Repiking the pike and magical thinking -- and Verizon Wireless again!

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Bob Frankston" <Bob19-0501 () bobf frankston com>
Date: December 4, 2008 4:21:55 PM EST
To: <dave () farber net>
Subject: Repiking the pike and magical thinking -- and Verizon  
Wireless again!

The Boston Globe has a story on plans to sell off the Mass Pike. There  
is a strange irony here since the term "Turnpike" comes from the days  
when highways were privately owned and men had to turn pikes to let  
you through after you'd paid them. This notion of privatizing the  
commons is very strange - part of the magical thinking that pervades  
finance.

It is an echo of telecom -- the notion that each mile or highway or  
"broadband" can be a profit center and valued out of context. Would  
the new highway owners consider public transportation and other roads  
unfair competition? There's a good reason we no longer have men with  
pikes guarding their private highways. This naïve thinking gives us  
reason to worry -- do people really think tolls are necessary ways to  
fund highways rather than placed where they are because we have choke  
points?

Against this backdrop I just got a surprise bill from Verizon Wireless  
(VZW)! When I wrote http://www.frankston.com/public/?name=IPVZSupport  
I thought I was getting close to resolution. Of course it took another  
round on the phone and I finally closed the accounting have switched  
over to G1's on T-Mobile. I'm still waiting for my refund …

In the meantime I just got bill from VZW for my "broadband card". It  
was a "Huh?" moment since I had lost the card in January and cancelled  
it along with other changes I made in March -- the very changes that  
took a year to unravel! Folding all this into one-bill made it  
difficult to untangle which is why I detached VZW from One-Bill. But  
in checking my One-Bill show no such charges so what is happening?

I suspect that something stirred up the sediment and this account  
magically reappeared out of past billing records. OK, I can understand  
a  software bug. But what I can't understand is the Great Firewall of  
Verizon -- the customer support people who can't grasp the concept  
that something may be wrong and can't grasp the idea that someone  
inside the company may be able to fix it. The last person I spoke to  
offered to close the account and I said no -- how can you close an  
account that doesn't exist and what about the outstanding charges? He  
finally hung up on me instead of transferring me.

Do I really have to dissipate my life by spending more hours on the  
phone with VZW until I find someone who takes pity on me as I plead  
for mercy? (As I continue to endure calls from their promotions  
department trying to get me re-up).

People tell me that we have to have private companies operating our  
infrastructure because government can't do anything right. But that's  
clearly magical thinking -- why do we assume that companies are founts  
of wisdom? There is a difference in that governments don't have  
effective competition. But quasi-private companies like carriers don't  
have much competition either -- they are defined by regulations. At  
least you can move to a different city but you find the same carriers!  
And too-big-too-fail companies have similar dysfunctions.

Overall I do prefer a viable market but let's not be naïve. Let's not  
assume that markets are magical and not only must work but will  
produce the results we want.

But I'll close on an optimistic note, albeit it perverse. I remember  
the "Club of Rome" forecasts" done in the 1970's using Forrester's  
Systems Dynamic model . No matter what the world would come to an end  
with twenty or so years. The problem is that such models can't take  
into account the surprises which, I argue, are characteristic of  
digital effects – namely the ability to benefit from unpredictable and  
disruptive change.

What we need is an understanding of how to benefit from these changes  
which create new value from opportunity. Instead we sell off our  
future by privatizing the commons. Obviously I see telecom as a  
particularly egregious example as it taxes us with its billable events  
in return for limiting our ability to create new value -- a really bad  
deal.

But then magical thinking lets us maintain our naïve hope until the  
next golden swan (conflating the golden goose with the Talib's black  
swan) happens. What is important is understanding how to assure that  
we have sufficient opportunity for that to happen.




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