> Business Idea: Make it easy for Joe Schmoe's like myself to take action against issues like this.
I do believe that's called a PAC. Lets be frank though - how much money are you going to get if you put together an anti-telecom PAC? I'm gonna take a guess and say it'll be an order of magnitude less than what AT&T and Comcast are willing to spend purely in campaign donations, in addition to lobbyists etc.
What's more - AT&T and Comcast will continue to do this year after year. Much like we've seen no lack of SOPA-lookalikes cropping up every few months in the house or senate, this isn't going to be some "donate $20 now and all these problems will go away!" thing. It's going to be a battle of attrition, unless you do something on the very drastic side (I hear some Scandinavian countries have government controlled/deployed fiber and the ISPs all compete to provide service over it; if there's better alternatives I'm all ears).
how much money are you going to get if you put together an anti-telecom PAC
what about free labour? that's what the op seems to be hinting at. people want to take action. but they need ROI on that <action>. They need scale, distribution, co-ordination. etc.
your other points are good ones, especially the persistence and duration of entities like the telco's on influencing legislators over their entire careers, etc. that persistence and their deep pockets make them formidable opponents. for sure.
I see obstacle #1 as raising awareness. While everyone hates their cable bill, it's not obvious that there are viable alternatives to the current structure of the industry. It also doesn't help that the current structure benefits most major TV media outlets (i.e. Viacom, Comcast/NBC, Fox and ABC/Disney).
There are also useful lessons to be learned from history; particularly, MCI's fight against Bell System monopoly. There's a good documentary about the breakup called Long Distance Warrior[1].
If your goal is to destroy all telecommunications companies, then you'd have to out raise them by at least 50%.
If your goal is for their lobbying expenses to rise to the point that there are meetings called and they have to decide whether to invest more than they really want in Washington, you can get away with spending 10 or 15% of what they do.
This especially true if articles written about your position sell easily to newspaper readers.
What about a PAC that was funded similar to a kickstarter. So either you raise all the funds or not towards X goal? I had an idea like this for the common person to crowd source their funds and effectively buy back their government but not a fan of politics
I do believe that's called a PAC. Lets be frank though - how much money are you going to get if you put together an anti-telecom PAC? I'm gonna take a guess and say it'll be an order of magnitude less than what AT&T and Comcast are willing to spend purely in campaign donations, in addition to lobbyists etc.
What's more - AT&T and Comcast will continue to do this year after year. Much like we've seen no lack of SOPA-lookalikes cropping up every few months in the house or senate, this isn't going to be some "donate $20 now and all these problems will go away!" thing. It's going to be a battle of attrition, unless you do something on the very drastic side (I hear some Scandinavian countries have government controlled/deployed fiber and the ISPs all compete to provide service over it; if there's better alternatives I'm all ears).