Net Neutrality and Marx
From Zanecorpwiki
The current debate regarding Net Neutrality vs "Free Market" seems to closely parallel the cultural conversation between capitalism and communism. Of course the analogy requires a bit of mental flexibility because in this debate Net Neutrality corresponds with capitalism and the so called "Free Market" plays the role of communism.
Part of the of the subtlety comes with the clear capture of the term "Free Market" by corporate interests. The term is still used to connote classical free markets--free and equal access to information and such--but in this context, the term has been entirely captured. There's nothing wrong with this and I don't mean to denote anything sinister by "corporate interests", just make clear the players and their position.
Having disposed this point, we can move on to a point by point comparison of the parallels.
For nearly 100 years, perhaps most acutely in the 50's, there was a real question about which system was superior across multiple dimensions. Most critically there was a general belief, prevalent in the US as well, that we would pay for our freedoms by accepting the inefficiencies of the market. My understanding is that many, if not most, assumed that the centrally planned economy would outperform the seemingly chaotic and unpredictable (classic) free market stroke capitalism.
This parallels the argument made by (corpratist) free marketeers who assert that a network driven by individual consumer interests will create a chaotic system that inefficiently allocate resources and stymie progress. On the other side, Neutralists implicitly and explicitly endorses the view that a level playing field and the collective wisdom of individuals will outperform the decisions made by a few narrow and heavily biased interests.
Part of the story, in both cases, is that the intentions of the narrow doing the central planning don't matter. Even if we believe that they want to create the strongest economies or the best network services, we know it doesn't matter. In both cases, they will fail. They will fail not for lack of cleverness or imagination, or anything, but simply because planning can never take into account changes.
Economies run through hard work and predictable turning of the crank, but they grow through innovation. The same story applies to our use of the network. We rely on perfectly predictable and boring protocols to do the work of the network and in our day to day usage, but the new value comes from new things. By moving to a planned system, innovation is necessarily stymied because innovation is fundamentally messy. Most innovation fails. Turns out to be stupid and short sighted. What succeeds, and how it succeeds is often surprising. Innovation requires an environment that is the antithesis of the planned and predictable.
At the same time, we know we can deal with innovation. We do it in the economy, and we do it on the networks today. When Verizon, AT&T, and now even Google make noise about the need to prioritize this over that because if we don't then service will suffer, we need only look at the fact that every year those who are connected get more and more out of the Internet than they did the year before. The breadth of services has only grown and there's no evidence whatsoever that some critical mass of VoIP or porn or movies or whatever is going to wreck it for the rest of us. I can't say whether it's a lie, but it's certainly not true.
I'm skeptical of government regulation--even regulation that does what I want--but as far as Net Neutrality goes, there are two reasons why I say it's good regulation.
First, it's simple. A Net Neutrality law could in a single paragraph clearly lay out unambiguous rules for how things should operate. Heck, one sentence gets you most everything you need: "No network operator providing connectivity between producers and consumers of digital content shall block, shape, or otherwise inhibit traffic crossing their network for any reason except to comply with superseding laws or court orders." Throw in a definition or two and some consequences and you're done.
Bad regulation is complicated. It's inherently or in practice uneven and easy to abuse. The simplicity of what Net Neutrality attempts makes it easy to avoid these bad effects.
The second reason I don't buy the "don't regulate the markets" argument: there is no market to regulate. I don't remember the number exactly, but I clearly remember a study that said that the great majority of Americans have one or two options when it comes to practical Internet connectivity. I can't get reliable AT&T service to my house, so it's Time Warner Cable or Clear Wireless. Two choices does not make a market, so there are no market forces at play. The idea that some providers would "be neutral" to woo customers is not even silly, it's entirely disingenuous. Many people live under a defacto monopoly so there's no incentive whatsoever for providers to do anything but use their gate keeping position to charge as much rent as they can. Even when there's one or two alternatives, we're talking about choosing between two or three large companies who's structural interests are relatively closely aligned in every way except the nature of the connection being offered.
The entire "let the markets sort it out" line is a simple and clear misdirection. The only way the markets could sort it out would be if all the major ISP and carrier networks opened their networks for anyone to use at or near cost... and hey, doesn't that sound a lot like Net Neutrality?
