Net neutrality legislation

[UnderseaLcpl]

Originally Posted by mookiemookie

Long on fearmongering, short on facts.

Possibly, but by whom?

I admit that I don't have enough understanding of current internet regulation or technical specifics, let alone the contents of the proposed legislation, to form a complete opinion but my instinct is to call it into question.

Forgive me my doubts, but I think there is just cause for them. How many pieces of legislation that were supposed to provide equality have been proven only to be avenues for legislative and corporate favoritism, abuse, and waste?

Many consumers have benefited from de-regulation of industry, rather than regulation of it. I present the telecom industry as a somewhat comparable example. It has its' share of subsidies and penalties nowadays, to be sure, but it remains one of the most competitive and innovative industries in the US. The abolition of the (US) state-sponsored telecom monopoly resulted in a telecom explosion that has lasted nearly 3 decades, and shows no signs of slowing. Stocks and profit margins have risen and fallen during those years, but the end result is that we have better service at lower prices(inflation adjusted) than we did before. Of course, modern telecommunications is a relatively new industry, but it has already shown signs of wear and tear under state intervention. Business moves to where the climate is most favorable, and the US state has inadvertently been working hard to create an unfavorable climate, and the result has been the amalgamation of business on an almost unprecedented scale.

To me, the path that the US telecom industry is following is a fast-forward model of what used to be our core industries. Heavy industry has long since gone the way of the dinosaur (or at least, as much as supply and demand will allow). Mass internet is an even more recent industry, and it is moving at an even faster pace towards slowed, and eventually negative, growth in the US. Some of you may remember the FBI's proposed "Carnivore" program from about a decade ago, which was abandoned due to cost-inefficiency and public controversy. It took less than a decade for such radical legislation to be proposed in the internet industry, whereas the first major US telecom regulation was proposed in 1996, slightly less than three decades after "Ma Bell" began its' deconstruction (late 1956) due to consumer cries for deregulation. The exponential growth of the state in the meantime seems to correlate this theory of " the more the state grows, the faster business fails.

Of course, it is not a direct correlation, there are far too many variables involved. Population growth, currency supply as opposed to market growth, multiple changes in administration at all levels, new technologies, etc, make it difficult to discern a predictable pattern in any state-economic relationship other than at the extremes, but the general rule is that less state intervention is better than more in terms of wealth per capita, short of anarcho-capitalism or anarchy.

The very nature of the Federal government, in most capacities, is to create inequality and stifle competition. It can't do much else, because it is largely a fiat monopoly. Waste, inefficiency,and favoritism are its' hallmarks. Am I supposed to believe that it has suddenly found a way of creating a "level playing field", despite the repeated and costly failures of its attempts to do just that?

Perhaps you agree to some extent, and perhaps you do not, but I invite you to consider this that you know to be true; Regulation is not so much "limiting" to business as it is "enabling" the powerful businesses, with the best legal representation, to manipulate whatever system is in place. In general, I feel that regulations like this "net neutrality" are only going to accelerate the desires of service providers to amalgamate or move elsewhere, and consumers will follow as long as their decisions lower prices.

To those that will, I invite you to accuse me of donning a tinfoil hat, but I consider my views to be colored with a healthy amount of skepticism and nothing more. You'll have to forgive me for considering the idea that a piece of legislation, drafted by a body that is largely comprised of lawyers, who are generally regarded as being self-serving scum given legal authority, and who are also politicians, which are equally reviled, is going to be a mechanism for enabling monopoly and the stifling of competition rather than a legal liberator.

Again, I profess my ignorance on the subject at hand, but given past trends I am leaning towards the opinion that less state interference is better than more. I may be wrong, but I have yet to encounter an example where more legislation generated more competition, and better results for the consumer, save where the state has legislated the breakup of state monopoly.