Net Neutrality: The Enemy of My Enemy is My Facebook Friend
Net Neutrality is one of those wonky issues that just begs to be skipped over. In a world of limited mental bandwidth, some things are just kicked to the side so that we can spend time thinking and reading about important stuff, like taxes and illegal immigration and mosques in downtown Manhattan and Tiger Woods' divorce.
Here's the nutshell version: should internet service providers be required to carry all data -- no matter whose -- for the same rate? Meaning, should they be prohibited from charging, say, Facebook traffic or Hulu videos less -- or more -- than some New Internet Startup to carry their packets of data?
My answer: no. I'm against regulating ISPs. If they want to charge more for some data and less for another kind, my view is, let them. If their customers don't like it, they'll walk. If there aren't enough ISPs in a region to foster useful competition, then attack the problem that way, by creating ISP competition, not by regulating (or, really, pre-regulating businesses before there's even a problem to address). There's a cogent argument against Net Neutrality here.
Other people answer a different way. Some think web innovation and entrepreneurial zeal will suffer if big companies (like Google and Verizon) get together to make data transportation prohibitively expensive for smaller startups. Some think that the web needs to be divided into two bright categories: companies that move and deliver data, and companies that create the data to be transported. There's a cogent -- and conservative -- argument for Net Neutrality here.
The best -- and clearest -- explanation of both positions can be heard on NPR's "Planet Money" podcast, which is really excellent.
Meanwhile, the debate has made for some strange bedfellows. From The Hill:
The Gun Owners of America (GOA) severed ties with the net-neutrality coalition Save the Internet after a conservative blog questioned the association with liberal organizations such as ACORN and the ACLU.
The blog RedState described Save The Internet as a "neo-Marxist Robert McChesney-FreePress/Save the Internet think tank" and questioned why GOA would participate in a coalition that includes liberal groups such as the ACLU, MoveOn.Org, SEIU, CREDO and ACORN.
GOA was one of the charter members of Save the Internet, but a spokesman for the gun rights group said times have changed.
"Back in 2006 we supported net neutrality, as we had been concerned that AOL and others might continue to block pro-second amendment issues," said Erich Pratt, communications director for GOA.
"The issue has now become one of government control of the Internet, and we are 100 percent opposed to that," Pratt said.
Save The Internet had long pointed to the support of gun owners as evidence that net neutrality is a nonpartisan issue....
Save The Internet views net neutrality as a free speech issue rather than a liberal or conservative one. He noted the group’s membership still includes a number of conservative groups, including the socially conservative Parents Television Council and the Christian Coalition.
Anything that all of those groups agree on has got to be wrong, somehow.
But I love the idea of those furious, paranoid MoveOn-ers sitting next to SEIU thugs, sitting next to uptight Christian Coalition guys in blue suits, sitting next to heavyset ACORN ladies, sitting next to permanently scandalized Parents Television Council, all waiting outside the FCC hearing room to testify for Net Neutrality. Maybe after that they all go for a hilariously tense lunch together. Maybe to a local Chipotle or something. (Do they have those in DC?) The lunch ends badly when the Christian Coalition guy reaches out to hold the hands of the SEIU thug and the MoveOn-er to offer a little blessing before they all dig in. And he's too late, anyway, because the ACORN lady is already into the communal chips.
Wait. What were we talking about?
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Comments:
Feb '10
Re: Net Neutrality: The Enemy of My Enemy is My Facebook Friend
I agree with your point, but my whole point is I don't accept the premise.
Net Neutrality encourages competition, not the other way around. Without Net Neutrality, the power of these duopolies to strangle competition would increase, not decrease. This is why the whole debate is so screwed up.
I'd love FiOS to show up in my neighborhood. Can you send them over?
Edited on August 25, 2010 at 11:49pmFeb '10
Re: Net Neutrality: The Enemy of My Enemy is My Facebook Friend
Yes, but is it not also possible to be misled by company hypsters with a great-sounding argument that actually has very little basis in reality? The group I mentioned was clearly a front group for the cable/telco industry though it tried to hide that fact. You may not have seen their site, but their points made it into the debate, and many others, including people I otherwise trust, have repeated them.
I'm not trying to insult your intelligence. No one can be an expert on everything, and at some point we have to trust someone else's insight. I'm sure I am mistaken on many things in the same way. I'm just asking for you to dig a bit deeper and see the incentives working behind these arguments, many of which result in out-and-out misrepresentations and lies that merely hijack the concepts of "competition" "choice" "innovation" "regulation" "government control" and so on. In fact it does a great disservice to these concepts to be so abused.
Edited on September 3, 2010 at 6:46pmFeb '10
Re: Net Neutrality: The Enemy of My Enemy is My Facebook Friend
The NPR podcast does a good job of explaining the issues without distortions. Good for them. But the economist I heard defending the cable companies made no sense whatsoever. It sounded like he said the broadband companies have no incentive to block or downgrade their customers' traffic because that will devalue the Internet service they are selling. In fact they have many obvious incentives: 1) to promote their own or affiliates' services over competitors; 2) to protect their other products like cable or phone from challenging products or technologies; 3) to use their network to reduce competition by degrading traffic to and from competitors' networks.
The cable companies argued against a merger of AT&T and BellSouth, saying it would "increase AT&T’s incentives and ability to wield its market power over interconnection against its cable competitions. AT&T has the incentive and ability to discriminate against cable’s voice service to retain its own customers.” But when it comes to net neutrality, they argue no such incentive exists for them. Which is it?
Feb '10
Re: Net Neutrality: The Enemy of My Enemy is My Facebook Friend
The HBS article made some good points but did not convince me. I would be willing to consider a separate tier of service as long as there were guarantees that it would not result in downgrading or neglect of upgrading the "regular" Internet. In practice this is almost impossible to prove, measure or enforce. Networks could throw most of their money in the newer, hi-fi Internet while letting the "regular" Internet fall farther and farther behind.
Why can't they invest in just upgrading the speed and reliability across the board? A rising tide floats all boats you know.
Finally, the Net Neutrality rules I've seen would actually give networks some leeway to charge extra for "special services" like 3D streaming video. I think it's based on whether such services could or could not actually work over the "regular" internet.
Edited on August 25, 2010 at 11:48pmMay '10
Re: Net Neutrality: The Enemy of My Enemy is My Facebook Friend
A couple of points.
1) I am sympathetic to BSA's points in theory- my problem is that I don't trust the FCC. Since the advent of the internet, the governments have been eager to regulate and tax. Enforcing equal access rules is the dromedary's big schnozz under the tent to get into all sorts of mischief.
2) As BSA said, the problem is not bandwidth capability overall. There are huge capacities of dark fiber out there, and every day there are more clever schemes for multiplexing data streams. This is all about the big boys- Verizon, AT&T, and Comcast, looking for new ways to apply "click charges" to commercial customers, and then rachet them down to the population at large, the same way they loved going from flat-rate phone service to cell billing by the minute. Repeated attempts to implement microbilling standards on surfers were thwarted by Evil Competition. They need FCC help to get that regime in place, and the states will be next in line asking for sales tax enforcement for interstate on-line shopping.
3) If there were a surfeit of wireless ISPs everywhere, the problem would go away.
Feb '10
Re: Net Neutrality: The Enemy of My Enemy is My Facebook Friend
I'm looking hard at Clear, but they aren't quite competitive for me just yet. I'd be much happier if we could go to WiMax everywhere.
Re: Net Neutrality: The Enemy of My Enemy is My Facebook Friend
Well, clearly we can go around and around. I reject your notion that Comcast -- or anyone, yet -- has degraded data transportation for any reason other than liability for distributing pirated content, which they very much felt liable for. The Viacom vs. YouTube lawsuit was dismissed barely one month ago.
The idea that ISPs may, in the future, choke certain content providers in a bid for short term gain, and risk offending and losing customers, is of course possible. But shouldn't we see, first, before issuing more regulations, and expanding the FCC's oversight? Shouldn't we let the market work? Can anyone look at the explosion of telephony, data, and content delivery systems that have sprung up in the past ten years and say that the market doesn't work?
Edited on August 26, 2010 at 3:11amRe: Net Neutrality: The Enemy of My Enemy is My Facebook Friend
Should there be a multiplicity of ways to get content into the house? Yes. But that will only happen if there are incentives for companies to innovate in that area. Net Neutrality would freeze what we've got in place. That's what happens when the feds declare something a utility, which this would be. As I said: imagine if it had been around in the days of Compuserve and AOL. That's all we'd have now. And all data would be charged the same, which I guess would be a victory.
Reason did a good piece about this here, way back in 2006. And if you're lazy like me, you can watch the video version here, which I'd post but we seem to be missing that function right now. Still, it's worth watching. It's here.
Tiered service is coming. But I also think the basic, regular non-tier internet is going to get degraded no matter what. Sort of like what's happened to analog television. They don't upgrade the transmitters any more. Free TV doesn't make any money. Glad they didn't regulate that! We'd still be using rabbit ears.
May '10
Re: Net Neutrality: The Enemy of My Enemy is My Facebook Friend
Rob Long:
Tiered service is coming. But I also think the basic, regular non-tier internet is going to get degraded no matter what. Sort of like what's happened to analog television. They don't upgrade the transmitters any more. Free TV doesn't make any money. Glad they didn't regulate that! We'd still be using rabbit ears. · Aug 25 at 6:05pm
Rob, obviously you mean broadcast television, don't you, since there is no analog television any longer except for the very low power stuff?
Re: Net Neutrality: The Enemy of My Enemy is My Facebook Friend
That's what I mean, Duane. And for the record: I miss the rabbit ears.