Over at Warhol’s Phone I got to talking about Net Neutrality, something I’m trying to learn more about. Slate once again has covered it, saying the recent ruling in appeals court isn’t as disasterous to Net Neutrality a we think, it will just take a little bit of backtracking to get moving forward again.
Here’s a few quotes:
Unfortunately, by 2006, it was obvious that things had gone horribly wrong. Instead of more competition in broadband, every year brought less.
Even if the Bush FCC was wrong about the glory of competition, was it perhaps right to cripple the FCC? Might we be better off with a disabled agency, one limited, effectively, to licensing radio and TV stations? The idea may sound appealing, like kicking over your brother’s sand castle, but you pretty quickly begin to see the problems. The truth is, we actually do rely on broadband as our common carrier, much as our ancestors relied on trains and the way we still rely on taxis and innkeepers. The problems and likely abuses in a system everyone depends on haven’t really changed, and why should they? Technology changes, but human nature doesn’t. Then as now, carriers have the means and reason to discriminate, charge exorbitant prices, and confuse customers with weird bills.
