Electrification 2.0: Rural broadband co-ops are filling the void left by indifferent monopolists

Writing in Wired, frequent Boing Boing contributor Clive Thompson praises the rise of rural broadband co-operatives that are springing up to provide internet access to their far-flung, widespread communities, comparing them to the rural electrification co-ops that sprang up to provide power to farmers neglected by the monopolistic Edison trusts.

Thompson is both onto something and somewhat off the mark here. The comparison between electrification and broadband is a very apt one: without electricity, farmers were being left behind by their century's march to progress; the same is true of internet access. And as with the Edison trusts' neglect of rural customers, the broadband monopolies have left communities in the lurch, failing their children, prompting the rise of these co-ops to fill the void.

But here's where Thompson misses the mark. In his article, he asks, "What if, instead of kvetching and waiting for tech monopolies to reform, we set up more user-run co-ops to operate upstart services we actually want? Imagine co-op social networks that wouldnt need to algorithmically lure users into endless feed-scrolling engagement to keep the ad dollars sluicing."

The problem is that the incumbent Big Cable monopolists have created insurmountable regulatory hurdles to keep new entrants out of their markets; and Big Tech has erected unassailable walls around its businesses to stop us from "disrupting" the new digital empires (disruption for thee, but not for me, is Big Tech's rallying cry).

Forming co-ops is an exciting idea, but remember that (for example) Facebook was only able to grow by making tools that scraped Myspace, to let new Facebook users talk to their friends still on Myspace, so they didn't have to choose between one and the other -- and then, Facebook sued and destroyed a competitor that tried to do the same thing for people ready to move on from Facebook. Read the rest