The Internet is working well, so it’s not obvious that the FCC needs to help it. American companies own 10 of the world’s 15 largest websites (Google, Amazon, and Facebook to name an obvious few); the United States has greater access to advanced cable and fiber networks than any large country except Japan; it was the first to deploy advanced 4G/LTE mobile networks; it has more smartphones than anywhere else in the world; and it exports more digital goods per capita than any other nation.
These facts are indisputable, so they’re simply disregarded by the Internet regulation advocates campaigning for net neutrality. Among the arguments they use to make their case are that some foreign cities and small nations have built extremely speedy residential networks; many of these offer Internet services for a fraction of U.S. prices; rural American communities have slower and less reliable networks than cities do; and many older people have no interest in venturing onto the Internet at any price.
A core problem with these arguments is that they are, in truth, unrelated to net neutrality.
The FCC says it’s not passing new rules in hopes of improving the Internet but to preserve it as it is with “light touch regulations.” The agency is taking action because courts have voided all but a sliver of its three previous sets of rules. And President Obama raised the stakes by publicly urging the FCC to impose the “strongest possible rules” on the Internet to fill the regulatory vacuum.
“Oh cool, lets drag this fascinating item of modern art inside our gates!
After all, we are technically savvy guys and not credulous fools.
What could possibly go wrong?”
Yes indeed “net neutrality” (i.e. government control of the internet) is a terrible thing.
However, the population do not even understand that such concepts as a “fair price” and a “just wage” are insane, utterly demented.
And we are trying to explain to them how government coming in to make the internet “fair” is a bad thing?
The public has had many decades of books, films, television shows – all saying that “big business” is the cause of all problems and “democratic government” is the solution.
Even many libertarians tell the public this – the “argument” being “government is really controlled by big business – therefore it is bad”. The implication being that if government was not controlled by “big business” it would not be bad.
The education system, the schools and universities, teach exactly the same message – even many of the private schools teach that “capitalism” is evil.
Big business itself promotes the big-business-is-bad message.
Who owes NBC news and MSNBC?
Comcast does – the owner of the cables.
Comcast pays people to say (all day, every day) that companies such as Comcast are evil and the government should take over and make these evil companies be “fair” – set their prices, the services they provide (and on and on).
If these people will not help themselves, how can we help them?
Perry we can not help them.
They actively promote their own destruction (eventually their deaths – and the deaths of their own families) – Comcast supported Barack Obama in both 2008 and 2012.
It is not really out of a hope of a corrupt deal (although they whisper that to their shareholders) – the fact is that the Corporate managers (like the ones in the medical insurance companies) also went to school and university – they also believe that “big business” (THEMSELVES) is evil, and should be destroyed.
And soon the mindless vermin will be here to make their collectivist comments.
At least I do not have to read them.
I wonder how many of these manager types (and a lot of the shareholders also) really understand that what they are saying, carried to its “logical” conclusion is….
“kill my family, kill my family, kill my family”.
Repeated endlessly.
And, of course, the collectivists (the people who control the schools, the universities, the media…..) will be only too happy to oblige.
What is it about humanity that one generation will shed the blood of millions for liberty, but the next will gladly give it away when asked.
Chip, it’s quite simple.
The elites have got really good at infantalising the populous using propoganda.
Look at the political arena. Tory or Labour? Reps or Dems? Both cheeks of the same arse.
Tea Party / UKIP? Racist nut bags. ..
Etc etc ad nauseum…
Where did the Trojans get the timbers to build the horse and moving it about would require a huge effort?
This is an interesting article with lots of detail that I did not know. With things like Internet peering centers it’s hard to imagine what net neutrality even means in practice. Some computers are just going to be physically better placed than others so some packets will always be more equal than others.
So it’s not just a violation of the non-agression principle, it’s also technically a load of nonsense.
OK has anybody out there got any ideas on how we can help stop Ob-moron and the FCC and moreover help keep the Internet out of the states scummy hands? Technical types–activists–anybody?
I’d imagine some of the work being done on high altitude balloons, autonomous, long duration drones as communication links is encouraging. That & P-to-P communication nets. If you can free the net from wire & fiber you can take it away from control
“I’m a government apparatchik. Therefore I will look around and see what works well – and wreck it.”
BiS, yeah I was also seeing some stuff on that a while back and thought “Hmmmmm… veeeeery interesting!”
I agree the key to really truly deeply breaking control is escaping from fixed infrastructure at key points.
Regional, they probably cannibalised a ship, or two, or took advantage of shipwrecks. The horse wouldn’t have needed to carry many people, so could have been quite small.
I can’t wait to see where in the 320+ pages of regulation appears the words “false”,”misleading”,or “libelous” as these are the reasons usually given for nationalizing the internet. To protect politicians.
a politician feels frustrated unless he’s outlawing or regulating something- then he can claim to his voters that he’s doing something. Usually it is doing something to them, but the pollie doesn’t go into details, and it sounds good. This is one of the flaws of Democracies- politicians feel they need to be active. If they only had one term, then they wouldn’t worry about pointless lawmaking.
It all stems from a marketing problem.
ISP’s want to sell access to end users without regard to usage levels. People who want to check facebook once per day are charged the same fee as people who want every movie every made, at HD quality.
Once ISP’s start charging users a fee per unit of download and upload, the entire issue goes away.
– – – –
I’m curious about one thing. If the USA’s internet becomes a public utility regulated by the FCC, does that in any way affect non-USA users accessing non-USA websites?
If not, can USA users simply buy access through dedicated comm cables connecting modem-like to non-USA ISP’s? (Okay, I guess that’s two things.)
Nickolas,
Yep!
What I was trying to allude was the massive infrastructure the Left would need to regulate the Blogosphere in the name of free speech.
The socialist (let us not use cover words such as “Progressive”) New York Times is gloating that Republican resistance to Comrade Barack Obama has collapsed.
“President Obama’s call to protect an open internet” is how the young are taught to think of the government take over of the internet.
Just as the young believe (sincerely believe) that the vast increase in paperwork in the financial industry since the 1980s is the result of “deregulation”, of “market fundamentalism”.
Yes the government take over of the financial industry (“Big Bang”- the noble government ending the “restrictive practices” of the old associations and private companies – and creating the “freedom” of total control by the state) after 1986 is “deregulation”.
Just as the government take over of the internet is “protect an open internet” by that dedicated defender of freedom against the evil of “the rich” and “the corporations” – the Holy and Sacred Barack Obama.
Up there with the other great “defenders of freedom” the New York Times has cheered for over the decades – Stalin, Mao, Castro and the rest of them.
And the young?
They are celebrating their slavery (as freedom) in almost every university campus in the United States.
Do not believe me?
Ask them if they support “net neutrality” – ASK THEM.
And ask them if they support government enforced “fair prices” and “just wages” as well.
“What I was trying to allude was the massive infrastructure the Left would need to regulate the Blogosphere in the name of free speech.”
You mean the new coding in the Domain Name Servers system that only maps to Certified and Approved Websites?
Seems like it would be fairly cheap and simple to do.
Granted, I’m sure we could figure out some overseas proxy system that would get us back in with some work, but I’d guess 90% of the population would find it too hard, too complex, or just plain too much of a bother to take the extra steps to tap in, and the right side of the blogosphere would lose most of its audience.
And once the USA-GOV takes over the USA internet system, how long would it be until every other country in the world follows suit? Then we lose even the proxy possibilities.
– – – –
Please note that there are those among us who find Bennett’s “history” and rationale to be simplistic, biased, and (given that he knows better) disingenuous. If you read his article and derive your understanding of the “net neutrality” conflict from it, you have become the dreaded Low Information Voter.
bobby b,
The Left rely on the voter being misinformed by the MSM.
I am reminded of the words of Ernest Benn: “Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedy.”
We are fucked, already. We’ve lost. So, here is a political solution for a free internet. Have a company like Google create a separate high-speed network, but require that anyone who connects to it not refer to it in any way as either the ‘internet’ or indeed even a ‘network’. Call it something ambiguous, but slightly repellent, like ‘DeityVector’ or some such. Make the terms of service much like Open Source software, such that you cant violate the freedom intent of the thing and use it at the same time. Call every type of communication on it a ‘vector’ rather than ‘communications’, and see where that goes.