Fee for nothing

The JG today has this long story about how the franchise fees paid to the city indicate how the cable companies are doing. Comcast shelled out more than $376,000 for the first quarter, compared with about $343,000 from Frontier, which indicates Comcast nabbed some customers. In the pervious quarter, however, Frontier paid more than Comcast, so it probably had the most customers then:

The companies have to pay 5 percent of either gross annual subscriber receipts or the franchisee's gross annual receipts, whichever is higher, to the city. The cable providers regularly decline to reveal how many subscribers they have, but the franchise fees are an indicator of how they are faring.

But what is the underlying point here, class? Yes, that's right -- there is competition, even, it can be said, robust, healthy competition.

I realize collecting those hefty franchise fees is vital to the free exchange of ideas in an open society. How else would all the cranks, scolds and lonely conspiracy theorists be able to produce and air their wretchedly unwatchable videos? But the original justification for the fees was that a cable company was rewading the city for granting an exclusive contract, needed because no company would pay the upfront infrastructure costs without a guarantee of no competition. That's not exactly valid today, is it? If we don't want Comcast or Frontier, we can choose a satellite service or even a streaming service such as Netflix. The city is collecting a fee for something it is no longer delivering.