Here is the problem:
All good and true, but then his solution is abrogating property rights, and then "somehow" introduce competition, a reliance on capitalism.
I don't like abrogating property rights, but the "mall owners" never invested a dime of their money in technology they got for free from the taxpayers. They were merely selected as winners by the powers that be. They are really appointed caretakers (and exploiters) of what society has so far wrought.
The author goes on to say:
Right now people subscribe in advance, present a message to send or a request to fetch something to their ISP, and the bells and ISPs split up money based on payment plans. All very complicated. You get what they say is good, all very Soviet. The hegemon is ultimately in control, all very imperial.
So how about this? Arbitrage, a fine free market tradition. We tell the caretakers, the corporations who were appointed winners, that we have changed our mind. Now those utilities will be wide open. Anyone and everyone can originate any send or receive requests. They may submit it to anyone they like. And anyone may charge any price to facilitate the transaction.
So I and Verizon are one when it comes to exploiting the web. Verizon has zero advantage. If Comcast wants to charge $90 a month for "blast" internet, and it costs presently $3 a month to handle the traffic, I can come in and do the work for $60, saving money, denying Comcast unwarranted income, and turning a profit, then I do so.
Of course, there is always someone who will do the same for a buck less, so we'll see the prices drift down, and in order to make money, we'll see people add on, as Joe Girard said, things that make our services worth more to people than their money. Apps that track your car keys, wallet, iPhone and your four year old, things you are always leaving behind.
Yes, it will take some more inventions, and some new software, but we are not short of software engineers. We do not have to add to the infrastructure, we just need a program that measures capacity at what speed and then opens it to the highest bidder, second by second, or minute by minute. The telcos do this now with "nights and weekends free" and the stock market today is rigged with high-freak trading where billions are traded in front of need by microseconds. Why not have these people write code from behind bars, where they belong, with clemency attendant on deployment of this new system.
Yes, it would be wild west up to the point where the bid for space and time is managed by the software that google-ad style would send the message. Consumers could manage their use, providers could predict costs, and countless people would save money sending that email at midnight instead of instantly. Spammers and pornographers would find themselves actually having to pay for their use. (The degree to which we receive spam is the degree to which microsoft never addressed this problem in their software, and the problem is manifest in Bill Gates' personal wealth.)
Bring the free market solution of arbitrage to the problem. All of the moving parts are in place now anyway, and as the writer noted, there is no one to root for. Either side wants a deal that either way screws the consumer. The only question in the debate is who gets to do the screwing?
How about neither. How about peace, prosperity and justice? But in capitalism, which is putatively morally neutral, this topics never come up. They do recognize "moral hazard" but like rain on a picnic, nothing to be done about that.
The word the consumers need is "arbitrage." Send the exploiters on both sides packing, and let people willing to compete on design have the field. Software programming will come back in demand.
Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.
But the answer is not regulations imposing net neutrality. You can already smell the mandates and the loopholes once Congress gets involved. Think special, high-speed priority for campaign commercials or educational videos about global warming. Or roadblocks--like requiring emergency 911 service--to try to kill off free Internet telephone services such as Skype. And who knows what else? Network neutrality won't be the laissez-faire sandbox its supporters think, but more like used kitty litter. We all know that regulations beget more lobbyists. I'd rather let the market sort these things out.
But what market? Phone lines, cable, and cellular--i.e., the means of Internet access--are all regulated; their operators are quasi-monopolies. Even if you end the monopolies, the incumbents have the advantage of a huge head start. Broadcasters own valuable spectrum and feed us cretinous shows like Wife Swap and The Bachelor. Cable has a lock on our homes via local franchise bribes, er, fees, so we get Lifetime and Animal Planet that no one watches. Satellite TV is content to charge just a hair under cable's pricing umbrella. For phone companies, too much Internet bandwidth would threaten their bread and butter--overpriced $25 per month (it's worth no more than $1) phone service and hot innovations like call waiting.
All good and true, but then his solution is abrogating property rights, and then "somehow" introduce competition, a reliance on capitalism.
I don't like abrogating property rights, but the "mall owners" never invested a dime of their money in technology they got for free from the taxpayers. They were merely selected as winners by the powers that be. They are really appointed caretakers (and exploiters) of what society has so far wrought.
The author goes on to say:
We don't even know what new things are possible. Bandwidth is like putty in the hands of entrepreneurs--new regulations are cement. We don't want a town square or a dilapidated mall--we want a vibrant metropolis. Net neutrality is already the boring old status quo. But don't give in to the cable/telco status quo either. Far better to have competition, as long as it's real, than let Congress shape the coming communications chaos and creativity.Yes, but we can guess if we employ free markets and not capitalism. Taxpayers paid, good and hard and perniciously, for the infrastructure and its use and maintenance. Its use is governed by inventions, some of it software protocols.
Right now people subscribe in advance, present a message to send or a request to fetch something to their ISP, and the bells and ISPs split up money based on payment plans. All very complicated. You get what they say is good, all very Soviet. The hegemon is ultimately in control, all very imperial.
So how about this? Arbitrage, a fine free market tradition. We tell the caretakers, the corporations who were appointed winners, that we have changed our mind. Now those utilities will be wide open. Anyone and everyone can originate any send or receive requests. They may submit it to anyone they like. And anyone may charge any price to facilitate the transaction.
So I and Verizon are one when it comes to exploiting the web. Verizon has zero advantage. If Comcast wants to charge $90 a month for "blast" internet, and it costs presently $3 a month to handle the traffic, I can come in and do the work for $60, saving money, denying Comcast unwarranted income, and turning a profit, then I do so.
Of course, there is always someone who will do the same for a buck less, so we'll see the prices drift down, and in order to make money, we'll see people add on, as Joe Girard said, things that make our services worth more to people than their money. Apps that track your car keys, wallet, iPhone and your four year old, things you are always leaving behind.
Yes, it will take some more inventions, and some new software, but we are not short of software engineers. We do not have to add to the infrastructure, we just need a program that measures capacity at what speed and then opens it to the highest bidder, second by second, or minute by minute. The telcos do this now with "nights and weekends free" and the stock market today is rigged with high-freak trading where billions are traded in front of need by microseconds. Why not have these people write code from behind bars, where they belong, with clemency attendant on deployment of this new system.
Yes, it would be wild west up to the point where the bid for space and time is managed by the software that google-ad style would send the message. Consumers could manage their use, providers could predict costs, and countless people would save money sending that email at midnight instead of instantly. Spammers and pornographers would find themselves actually having to pay for their use. (The degree to which we receive spam is the degree to which microsoft never addressed this problem in their software, and the problem is manifest in Bill Gates' personal wealth.)
Bring the free market solution of arbitrage to the problem. All of the moving parts are in place now anyway, and as the writer noted, there is no one to root for. Either side wants a deal that either way screws the consumer. The only question in the debate is who gets to do the screwing?
How about neither. How about peace, prosperity and justice? But in capitalism, which is putatively morally neutral, this topics never come up. They do recognize "moral hazard" but like rain on a picnic, nothing to be done about that.
The word the consumers need is "arbitrage." Send the exploiters on both sides packing, and let people willing to compete on design have the field. Software programming will come back in demand.
Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.
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