[relic17]

Quoting the quote: "At the heart of common carriage is the idea that certain businesses are either so intimately connected, even essential, to the public good, or so inherently powerful—imagine the water or electric utilities—that they must be compelled to conduct their affairs in a nondiscriminatory way." Since the author apparently supports the above view, the proper questions are: what is the public good, and does it justify the use of force ("must be compelled") against any individual or business who produces something deemed to be of public importance. A person who "compels" non-criminals to do anything they do not choose to do cannot claim to be an honest protector of the public good.

[jrlevine]

The public good is the opportunity to speak and compete. Those who control the channels of distribution on the web control both.

[relic17]

Only the government can stop you from speaking (and competing), as the government is the only entity that has the right to initiate force. A company cannot censor you; it can deny you access to its property, which is the proper right of its owners. A company cannot force you not to speak if you so choose using your own means or the means of any other company that would like to work with you. It has no obligation to support you and give you the tools you need, just because you need them. Do not confuse economic power with political power.

[jrlevine]

I wholeheartedly disagree. Force doesn't always look like the point of a gun. More often than not it looks like court time and lawyers' fees.

See Hays Code censoring film from 1930-1968. See RCA tying up the FM radio patent for years in court and NBC blocking the emergence of Television. See consolidation in the radio industry limiting the number of participants in broadcasting.

Wu puts it nicely:

“If making yourself heard cannot be practically accomplished in an actual public square but rather depends upon some medium, and upon that medium is built an industry restricting access to it, there is no free market for speech.

We sometimes treat the information industries as if they were like any other enterprise, but they are not, for their structure determines who gets heard.

But barriers in an information industry, trafficking as it does in expressive content, can represent more than a restraint on commercial aspirations; they can, depending on how crucially the information medium figures in a society’s communications, also restrain free speech."

Wu, Tim (2010). The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires. Knopf. Kindle Edition.

[relic17]

Force is at the point of a gun, and only in that case you (or, rather, the government as your agent) should point a gun at it (or in a case of demonstrable fraud). A business which does not defraud you or physically force you to do anything can only have economic power. If you propose to point a gun at economic power (possibly because you think that the business in question is a monopoly), then the issue is much deeper. You would have to think about what justifies "compulsion", about the source of monopolies, and, fundamentally, about the rights of the businessmen who own and operate the businesses you have mind (as well as your own rights, which are the same). This is a serious thinking process, but one has to go through it to understand why Wu is wrong.

[jrlevine]

Your issue is with the government's right to enforce antitrust law, for which there is a long history showing why they should. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competition_law

[relic17]

I do disagree with the anti-trust laws. I have taken a long hard look at anti-trust, both academically and professionally, and I think these laws are among the worst.

The whole issue is not economic, it is philosophical, about ethics - i.e. what is moral and what rights people have.

Mr. Wu, with whom you agree, goes well beyond anti-trust. For him, as long as a business is considered essential to the public good, that alone is enough to justify "compulsion" (see your first quote). Do you agree with that? Or would you try to prove (as hard as that can be) that Facebook and Google are monopolies first?

You say "we should vote with our attention", and I fully agree. This is a proper way to make a change. Another would be to write articles like the one you've just written, using your own means. Compulsion should be reserved for criminals.