I think most people are in favor of government when it comes to utilities, phones and landlines being a classic example (although in the age of wireless, one could argue government regulation actually makes things worse).
But social media is not a utility, in the traditional sense.
What is the intrinsic sense in which telephony is a utility but social media isn't? The wires? Phone companies all share the wires now (thanks again to government regulation), and with VoIP it's becoming less relevant by the day.. but phone number porting still works fine. The physical infrastructure natural monopoly stuff isn't a necessary component of what makes government regulation of phone systems work out well.
The government regulation of the phone system works well because the government regulations are well designed, not because there's a limit to how many wires you can hang from a pole.
It doesn’t work well. Telephones haven’t changed for decades and are now practically a dead technology. The wires are used for data, and phone service is grandfathered in. You can reasonably say this is the result of a lack of innovation caused by government regulation.
Now you're just being absurd. Do you think we had iphones decades ago? A few decades ago rotary dial phones were still common, cellphones were virtually unheard of, VoIP was a dream, nobody expected a resurgence of the telegraph (e.g. SMS), and switching was still done with in-band signaling.
Virtually everything about telephones has changed over the past few decades. It's easier to list the things which haven't changed: we still use phone numbers (kind of... because actually almost everybody uses the contacts app built into their phones.) We still pay phone companies for the service, except now there's tons of phone companies and you aren't stuck with one.
Nonsensical distinction. The common person sends and receives SMS using their telephone, using the same phone numbers used to call people, with the same disregard for whether they and the recipient use the same phone company because, like telephone calls, SMS works across companies. When you port your phone number to a new phone company, you continue to receive SMS sent to your number just as you do phone calls.
Different phones have different capabilities, what's there to explain? SMS is something people pay their phone company for, use their phone number for, follows them when they port their phone number to a new phone company, and works when they send it to somebody using a different phone company. It's obviously part of the telephone system.
(And in actual fact, there are phone companies that do offer SMS service to landline phones.)
> Different phones have different capabilities, what's there to explain?
That your definition of ‘phone’ is meaningless. If phones can have any capability you like, then ‘phone’ doesn’t mean anything.
Once you are playing that game you may as well just declare that social networks can be regulated because they are a ‘capability some things that can also communicate with phones have’, and phones are already regulated.
> Now you're just being absurd. Do you think we had iphones decades ago?
An iphone is an implementation detail, it's not the phone system.
The great thing about phones is the longevity. My parents have had the same phone number since the late 60s. Anyone who's known them for the past ~50 years can still reach out via the same number. That's awesome.
No proprietay social network will ever match that because they come and go on the back of the controlling company revenue performance.
The only way to stay in touch for the long haul is open standards, in the case of internet that means: email
I've had the same email since the mid 90s and will have it for the rest of my life. If you've ever known me, you can still reach me on the same email now and into the future.
Imagine having a phone number nobody can call because it's blocked from sending or receiving by your telephone company...
The vast majority of email is hosted by one of the large providers these days and if people can't reply to you the utility of your address is lessened.
> Imagine having a phone number nobody can call because it's blocked from sending or receiving by your telephone company...
Fortunately that's not at all what having a personal email is like.
First of all, you can always receive email no matter what. Nobody is blocking that.
Sending it to some larger providers requires configuring everything correctly, but it's not rocket science. Lots of people (including me) do it with minimal effort.
Finally, having your own email (domain) doesn't require self-hosting it if you don't want. You can always delegate that part to some provider. But you control the domain so you can switch providers (or switch to self-hosting) any moment. You can also do a hybrid option where you self-host receiving but farm out the sending, if you prefer. So many options, all of them work!
They are increasingly being used as a tool to censor legal but unpopular websites. You can build your own website but if your domain name get canceled and tier 1 ISPs block you, you can’t do a lot.
KiwiFarms is the latest example. No one is claiming it was a wholesome site, but it was entirely legal in the US and yet the owner is having difficulties getting it hosted because even though they have VPS providers willing to host the site, tier 1 ISPs have blackholed the sites IP. There is no alternative to a tier 1 ISP. You can't run your own, the are the lowest level of internet infrastructure and if they are being weaponized for censorship than it's all over for a neutral internet.
There are 16 tier 1 ISPs which basically hold the entire internet in their control. Arguably these companies should be required to route any legal traffic.
But social media is not a utility, in the traditional sense.