Net Neutrality. What good is a free operating system without a network?

[Randy Edwards]

 > Some would argue that the market should decide the rates
 > we pay for Internet connectivity, and that regulating ISPs will only
 > stifle innovation[1].

   Okay, now you've done gone and provoked a rant out of me. :-)

   First, the idea of "regulating" the ISPs is an obvious smear.  
What "regulation" are we talking about?

   We're talking about telling ISPs to keep a flat-rate business model for 
their core Internet access and not to censor their customers.  Other than 
that, wouldn't the ISPs be free to pretty much do as they please?  That is a 
far cry from "regulation" as most think of it -- e.g. telling a company how 
much soot can come out of their smokestacks, or telling a corporation what 
their total fleet of cars fuel economy average must be.

   Second, I don't agree that gov't or even regulation stifles innovation.  
Especially since we're talking about an increasingly critical economic 
infrastructure here.  This is one of those supposed truisms with so many 
holes in the theory that it's laughable.  A few examples:

   Gov't can -- and often does -- do wildly innovative things.  Getting to the 
moon required a lot of innovation and spun off many practical benefits.  The 
space shuttle was wildly innovative.  There were tens of thousand of Japanese 
who thought -- for a split second anyway -- that that Manhattan Project idea 
was a wild innovation.

   In terms of economic infrastructure, the US gov't has a long and proud 
history of accomplishing radical innovations.

   We owe a huge amount of debt to the transcontinental railroad and 
subsequent US railroad policies.  And would we really want to see what our 
nat'l phone system would be like if the gov't had not forced phone companies 
to provide service to rural America?  Ditto for electrical service.  The US 
interstate highway system was such a gov't innovation that it worked to gut 
our railroad system and invented radical new trucking and shipping/delivery 
concepts.

   Sure, you can criticize some of these projects in terms of graft and 
inefficiency, and even bash them for their unintended consequences, but by 
any objective measure they were huge steps forward -- and they were crafted 
and implemented by the gov't.

   Regulation by definition does not thwart innovation and stifle business -- 
only "bad" regulation does that.  In many cases, regulation works to promote 
innovation and economics and "good" regulation does this *and* works to 
highlight values that people hold dear.

 Regards,
 .
 Randy   

-- 
"Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the 
Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons 
ever devised." -- "No doubt?!" George W. Bush, lying to the American people, 
in a speech from the White House, March 17, 2003.