User Unknown (WAS: really amazon?)

Tue Aug 13 22:10:05 UTC 2019

On Fri, Aug 9, 2019 at 4:31 PM Stephen Satchell <list at satchell.net> wrote:

> On 8/9/19 4:03 PM, Matthew Petach wrote:
> > ...apparently Amazon has become a public utility
> > now?
> >
> > I look forward with bemusement to the PUC
> > tariff filings for AWS pricing.  ^_^;;
>
> [...]

>
> And it wouldn't be the PUC, as Amazon is a company national in scope.
> It would be something like the FCC.  Public Utility Commissions are at
> the local (usually county) or state level.
>

That was somewhat the point.
Public utilities make some amount
of sense when there's a local natural monopoly.

With a global company, there's no such thing
as a local natural monopoly in play; how would
you assign oversight to a global entity?  Which
"public" would be the ones being protected?
The city of Seattle, WA, where Amazon is
headquartered?  The State of Washington?
The United States, at a federal level?   What
about the "public" that uses Amazon in all
the other countries of the world?

There's no way to make a global entity a
regulated public utility; we don't have an
organization that has that level of oversight
across country boundaries, unless you start
thinking about entities that can enforce *treaties*
between countries.

And I'm not sure I'd want our Ambassadors
being the ones at the table deciding how best
to regulate Amazon.   :/
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