In response to a post on reddit that says, “Net neutrality… isn’t just about speech, it’s also about entrepreneurship and innovation, and it’s about our economy.” a “redditor” responds,
So let me get this straight….the government, the same government that punishes success through the tax code, prevents innovation through burdensome regulation, can’t spend within its means, bails out billionaires with working people’s money, and has created a ponzi scheme in the form of social security to threatens to bankrupt the nation, and generally screwed up everything it has ever touched, getting involved in regulating the internet, is going to help increase speech, entrepreneurship, and innovation? Pardon me for being a little skeptical.
I’ll tell you what will really happen. The first 6 months will be fine. Then, first you will see federal taxes on internet purchases, then you will see ‘fairness’ controls that will restrict the content of what you can say, then you will see political speech regulated in the name of ‘campaign finance reform’, then you will see federal business licenses required for selling goods on the internet, required encryption backdoors, required technologies, national ‘internet IDs’, mandatory content filtering, a ban on anonymizing technologies, and 1,000 other terrors that I can’t even imagine right now. Regardless of the pure intents of the people wanting to push government enforced net neutrality, this will make the internet subject to politics and big money interests.
Here is what you will really get… Boy MP3′s sure are disruptive technology, not anymore! The president just appointed the head of BMG as the ‘internet czar’ (czar=no senate approval required!), after a $5 million campaign contribution, and he just decided that MP3s only exist to facilitate copyright infringement, and therefore must be filtered by all ISPs. And you just thought it would make your netflix download faster.
Government enforced Net neutrality is a dangerous idea that only serves to open the door to the destruction of the internet at the hands of government regulators. A better way would be an industry consortium that self-regulated net-neutrality and ostracized companies that didn’t play ball. Plus, people need to vote with their dollars. Your ISP is throttling Netflix? Don’t do business with them.
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Upboat ahoy!
And my axe!
The comment would have been stronger at the end had he pointed out that the internet is artificially heavily regulated by both government allocation of the wireless spectrum and various different franchise monopoly schemes across the country.
I agree, but I would like to add that we should avoid government imposing fees on Google or Facebook or Mises.org for the benefit of telecom and IP carriers. Government should just say: The things stand are fine and I am NOT going to intervene.
“Your ISP is throttling Netflix? Don’t do business with them.”
Sure – we’re spoiled for choice here in Manhattan, with BOTH TimeWarner AND Verizon! The possibilities are endless.
Note Slim934′s point.
If you don’t like the lack of ISP options you should acknowledge we already have too much government involvement in the internet, not too little.
What about Sprint and Verizon 3G/4G? What about dial up? What about Satellite? What about private OC3 lines? There are alternative options, you just want your cake and to eat it too.
I don’t know… in many areas competition is directly prevented by government rules. In Canada, at least, “foreign” companies are prevented from providing internet services or buying Canadian companies that do. The government has prevented companies from entering the market so there really are very few options (even “independent” isp’s only rent bandwidth from the big companies.
The problem is that most people use this as an excuse to ask for MORE government involvement in the internet, rather than less.
Either the State or City of New York have effectively banned hard-line competitors in your area, as is common in most areas around the country. A particular medium of data transfer is typically granted exclusively to a specific company over an area. TimeWarner knows that it’s the only game in town because the city of New York (or state) will swoop in and shut down anyone that attempts to utilize coaxial cable for an Internet connection.
For more on this topic see my posts Against Net Neutrality and A Libertarian Take on Net Neutrality.
The reason net neutrality is even an issue is due to other regulations by governments regarding the physical infrastructure we rely upon to make the internet function that limits the number of available providers. The largest culprit, IMO, are artificial restrictions that ban new entrants to cities and localities with “franchises” that monopolize local telecommunications markets. There is no reason that a dozen companies couldn’t run wires all over town providing telecommunications services, except that many statists consider that an “inefficient” use of resources. At the current rate of innovation wireless internet will be faster than land-based internet connections, for most Americans. There is no way that this should be so (except for most rural areas) due to the physics involved.
See also, “slippery slope fallacy.”
…or “slippery slope truism”.
This is my favorite post:
Then corporations are given free reign
Correct, they are given free reign….TO FINALLY BE ABLE TO ENTER THE MARKET TO INCREASE THE NUMBER OF CHOICES FOR CONSUMERS!!!
and our recent banking collapse shows what happens with a lack of regulation and oversight.
Oh blow it out your ass. No you buffoon. The financial system did not collapse because of “lack of regulation”. The financial system is controlled by government and the big market players. The Federal Reserve System is not a free market institution, and it regulates the entire economy’s value of money and interest rates. It can print money and blow up asset bubbles that later bust, bail out the big players who commit fraud and make terrible decisions, and you have the gall to spew out the nonsense that the fault is the free market? That’s like taking a rape victim’s STI infection they got from the rapist and the blaming consensual sex for it.
If it were really “deregulation” that is responsible for these massive economic collapsed, then why doesn’t the electronics market habitually collapse? It is relatively less regulated than most industries.
Or how about the internet? The internet has not collapsed since the day it began. The internet itself is almost completely unregulated (ISP market is regulated). Do you think that is a coincidence?
If regulations of ISPs have created few choices, regardless of who “initiated” the regulation, the answer is always to remove the power of government so that there is nobody with guns to bribe.
You’re out of your mind.
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