Comment by supernova87a
3 years ago
> Easy. Refuse service. You aren't legally obligated to offer your service to assholes. Any business has the right to do or not do business with whoever they want, provided they’re not refusing service for a reason that violates local, state, or federal law.
Then isn't this a point against the scalability / feasibility of this idea working broadly for others or becoming a model for replacing dumb telcos?
If part of the reason telcos are the way they are is because they have to serve everyone, and at some point if you run a service like this you will run into that requirement, then you will too become like a telco because of those obligations. And this is just one example of a factor that starts to matter.
I try to help out in my HOA of 25 people to manage the utilities, infrastructure, landscaping, and even with this small a group people are uncooperative and 1-2 people are constantly questioning and threatening to sue if we don't do what they say. Hundreds/thousands of people is even more a nightmare.
> threatening to sue if we don't do what they say.
I do love the occasional power trip. I'd look them straight in the face: "here's our lawyers number, have your lawyer give my lawyer a call. Since you seem to be so adamant about suing, you should have no further contact with me. I'll see you to the door." and if they don't go? Arrest them for trespassing.
Sounds like a great power trip.
I'm in a condo here, with an HOA / board, and it was a pain in the ass to get fiber brought in from the local telco. They wasted months sending out letters, waiting for people to give input, votes, etc. until they finally agreed it was a good idea. The telco pays for the whole install: trenching, digging, running fiber between the buildings, etc. That doesn't matter, because you still have people complaining about the utilities messing up their lawn.
It's been over a year now and the project still isn't done. The fiber is right on the street, not even 30 feet from my unit. I'd have paid a couple grand to get my own conduit brought in, if that was an option.
> Then isn't this a point against the scalability
The technical solution would be a QOS that deprioritizes/throttles these people first, with clear wording in the contract. The reality is that these people are a negligible fraction of the users.