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by wpietri
4082 days ago
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I don't think we should ban other media, and I don't know why you think I'm obliged to defend that straw man. New mediums come along rarely. It behooves us to be very careful in how we adopt them. That's especially true for the Internet, which I think is more powerful and likely to be more lasting than its historical competitors. When television came along, there was enormous hope for its power. But its commercial structure, at least in the US, left it to become "the idiot box". For people who would like to pay a lot of money to constrain people to listen to their messages, TV still exists. it's possible that Internet-- won't reduce prevent getting people proper Internet service, but when making major societal decisions, I think we deserve a higher standard than the possibility of not fucking things up for the next few hundred years. I do note that in the US internet market, the reason most people's ISP is their old telco or cable company is that poor regulation let the old oligopoly players rebuild their oligopolies for a new medium through undercutting real competition. That now looks impossible to dislodge, which is why we need net neutrality regulation in the first place. So it seems plausible to me that letting quick hits of easy money determine who gets to see what on the Internet could establish long-term patterns that permanently undermine net neutrality. |
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You never have more than the possibility of not fucking things up. When you're arguing against allowing people from subscribing to a service, I think they deserve a better standard than "I know better than you what is good for you".
As I've pointed out, there have been many mediums of communication, that have been installed for many years before the Internet appeared, yet they didn't stop it from taking hold rather rapidly. I don't see why you shouldn't have to explain why you think this time is different, besides "well, it might be!"
I do note that in the US internet market, the reason most people's ISP is their old telco or cable company is that poor regulation let the old oligopoly players rebuild their oligopolies for a new medium through undercutting real competition. That now looks impossible to dislodge, which is why we need net neutrality regulation in the first place. So it seems plausible to me that letting quick hits of easy money determine who gets to see what on the Internet could establish long-term patterns that permanently undermine net neutrality.
"Let" is not the right word. Regulation in the US was designed to build and sustain those oligopoly players. I see no reason to assume that "easy money" alone will provoke the same effect; the ISPs in my country all have plenty of money, and many offer zero rating or the equivalent, and yet we still have an healthy market.