^That sounds like a horror scenario indeed.
Here in Germany, privatization wasn't exactly rainbows and sunshine.
We had a federal postal service (Deutsche Bundespost) that did split up in Telekom AG and Deutsche Post AG and Postbank (?) in the early 90s.
Later, Telekom also had its subsidiaries T-Mobile and T-Online. DHL parcel service also emerged.
At first, it looked very promising. The dusty old postal service/telephone service was being tansformed into a hip and modern company. Or so it seemed.
By the late 90s/early 00s, things had changed. At least in my opinion. Euphoria was gone, visions were gone.
The national online service (BTX/Datex-J) was retired, ISDN had been given up on, no more video telephony. Fibre glass now was their enemy. *sigh*
While the old postal service was very bureaucratic, slow and old-fashioned, it did at least do it's job dutiful and was dependable.
The equipment they had was rock solid and the telephone sockets they installed were of high quality and correct impedance etc. Their technicians were a bit outdated, but otherwise knew what they were doing in their job.
Nowadays, it's all cheap plastic, only a few true technicians remained. Or so it seems. Overall, it seems as if the company feels totally unresponsible towards citizens.
Anyway, that's merely little Germany.
The US is much bigger. I really wish them good luck, hopefully they won't lose their federal post-office soon. Capitalism is exploitation, after all. A private company wouldn't do much good, I'm afraid.
I'm very grateful our drinking water is still under supervision by the state/city/government and not in the hands of private companies.
Once that's the case, quality would drop soon, I'm afraid. The equipment wouldn't be serviced anymore, bacteria would infect people etc.
Because, even now, there's a money shortage. There water is a bit too calcareous in my city, but there's no extra money available to install additional filters at the water works.
"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel
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