It's not profitable to do a lot of things if your standard of living is high enough. Should that stop us?

To be honest, it'd probably be most profitable to not have phone lines, emergency services, etc. for rural people.

I don't know how far along he is, but Elon Musk is trying to make internet/phone more accessible with Starlink

That would effectively meaning abandoning most rural areas. Which in turn would lead to a gigantic crunch on the housing market in the metros. It would also cut off the supply of young people streaming to the cities/blue states for college and job opportunities that they didnt have to bring up at their own expense.

Once we factor those externalities in, stuff like rural electrification, phone lines and emergency services should easily be profitable. As should laying cables for high-speed internet whenever the opportunity arises (i.e. when construction works are ongoing anyway).


My disagreement was with Thor's statement that burying cables is generally cheap, even if you can't use such synergies.

There aren't enough rural people in America and they don't have enough wealth to have a significant impact on the housing market. If anything, it would lead to an expansion of exurban areas. At the end of the day, population density is the only relevant factor when it comes to providing services in an efficient way, let alone profitable. You don't necessarily have to bury cables underground either. You could do above-ground cables which are significantly cheaper.

If 60 million people are pushing into the metros, that's of course gonna have an impact on the housing market. Even if they're poor, the increased demand will still have a ripple effect and permeate into the higher tiers of the housing market.

They're gonna block off the cheapest housing, which means that working-class locals now have to look for slightly higher-priced houses and expend a slightly higher share of their income for rent/loans than they would like. But now the local working-class is blocking off the somewhat affordable, medium-tier housing that the local middle class would have wanted, which forces these to look in higher-price segments of the market, and so on and forth.

Exurban areas tend to become denser rather than expand without limit if there's a persistent influx. There's just an upper limit to how far away from the center people can or want to live.
Another factor to consider is sustainability. With water becoming an increasingly sparse resource and the power grid becoming increasingly decentralized and spread out, it's less than ideal when all the consumption occurs in one hyper-dense place rather than where the natural resources are.

so much inintelligence in 1 only person, rofl

capitalism produces poverty, I mean economic and intellectual poverty, just look at you for a clear sample

capitalism made its start in the USA and it became the world power. lefties worship despot taxtakers telling them what to do. why communists nations have always been chitholes. the problem with USA now its no longer a capitalist nation. they just tell the chumps it is and then the chumps actually believe capitalism is whats wrong with it.

that statement makes no sense

Id love to see some kind of evidence behind this

The concept of intellectual poverty sounds like something you just pulled out of your ass

usa, 1% elite 99% trash. perfect social lab where both extremes coexist lmao