[clue-talk] Net neutrality

[Angelo Bertolli]

Jed S. Baer wrote:

>On Mon, 08 May 2006 15:50:47 -0600
>Matt Gushee wrote:
>
>  
>
>>I recently heard that Congress is considering legislation that would 
>>allow internet providers--especially large ones, I guess--to allocate or
>>withhold bandwidth as they see fit. This raises the specter of 
>>censorship, they say. Makes sense on the face of it, and I'm inclined on
>>general principles to distrust whatever large media companies want.
>>
>>But I wonder what you're all hearing about this issue. How worried 
>>should we be?
>>    
>>
>
>That depends upon your starting premises. Do you start out from the
>premise that the companies who own the wires/fiber have property rights?
>To what extent do you think the government should be able to abrogate such
>rights? Doesn't ownership imply control?
>  
>
That would be nice, but they got the government to pay for the 
infrastructure so now they have to sleep in the bed they made for 
themselves.

>Let's say you own a large piece of property, and you've put in a private
>road, from one side to the other. This route happens to be the easiest,
>most convenient, fastest route from point A to point B, on either side of
>your property. You also own a trucking company, and your trucks travel on
>this private road between those two points. Should the government be able
>to force you to open your road to other traffic, such as that from
>competing trucking companies? Suppose you have two roads. One is a
>well-maintained freeway, which you reserve for the exclusive use of your
>trucks. The other is still pretty good, but the speed limit is lower, and
>it isn't as smooth, and you let anyone use it on a fee basis, based on
>type of vehicle, etc. Should the government be able to tell you it's
>unfair for you to restrict your premium road to only your traffic?
>
>There are many issues here, in the vein of regulated monopolies and public
>utilities. IMHO, they all come down to the question of how much the state
>should abrogate property rights for the sake of the "common good".
>
>Probably (I don't know, just speculating) some of the same people who are,
>and have been, advocating that the FCC get out of the business of
>regulating the airwaves are also arguing that the internet should be
>regulated to make it "fair". Well, what's fair? And to whom?
>  
>
I think about the consequences that logically follow the conservative 
thought on property rights.  I DO think society needs to decide that 
some things are going to simply be shared resources.  There are some 
natural shared resources that we can't control (air and water), but the 
road systems, the Internet, etc. are also shared resources.  And that's 
because it's WAY more efficient to share this resource than it would be 
to have everyone laying their own roads and wires, and everyone having 
their own internets.  Not only is it more efficient, but it keeps 
companies from becoming the de-facto government, retaining the ability 
of the people to govern themselves.

Back to the original question:  I think it will be OK to allow the media 
companies to do this as long as there are enough of them to compete,  
they don't form a cartel, and we remember our anti-trust laws.