The internet is not an essential, it is a luxury.
I disagree to an extent.
The phone was once considered a "luxury". Now you would be hard pressed to conduct your life without it. Cell phones were once considered a luxury, but again, you would be hard pressed to go about your business without one.
It has been recognized that if you want to find a job in this day in age, and it is anything more difficult than digging a ditch, you need the internet to find it. All Federal, State, and Private job postings that you used to travel down to Job Service to find, are now in posted on the internet.
News? Internet. Current Weather? Internet.
The darn thing is an up to the date World Book + set right at your fingertips.
It is so important that it would be hard to find a school all the way down to the elementary school level that does not have their kids using the Internet to research school subjects as a replacement for buying more and more up to date texts ( a large expense at any school ).
Sites like this one are useful to repair your Jeep, so it could be said that
is partially a MOTORs manual, and a reference.
It depends on content, but you could translate that to your road analogy.
Roads are used for business, learning, and pleasure, but they are are a monopoly of the 'State'. Same with phones up to the breakup of Ma Bell (and one could argue effectively that that never happened because AT&T owns the backbone. and has bought back a number of it's break off company(s)).
XJEEPER, I don't think one can continue to sensationalize the subject by saying that subsidizing the Internet would just benefit "those who collect welfare, Medicaid, food stamps, abuse drugs/alcohol and do so for generations". There are honest hard working people in my State who can't even afford a phone bill, and we have to assist with their heat in the Winter. My Mom relies partially on Medicare, She is 76 and still works for an income. I don't look at those fees as benefiting a bunch of freeloaders, but rather those who but for the grace of God go I.
One can look at these things as Socialism, and decry anything that smacks of State regulation, or one can look at that as a benefit to society as a whole and part of the price we need to pay so that all of us can move forward.
There are two basic sides to this, and they are polar opposites. One says 'Why not, it's good for society'. They other says 'No! It's SOCIALISM!!!! we can't go down that road'. The problem with the later argument is that you already live in a highly regulated society. What would happen to the price of food if the Fed decided tomorrow not to subsidize food production? How about the price of fuel if the Fed did not keep a national reserve? What about money... do you think the economy would be better or worse if there was no oversight of Banks and the Stock Exchange?
About 15 years back, a petition was circulated to get rid of our septic systems and to get the City to pay to install a sewer line with the main line in our area. My personal cost was going to be around $4K. I signed that petition even though my septic was fine. Why? Because other folks in my neighborhood had failed septics and were pumping weekly. Now I could have said 'let capitalism take care of it; they will simply have to install a better septic system on their dime, I'm OK'. But no, I believed (and still believe) that it was better for the entire neighborhood if everyone had the same service.
Ron
