I see several different problems with net neutrality. Highlights include:
The most important one is the law of unforeseen consequences. Imagine, if you will, a world in which every traffic-shaping decision is fodder for a lawsuit. The current administration is likely to throw a bone to its class-action lawsuit backers by putting a private cause of action into any law.
Even worse, this will be a backdoor to regulation of content. Imagine that "unsavory" web sites (or disfavored, e.g., Pirate Bay) can be denied realistic bandwidth and as such starved out of existence. ("By law, any web site with X-rated photos may not have more than Y of the 'public' bandwidth.")
The flip side of all this is that, in the end, government does tend to grant monopolies for the last mile of the Internet: cable rights, air rights, etc. Here in the Big City I can easily change providers and as such the checks and balances that are inherent to capitalism continue to work. Out in the sticks... that's something else.
On the whole, I put my trust in capitalism over government regulation any day of the week.
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Date: 2010-03-07 08:41 pm (UTC)The most important one is the law of unforeseen consequences. Imagine, if you will, a world in which every traffic-shaping decision is fodder for a lawsuit. The current administration is likely to throw a bone to its class-action lawsuit backers by putting a private cause of action into any law.
Even worse, this will be a backdoor to regulation of content. Imagine that "unsavory" web sites (or disfavored, e.g., Pirate Bay) can be denied realistic bandwidth and as such starved out of existence. ("By law, any web site with X-rated photos may not have more than Y of the 'public' bandwidth.")
The flip side of all this is that, in the end, government does tend to grant monopolies for the last mile of the Internet: cable rights, air rights, etc. Here in the Big City I can easily change providers and as such the checks and balances that are inherent to capitalism continue to work. Out in the sticks... that's something else.
On the whole, I put my trust in capitalism over government regulation any day of the week.