On Fri, Aug 9, 2019 at 4:31 PM Stephen Satchell <list@satchell.net> wrote:
On 8/9/19 4:03 PM, Matthew Petach wrote:
> ...apparently Amazon has become a public utility
> now?
>
> I look forward with bemusement to the PUC
> tariff filings for AWS pricing.  ^_^;;

[...] 

And it wouldn't be the PUC, as Amazon is a company national in scope.
It would be something like the FCC.  Public Utility Commissions are at
the local (usually county) or state level.
 
That was somewhat the point.
Public utilities make some amount 
of sense when there's a local natural monopoly.

With a global company, there's no such thing 
as a local natural monopoly in play; how would 
you assign oversight to a global entity?  Which
"public" would be the ones being protected?
The city of Seattle, WA, where Amazon is 
headquartered?  The State of Washington?
The United States, at a federal level?   What 
about the "public" that uses Amazon in all 
the other countries of the world?

There's no way to make a global entity a
regulated public utility; we don't have an 
organization that has that level of oversight 
across country boundaries, unless you start 
thinking about entities that can enforce *treaties*
between countries.

And I'm not sure I'd want our Ambassadors 
being the ones at the table deciding how best 
to regulate Amazon.   :/