My friend Walt Mossberg, the Wall Street Journal’s superb tech columnist, has a plea in today’s paper called “Free My Phone” — asking the government force open what he calls the “Soviet Ministry” model of mobile phone service, a system that treats customers as if they were pawns.
Great piece, with one exception, where he says:
Let me be clear: Any company that spends billions to build and maintain a wireless network deserves to be paid for its use, and deserves to make a profit and a return for its shareholders. Not only that, but companies like Verizon Wireless or AT&T Inc. should be free to build or sell phones or software or services.
Really? Any investment of billions automatically deserves to make a profit and return for its shareholders?
It’s true that in the cartel we call telecommunications, the investment is deemed sufficient to deserve a profit. But it’s absolutely false in the system we call capitalism.
In a genuinely free market, you invest your money and you take your chances with the marketplace.
on Oct 24th, 2007 at 9:25 am
Probably might come off as arrogant for me to presume to say “What Walt *meant* to say was…” but I don’t think he sought to imply a notion of entitlement. (If so, then YIKES! Anyone remember Iridium’s — quite literally stratospheric — cost basis?)
I think “deserves to seek profitability” might have made the meaning clearer.