ME:: everybody thinks they know what a free market is; most of us are wrong myself included and it requires strong, enlightened regulation ; Stefan Schüller:: The Free Market Lie: Why Switzerland Has 25 Gbit Internet and America Doesn't
Discovered: Jul 5, 2026 00:20 (UTC) ME:: everybody thinks they know what a free market is; most us are wrong myself included and it requires strong, enlightened regulation ; Stefan Schüller:: The Free Market Lie: Why Switzerland Has 25 Gbit Internet and America Doesn’t
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This is the paradox that confuses so many people.
The American and German approach of letting incumbents build monopolies, allowing wasteful overbuild, and refusing to regulate natural monopolies is often called a ‘free market.’
But it’s not free. And it’s not a market.
True capitalism requires competition. But infrastructure is a natural monopoly. If you treat it like a regular consumer product, you don’t get competition. You get waste, or you get a monopoly.
The Swiss model understands this. They built the infrastructure once, as a shared, neutral asset, and then let the market compete on the services that run over it.
That’s not anti-capitalist. It’s actually better capitalism. It directs competition to where it adds value, not to where it destroys it.
The free market doesn’t mean letting powerful incumbents do whatever they want. It means creating the conditions where genuine competition can thrive.