Just to be clear, there are some things on which the Seattle Times editorial board and I agree, and I’m not ashamed to admit it. (Okay, maybe a little ashamed, but I’ve learned to cope.)
For those who reflexively argue that government regulation is always a bad thing, the FCC’s decision to codify the principle of net neutrality must be a bit disturbing. But those who primarily rely on the Internet to make these arguments should be quietly relieved.
The Bush years hinted at what you’d get without government regulation: Chaos. The fundamental flaw of libertarian thinking is it assumes people will behave themselves in the absence of rules. All recorded history proves them wrong.
Concur Goldy…it was a good proposal and important to the future of an open and vibrant information world.
@1: The FCC under the Bush admin was ready to let Comcast decide under what terms we would access and provide information online. That’s free market a la Bush, I guess.
@3 No businessman worth his salt wants competition. The objective of all businesses is to eliminate competition so they can impose monopoly pricing on their customers. That’s how they maximize profits. If you want to see how this works in practice, look at the health industry, because that’s one of the major reasons why health care costs so much in the U.S. — doctors and hospitals charge whatever they feel like, and don’t even tell you what it’s going to cost you. (Basically, everything you own.) Comcast isn’t a hospital but they sure as hell want to gouge the public as much as they can, and if they can put a meter on your internet connection, they will.
Comcast is an obnoxious practitioner of “harassment marketing,” i.e., they hound you and won’t leave you alone until buy their product.* I get over 100 pieces of junk mail a year from Comcast. As this has gone on for over 10 years, I’ve received 1000+ junk mailers from Comcast over the years. I’ve never responded to any of them, but that doesn’t deter Comcast — now their salesmen are ringing my doorbell! By the way, if you’re wondering who is paying for all this marketing, the answer is … you are, if you’re a Comcast customer.
* Another company that does this is the Seattle Times. It took a complaint to the state attorney general’s consumer protection division to get their telemarketers to stop calling me.
RR @ 1
I think it’s disrespectful to criticize the libertarian cult. Facts never proved anything.
@6 Since when have I ever been respectful to wingers? If you ever catch me doing that, kick me!
This may be off-topic, but only slightly. Last night, for the second time, someone from the Dead Tree Times called us and begged for permission to keep delivering the daily edition for free for “a few more weeks”. (We officially changed to weekends-only a month and a half ago.)
They must be getting pretty desperate to keep their circulation numbers up.
ArtFart @ 8
Yes.