First, I don't believe fusion would ever be "free." It would certainly be cheap, but the cheaper it got the more difficult and costly getting rid of the heat in society would be.
Corrupt business models will not be fixed by making one subsection of an industry cheaper.
The cost of a toll grade voice ckt from LA to NYC has dropped to approximately zero.
Long distance is not free, because the cost of itemized billing is not free. The cost of advertising is not free. The cost of customer billing support is not free. The cost of handling bill payment (and non-payment) is not free.
Long distance is a billing system that happens to provide telephone service as a side effect.
Fusion generators would be the same. Its not as if you'll ever get rid of individualized detailed billing, like how I pay a fixed fee for yearly garbage pickup as part of my taxes. Imagine if every plastic trash bag had a serial numbered sticker and an army of bean counters to keep track... trash pickup would cost a multiple of what "free unlimited" garbage pickup costs.
Long distance is not free, because the cost of itemized billing is not free. The cost of advertising is not free. The cost of customer billing support is not free. The cost of handling bill payment (and non-payment) is not free.
The cost of producing electricity may, someday, become zero (or close enough) What will never be zero is the cost of infrastructure.
So even if you throw away all the white collar mangement costs, you still have to send out guys in trucks to keep the infrastructure functional.
It doesn't matter if we're talking about power, phones/internet, water, or gas; that cost is not trivial and not especially influenced by advances in technology.
Long distance is not free because there are per-minute federal taxes on inter-state calls. Long distance is just about free over the internet because packets dodge the per-minute fee that voice gets. In this case, it's the government, not corrupt corporations, turning something of almost-no-cost into something that costs per minute. And thus, the US is moving to VoIP as fundamentally a tax dodge.
"You must have an IQ of at least half a million." -- Popeye
Corrupt business models (Score:4, Interesting)
First, I don't believe fusion would ever be "free." It would certainly be cheap, but the cheaper it got the more difficult and costly getting rid of the heat in society would be.
Corrupt business models will not be fixed by making one subsection of an industry cheaper.
The cost of a toll grade voice ckt from LA to NYC has dropped to approximately zero.
Long distance is not free, because the cost of itemized billing is not free. The cost of advertising is not free. The cost of customer billing support is not free. The cost of handling bill payment (and non-payment) is not free.
Long distance is a billing system that happens to provide telephone service as a side effect.
Fusion generators would be the same. Its not as if you'll ever get rid of individualized detailed billing, like how I pay a fixed fee for yearly garbage pickup as part of my taxes. Imagine if every plastic trash bag had a serial numbered sticker and an army of bean counters to keep track... trash pickup would cost a multiple of what "free unlimited" garbage pickup costs.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Long distance is not free, because the cost of itemized billing is not free. The cost of advertising is not free. The cost of customer billing support is not free. The cost of handling bill payment (and non-payment) is not free.
The cost of producing electricity may, someday, become zero (or close enough)
What will never be zero is the cost of infrastructure.
So even if you throw away all the white collar mangement costs,
you still have to send out guys in trucks to keep the infrastructure functional.
It doesn't matter if we're talking about power, phones/internet, water, or gas;
that cost is not trivial and not especially influenced by advances in technology.
Re: (Score:2)
"you still have to send out ROBOTS in trucks to keep the infrastructure functional."
FTFY.
http://www.marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm [marshallbrain.com]
Re: (Score:1)