Ok, let me explain something to the free market fundamentalists, who no more understand what a free market is than most Christians understand what being Christ-like means. (Hint: if you are pro war and think getting wealthy is a worthwhile goal, Christ would have had nothing to do with you. Good luck getting that camel through the eye of that needle.)
Unregulated markets in most goods or services tend towards either oligopolies or monopolies. They do not tend towards markets competing on price and quality amongst a large number of providers. Over time, in most markets, the natural competitive instinct is to acquire - to integrate until you're in control.
Why? Because the best way to make a profit is to provide something people need and must have and can't get from anyone else. If you are the only person who has food, you can charge anything. If you are the only company providing gasoline, you can charge almost anything. And so on. Or, rather, in the modern world, if you are one of a few it's pretty easy to come to an understanding on price, even if that understanding is based on a wink and a nod.
If you are the only company providing broadband connections (or one of only a few) to a large chunk of the US (or if it's just you and the local cable company) you can jack the price up to as high as the market can bear. And since no one is really competing with you, there's no need to really improve service.
This is what the Department of Justice has just decided to do by approving the merger of Bellsouth and AT&T - a merger which control almost half of all landlines in the United States. The CEO of AT&T, as Matt Stoller points out, is on the record against Net Neutrality - as would you be if you were in his position - charging more for access by customers, and more for access to those customers by companies on the net sure sounds great.
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