aka Ken Smith: Elon Musk owns a public utility

A public utility is a company that provides a service that is so foundational to society that its disruption would be very damaging. If electricity or natural gas were cut off for a few months to a city, that city's economy would be strangled. If electricity or natural gas were cut off to a neighborhood that annoys the CEO of the public utility, that neighborhood would be threatened. If the public utility raised the price of electricity or natural gas any time it pleased as much as it pleased, the city's economy and its people would be in peril.#

So public utilities are regulated by a body of law. These regulations are quite a bit more far-reaching than the regulations for a shoe repair shop or a bicycle repair shop. The entire city and its economy depend on a well-regulated public utility company behaving itself.#

At this point in our history, social media services have grown so large and have become so central to the movement of information in our society that if a giant social media company makes poor judgments, behaves badly, or takes advantage of its monopoly or near-monopoly status, our society is in peril. By their importance and by our vulnerability to their sometimes chaotic actions, social media companies have entered the category of public utility. #

They do not want to be regulated the ways a gas or electric company is regulated. They will put up a huge fight to prevent it. So we remain as vulnerable to our social media giants as we would be vulnerable if the electric or gas company said, "No fuel for you!"#

Elon Musk owns a public utility but the country behaves as though he's just another one of those colorful billionaires. #