THere's probably plenty of advancements that have been stymied because someone somewhere holds a patent and wants their money for vaguely describing something someone else did the work for.

The thing is: state can afford to lose. Even if their offer is not the best, the mere existence of it would prevent the olygopoly or price damping

The Free Market has shown us in the past that if there is a cheaper way to do something, someone will come in to disrupt the market.

also it can provide the service where business considers it unprofitable

free market lol

The state isn't needed for that process.

In fact, the state should step out of the way of that process.

Patent trolls like Edison will always find a way to abuse the system. The real inventors still deserve to get paid.

the free market tends towards monopolies and cartels
and in the modern era, advertising is more efficient than innovation, especially for pharma

It is not a simple problem.

Heh. I like that you bring in Edison. 😛

Kind of a scumbag.

Well, some things should never be left to free market

Like Firefighting

Ancient Athens and USA in 1800 tried that

Firefighter mafias were having fights in the streets

I can kind of see your point there.

anything that has high infrastructure costs imo

competition is nigh-impossible with broadband

might wanna take a look into westinghouse history

Texas has a brilliant solution to the electrical grid and private industry.

Some things need state to function properly and/or not to be abused

They broke the Electrical Supply system into three separate industries.

I do agree that the state should be as minimal as it can get though

Production, Transmission, and Delivery.

Small govt is my Jive

rye we got that over here

Production company sells the power. Transmission maintains the insfrastructure, Delivery sells the electricity to the customer.

electricity itself has never been cheaper.
Yet the final product price that you pay for, has never been more expensive.

Production creates the power rather

sounds like a good way to pay 3 times for a single service

It's a LOT cheaper under that system than it is in the part of the state I live in

which is 100% government fault since theyre the ones that are adding +70% of the price in taxes

where we've got one company, take it or everything in your fridge rots.

welcome to my country rye

That is literally the situation

plenty of competition tho

One of the things is, you can actually CHOOSE to go with a 'green energy' company

that only buys from Wind Farms

but they all cost tons of money due to the phonebook of taxes added

Or you can chose to not care about the environment and go cheap if you like.