Nick Gillespie
Reason.com
11/13/2014
…I think Cuban, who made his big money from the sale ofBroadcast.com about 10,000 years ago (in internet time) is right to emphasize that what we think of as central now (video streaming! Netflix vs. Comcast! torrenting!) will be trifling in the future.
The FCC specifically and governments generally have never been great at managing innovation. It works better when they stand aside and let it happen, as mostly happened with regard to the internet and web in the 1990s. Mostly, though not always: recall bipartisan attempts to place backdoors for easy spying in all sorts of telecom hardware and software, classifying encryption as munitions, and trying to regulate the internet in the name of protecting kids from child predators. The only thing that prevented that last bit from happening was a 9-0 Supreme Court ruling that extended toothsome First Amendment protections to the internet.
Net Neutrality and Title II reclassification are solutions to problems (blocking of sites! fast lanes that prevent new services from coming to market!) that don’t yet exist. Each “solution” gives the same government that is godawful at respecting privacy rights more power over the most revolutionary means of communication since the printing press. Really not a good idea from just about any perspective.
In 2010, Reason TV asked, “Will Net Neutrality Save the Internet?”
The complete article, with video, is at Reason.com
Update: The People’s Cube, Internet Protection and Affordability Act – “ObamaWeb”
“That means that no matter how we reform the nation’s internet, we will keep this promise to the American people: If you like your internet, you will be able to keep your internet, period. If you like what you pay now, you’ll be able to pay what you pay now, period. No one will take it away, no matter what. Just as ObamaCare does not affect you but only affects the insurance companies the ObamaWeb will only affect the ISPs while giving you better service at fair cost. ”
Read it, Comrades!
