers made up on the spot.



  • @pie_flavor said in You have the right to 10Mbps:

    @ixvedeusi Yes. Usually it's done lazily. But here, as @Steve_The_Cynic pointed out, they will be greatly encouraged to be innovative in that regard, since otherwise they're losing money.

    So I said something that was simultaneously correct AND moronic? :wtf:


  • kills Dumbledore

    @heterodox said in You have the right to 10Mbps:

    then Internet would be treated differently than electricity, waste disposal, or water, the providers of which the landlord can also dictate

    In the UK, landlords don't typically dictate any of that. Waste disposal is handled by the local council and paid via council tax, water is local monopolies so no choice anyway, and you're always free to choose gas, electric and phone/Internet providers



  • @pleegwat said in You have the right to 10Mbps:

    @atazhaia Fiber is nice. My 3ms ping to the local exchange involves approximately 5 meters of copper.

    At 50 megabits. I keep being told I should get gigabit.

    Yeah. I have fibre ("at least" 200 Mbps down, 100 Mbps up) into the box over there on the other table, then some copper into a UTM(1), then more copper into a cheap-as-chips 5 port gigabit switch(2), then more copper into my computer.

    (1) Loaner from $JOB because the company's business is making and selling these things, so lending them to employees is a good thing. It was amusing when I submitted a bug report that one of the protocol inspection modules (for a protocol used extensively in factory networks but not really anywhere else) decided that my connections to the Final Fantasy XIV game-play servers belonged to it, and then decided that they didn't follow the protocol and cut the connections.

    (2) I would plug directly into the UTM, but it doesn't like something about Windows 10 talking to Windows 10, so I need my two computers to be able to talk without bothering it.



  • @boomzilla said in You have the right to 10Mbps:

    That's not how rights work.

    Why not? There's no natural limit to what "rights" can or can't be. It's whatever we agree on when organizing a society.



  • @pleegwat said in You have the right to 10Mbps:

    @heterodox If those three are basic rights, you may have legal recourse.

    I hear it's popular practice in certain parts of NL to sign a rental contract to the tune of €2000 per month, then immediately turn around and get a court order because it's illegal to charge more than €400, and there's nothing the landlord can do about it but lower the rent. Numbers made up on the spot.

    So a landlord does something that's known to be illegal, and then the renter goes to a court to get the law enforced? Are we supposed to sympathize with the landlord for some reason?


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @cartman82 said in You have the right to 10Mbps:

    @boomzilla said in You have the right to 10Mbps:

    That's not how rights work.

    Why not? There's no natural limit to what "rights" can or can't be. It's whatever we agree on when organizing a society.

    As I've pointed out, it's redefining the word in a nefarious way. I could care less about this. And I probably should, but I don't.


  • Grade A Premium Asshole

    @jaloopa said in You have the right to 10Mbps:

    @benjamin-hall said in You have the right to 10Mbps:

    the government-sanctioned monopoly, supply and demand would work properly.

    Like it does in America?

    I had a look at a broadband comparison site and it crashed when trying to scroll to the end of the options available at my postcode. Do you have 1 or 2 options where you are?

    Are they all on separate infrastructures?


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