Net neutrality

While I sympathize and understand many of the concerns people have about the internet, such as ISP’s slowing/speeding certain data (throttling) based on price, and poor quality of service to many areas (typically rural), I believe that government regulation and control are terrible ways to deal with these concerns, and that the market is far better equipped to deal with these issues.

As a forward, I would remind folks that the Obama era FCC regulations were only 2 years old, and other net neutrality laws worldwide are typically less than 5 years old. Almost the entire world lived and thrived without net neutrality until 2015. Telecoms were always “free” to enact all the nightmare scenarios currently being proposed by countless op-eds, but did not. Yet somehow the internet is now in mortal danger without these regulations?

Color me skeptical, to say the least.

Make no mistake; it's not that I believe corporations/businesses/ISP’s refrained from doing so out of kindness and generosity. Market and tort law pressures were on them to refrain from doing so, and always will in a free market. To push some of these theorized nightmare scenarios would cost these corporations billions, or even their entire business. And so long as the market is free to act upon them, such terrible business actions will always have a cost that’s too much for the corporation/business to bear.

A common retort or rejoinder at this junction is that I, and others with my position, must really “trust” a corporation or business to “do the right thing” or “have my best interest at heart” if I’m comfortable allowing the market to act upon them, rather than the government.

I “trust” that a telecom company has my best interest in mind only insofar as it doesn't want me paying someone else for the same service and losing their profits. If they fail to please me, I move on, so they “care” to see me happy insomuch as they care to not have their own profits and livelihoods slashed to ribbons as I, and millions of others, jump ship.

I wholly agree that companies like Comcast/Verizon can hold tacit monopolies in many areas of the country (usually rural), and in turn, they offer horrible service, and even the ability to play "King Maker" when it comes to data packets. However, my stance is this. Nothing kills monopolies faster than market competition. Nothing drives up service, quality, and innovation; while driving down cost and inefficiencies faster than market competition.

If Comcast sucks--and they often do--passing common carrier regulations on them, locking their rates, and making them more and more the de-facto, governmentally regulated monopoly isn't going to make that terrible service/quality any better.

It will, however, discourage competition against them. Why would a hungry Comcast competitor invest a fortune in capital/labor to enter a market if the government is just going to lock them in at a given rate, and restrict/remove their competitive, more efficient practices through heavy regulation?

Companies like AOL and Blackberry, once said to possess oppressive, unbreakable monopoly power in the telecom industry-- thus requiring drastic regulation--are now footnotes in telecom history. The market brought these once “unstoppable monoliths” to their knees, thanks to voracious competition via profit seeking.

I fear that the great danger of Net Neutrality and other “common carrier” regulations is that it entrenches the position of incumbent players, thus shielding them from the same desirable process that removed companies like AOL and RIM (Blackberry).

Telecoms, just like people, are "greedy," but that's fine. "Greed" in a competitive market drives innovation and efficiency, giving us more for less. Remove the competition, though, and you're left with abject greed in the form of governmental/corporate collusion.

I believe greater Net Neutrality regulations on telecom/ISP’s is the road to more of this insufferable corporate-governmental collusion, where companies work with regulators to keep the monopoly JUST sufferable enough to avoid widespread political backlash, and keep competition away from the monopoly, ensuring a slow, but steady and guaranteed profit, with no fear of bankruptcy from being outmatched by more efficient competitors.

There is still much, much more to do when it comes to increasing the efficiency and reach of the telecom industry, and provide better, cheaper services to everyone in the country. I believe this will come from de-regulating the market, and not from increasing the regulation upon it.

Overt regulation stifles growth, protects lazy, inefficient firms, and limits personal choice. I believe we will all get more of what we want, and spend less getting it, if we allow private interests to compete for our business. Nothing drives invitation and efficiency like personal gain; and a free market allows both individual producers to gain from their invitations, while their end users (all of society) reap the benefits of the newly available innovations.

The temptation to believe that a government can step in and make something more efficient, innovative, and widely accessible by simply passing legislation and regulation that decrees it must be is painfully seductive, yet does not coincide with economic reality, and rarely, if ever, succeeds in doing so.

I implore my friends and family to be skeptical, open to discussion, and ask questions to those who do not see eye-to-eye with you. Honest discussion trumps zinging one-liners, posting vacuous memes, slinging mud, or pigeonholing people who do not agree with you as fools, idiots, shills, or worst of all, “evil.”