For once, hooray for EU

Kaotik

Kaotik

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Great news, perhaps it might even lower some prices here. In any case this will make many more items appealing to import compared to the current situation.
 
Yes.

I take offense that the 'for once' though. ;) EU does a lot of cool stuff (of course, that's not to say it couldn't be better. ). Forcing phone companies to lower international call prices for instance, which is very good especially for people who live close to a border or travel abroad a lot. I also don't mind at all that they take Microsoft to task and force them to open up their OS to others more, and stuff like that. Also, the Euro is great, even if a lot of nostalgic people aren't clever enough to realise this. ;)
 
EU also does lots of utter shite, so all in all it's no real difference. And let alone the huge amount of money Brussels swallows daily.
 
Arwin said:
Forcing phone companies to lower international call prices for instance, which is very good especially for people who live close to a border or travel abroad a lot.
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I would put that under the things that EU does that's not so good. Short-term I'm sure all consumers are happy for lower prices. In the long-term I'm not so sure people will be too happy if telecom companies cuts back on investments due to random political interference in their business. Who's going to make investments of billions of euros if politicians at any point might throw their business model upside down. This is something better left to the market to take care of.
 
Sure. The market always takes such great care of things ...

Are you even serious? Do you know what the actual costs were for phone companies versus what they charged you?

Governments exist for a large part because market forces don't work. 'The Market' is a feudal type system. Once you have power, it's easy to keep it.
 
Arwin said:
Do you know what the actual costs were for phone companies versus what they charged you?
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Of course you can't compare the running cost of the system to what they charge. That would be like comparing the price of printing a CD to the price you pay for a game. ZOMG!!! The complete box costs like a dollar to produce, and they charge $50 for it! Clearly the government must step in and force game developers to not charge more than say $5. Right?

The extents to which markets don't work is generally proportional to the amount of government interference. If you're going to invest billions of dollars into building a nation-wide telecom network, you of course count on being able to charge for telecom services for many years to come so that in the long run it'll pay off and give you a profit. If government steps in mid-life of the system and regulates prices your whole investment calculation is thrown out of the window. So when 4G networks are due, will you again invest billions of dollars, or just stay out of this risky business and shift towards areas where politicians so far havent messed up?
 
Humus said:
Of course you can't compare the running cost of the system to what they charge. That would be like comparing the price of printing a CD to the price you pay for a game. ZOMG!!! The complete box costs like a dollar to produce, and they charge $50 for it! Clearly the government must step in and force game developers to not charge more than say $5. Right?

The extents to which markets don't work is generally proportional to the amount of government interference. If you're going to invest billions of dollars into building a nation-wide telecom network, you of course count on being able to charge for telecom services for many years to come so that in the long run it'll pay off and give you a profit. If government steps in mid-life of the system and regulates prices your whole investment calculation is thrown out of the window. So when 4G networks are due, will you again invest billions of dollars, or just stay out of this risky business and shift towards areas where politicians so far havent messed up?
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Well its a fact you get screwed with mobile phone prices. Especially when calling abroad. I use vodafone in the netherlands, I was in spain for 2 weeks, on the vodafone network and now suddenly I have to pay 79 cent for every minut. This obvious is ripping people off as it doesnt matter shit for vodafona as im still on their network. Or what about mobile internet prices, its insane what you can end up paying. Sometimes as much as 30 euro's for just 1mb when you are abroad. That doesnt has anything to do with getting back your investment anymore. I dont even pay 30 euro's a month for near unlimited calling and unlimited 20mbit internet connection at home.

I pay 15cents a minute with my mobile, 25 if im out of my bundle. I believe i pay something like 2 cents a minute from my home phone. You cant tell that its really neccesary to charge 10 to 20 times more for mobile calling to get their money back and invest in new tech. Mobile phones have become standard like 10 years ago. Im sure they got their money for the GSM network (not 3g and hsda) back a long time ago.
 
Arwin said:
Once you have power, it's easy to keep it.
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In the United States, there are these two companies called "General Motors" and "IBM." Let me tell you all about them and how easy it was for them to keep their power when Toyota and Microsoft came around...

Seriously, price controls are rarely without attendant disastrous consequences. Absent conspiratorial price-fixing or monopolization of a necessity, there is usually a good reason for prices to be where they are. That's what it takes to really be in control, that or government collaboration. Heard of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act? That's a law to prevent consumers from using their goods in the way they want, because it interferes with the MPAA's and RIAA's DRM plans.

tongue_of_colicab said:
Or what about mobile internet prices, its insane what you can end up paying.
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Right. One possible reason is because there's limited bandwidth available for cell phones and limited bandwidth allocated for Internet use at this time. If it were as cheap as you thought it ought to be, very likely too many people would be using the network at once, meaning no one could use it. Everyone wanting a service you can't provide results in company contraction. It happened to Wendy's in the 80's. Hence, the good is rationed via the means of price. That's how every market works. If the good is too expensive, a competitor will undercut them at some point, or people will stop using the service, as it is a luxury rather than a necessity.

The other possible reason is that they need to recoup their initial costs of putting up the network capabilities. An investment of billions of dollars needs to be paid off in a timely manner, or your creditors get upset. And if your creditors get upset, it makes future investments much more difficult.
 
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