Reddit reviews Captive Audience: The Telecom Industry and Monopoly Power in the New Gilded Age

I looked up Crawford's book on amazon, and it has quite a few 1-star reviews. I might be overly suspicious, but I think at least some of them were written by lobbyists or are otherwise fake.

if you have a couple dollars to spend Adam Ruins everything did a great video on how the telcom mergers that have already happened have been a step to far. (unfortunately the one part of that video that isn't free to watch is the part that covers it.)

https://youtu.be/ApMrczWqtmo?list=ELweFMwP-075DqQ79y2kQpEw the good part starts around the 6 min mark.

the sources he lists in the video are free to read though. Here are the relevant sources.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/31/upshot/why-the-us-has-fallen-behind-in-internet-speed-and-affordability.html

http://www.newamerica.org/oti/policy-papers/the-cost-of-connectivity-2014/

http://gizmodo.com/5830956/why-the-government-wont-protect-you-from-getting-screwed-by-your-cable-company

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jun/04/price-gouging-cable-companies

http://scrawford.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/The-communications-crisis-in-America-final.pdf

http://www.theverge.com/2015/4/1/8321437/maps-show-why-internet-is-more-expensive-us-europe-competition

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/02/isp-lobby-has-already-won-limits-on-public-broadband-in-20-states/

https://www.amazon.com/Captive-Audience-Telecom-Industry-Monopoly/dp/0300153139

But the long and short of it is that that unless we bring the hammer down on these telcom companies hard, IMO, they will just keep trying to do what they do. I can't fault them for that... it makes them money... its the equivalent of taking a dump on free market principles but it makes them money. But as the punishment is not as severe as the profits gained from the crime, companies will continue to operate in the manner that makes them the most money. Breaking them up seems to be the best way to make them loose the amount of money where they wont try to do this again.

Fuck all of these Republican corporate lackeys, obediently serving their greedy masters.

This is only one of (at least) dozens of issues on which they disgust me. To be fair, some Democrats are not worthy of my vote... but it's damn near guaranteed that I'll never vote for a Republican.

Also, as its author is cited in the article, read this book.

Here's a whole book for you to read:
Captive Audience: The Telecom Industry and Monopoly Power

I'll just leave this here.

http://www.amazon.com/Captive-Audience-Telecom-Industry-Monopoly/dp/0300153139/

If you need to feel better, look how far some companies will go to leave suspicious 1-star reviews: Susan Crawford's book about telecom monopolies.