Be It Resolved That The Goverment Should Nationalize the Internet.

I thank my wonderful opponent for such a well thought out response, and for making it abundantly clear her Luddite connections. Side opposition's point is that of cost. She has said that it does not make sense to buy out these industries because the poor tax payer will have to foot the bill. This disingenuous argument forgets a massive factor; the government can do it cheaper. Yes, it will cost the tax payer money to nationalize these industries -in the short term.- Evidently my opponent's shortsightedness here limits her, as it is quite evident that by entering the industry, the government would need no profit. Do you have any idea what sort of profit margins these companies make? Let's crunch the numbers. The price for an average, middle of the road DSL connection from AT&T is $25. AT&T and Comcast both garner 59% profit margins (!!!) Let's do this simplistically and say that the other 41% represents the upkeep for maintain their DSL service (this is not the case, and it would actually be considerably lower, considering the government does not need lobbyists, advertising, etc.), then the implications are that the government would only aim for 4% profit margins. That means that people will be paying just over $11/month for DSL (it would realistically be a lot lower, for many reasons.) By combing AT&T and Comcast, their operating costs can be significantly reduced which would allow for more profit and a lower cost The companies have a combined profit of $23.743 billion before taxes. Assuming the profit margin is reduced to 4%, that means the companies will have a new profit of $3.5 billion. That's not given a lot of thing that would actually push profit up, so that is very conservative number. The companies, together, are worth $225.9 billion. Now, given that the government is only nationalizing the ISP portion of these businesses, I am going to hazard a guess and say that the real cost would be something like 40% of that ($90b) and we must do the same to the profits ($1.4b) And given the reasons I already established and coupled with other factors, the real cost would likely be lower and the profits higher. So let's recap; the government does a deal that will turn into profit in less than 60 years and costs less than 14% of, say, the overall defense budget. What's more, it reduces the cost of an essential need for all families by $168 a year and of every level of government, who rely on the internet. That's not bad. My opponent's second points hinges on the idea that people don't -need.- Internet, and that children are fine by being limited. Her argument equates to, "Those poor people are fine without food stamps, there's soup kitchens." The fact is that government should not assume that someone else is providing a need for its people, it should take initiative. Beyond that, my opponent boils down my argument to simply giving everyone internet, which is totally untrue. My argument hinges on the fact that the government can give everyone AND provide it better and cheaper. The internet allows children and adults alike work and learn more productively and make their lives easier. It allows businesses and governments to work more efficiently and it cuts down on operating costs. Hell, it also reduces the amount of physical activities we have to do (ie writing letters, driving to the library, printing books and newspapers, etc.) and helps reduce our carbon emissions. My opponent's third point is ignorant to reality. These companies have, together been advocating the destruction of network neutrality for years. They are now coming dangerously close to succeeding, and they have every intention of doing it. Because all the large competitors wish to do it, there is no chance for a small provider to come along because starting up as an ISP is wildly expensive and those ISPs who have a subscription model will be making enough money to destroy or buy-out any provider that comes along to try and provide the more user-friendly system. And yes, people currently pay a monthly fee, but these plans involve -keeping- that fee and than adding more ways to gouge money from users. Loading up Debate.org may be 30 cents. Every refresh will be another 30 cents. This works much in the same way data plans work for a BlackBerry. Good luck watching videos. "I've already detailed how competition in this country works, and why the government paying for Pro's suggested idea is wrong. Further, these companies should already have said incentive thanks to competition." While I won't be able to deconstruct my opponent's entire argument at this point; it is this falsehood that must be addressed. There is a natural oligarchy of ISPs in America that completely destroys the idea of 'competition' and free market economics. The barriers to entry are just to high to have real competition. Sources will be in the comments.