Net Neutrality is a tough issue. Even the name sparks an instant debate: “Neutral” to whom? Even so, it’s something I feel very strongly about, and have a near-unshakable opinion on. Also, when it comes to my peer group of technology journalists, I happen to be in a distinct minority.
This, of course, gives me pause. I might disagree with my distinguished former colleagues at Engadget on a few points of style, for instance, but for the most part we’ve vehemently agreed with each other when it comes to big picture technology issues. Carriers need to be more flexible and device agnostic, phones need capacitive touchscreens and multitasking, laptops should have long battery life and nice screens, browsers shouldn’t suck, etc.
So why isn’t “nets should be more neutral” just as cut and dry? Why isn’t that a simple question of technological preference, instead of a messy political debate that I’m on the oh-so-very-wrong side of the fence on? It’s because Net Neutrality is a two-part issue. Part technical, part ideological.
See, I think Dell should have better screens and battery life in its laptops. I am unshakable in that belief. I will yell at them in print, glare at them in meetings, and ridicule them among my colleagues to that effect. That’s the technical side, and it’s a bit of a no-brainer.
Similarly, I think internet should be fast and open. Service providers should concentrate and compete on improving speed and being (for the most part) application agnostic. By allowing the widest swath of applications on their network, they allow an entire economy to build value for their network. When they start choosing sides or clamping down, that’s when they’ll really have to “compete” on turf they aren’t capable of winning on — providing every service every user ever wants. So, that’s pretty cut and dry, right? About as common sense to someone like me as “longer battery life” and “better screens.”
But there’s a second half to the Net Neutrality debate that is ideological. Simply put, I know what I want in a product from Dell, and I know what I want in a product from Verizon, but I would never want the government to dictate to Dell or Verizon what they can or can’t or must or musn’t deliver to me. This belief has nothing to do with my nerd cred or geek affectations, it has everything to do with the fact that I’m an immovable conservative, ideologically.
Of course, I’m not naive. I wouldn’t begin to assume that service providers won’t ever make bad choices that harm their customers — in fact, they seem particularly good at shooting themselves in the foot. I don’t know what the next five years are going to look like on the internet. Maybe I’ll have to pay $5 to access YouTube, or $5 to access anything that isn’t YouTube! Stranger things have been suggested by Net Neutrality advocates, in the form of quasi-dares to these service behemoths. It would be horrible, and I’d yell bloody murder within my 140 character limit. But I’d still much rather live in a country where business decisions are made by business owners, not the vague machinations of a representative republic.
Now, I’ve been involved in enough “debates” over politics in my life to know they rarely deserve the term. They’re typically shouting matches, and they don’t accomplish much. I’m not going to turn anyone into a conservative with a simple editorial, and so I doubt I’m going to convince anyone that the government shouldn’t tell Verizon and AT&T what they can and can’t do with the networks they built. If your ideological slant has you in the governmental-intervention-for-the-greater-good corner, I don’t have a shot of getting you out of it. I can’t even promise that Net Neutrality wouldn’t be for the greater good, at least in the short term. I really don’t know. But I do believe very strongly that it isn’t on the side of freedom. Or even Freedom.
My purpose here is to help frame this conversation. Some people seem to think it’s odd that old white men in Washington could feel so strongly about an issue like Net Neutrality. “Do they even know how to use a computer? Leave this one to us nerds.” And it’s true, perhaps they don’t have any conception of how a “dumb pipe” approach to a network is a good move for consumers and therefore a good move for the providers. Perhaps they have their teenage daughters sync their iPods for them, and a PR staff responsible for their Twitter activity. They very well might be squares.
But they know politics. In their mind (and mine), government intervention and specification doesn’t promote innovation, it hinders it. That is what is at the crux of this issue for me, and why my objection to Net Neutrality has nothing to do with a betrayal of my nerd roots, only a continuation of my political heritage.
29 Comments
The part I feel you are missing is that there is no legal barrier to entry for the laptop market. Anybody can make a laptop, pass some safety testing and sell it.
But with both wired and wireless broadband, we are dealing with limited monopolies.
Radio spectrum was auctioned off. Cable and TelCo’s have local franchise monopolies. So mandating that they concentrate on delivering the best possible core product in exchange for their exclusivity is fair.
Fundamentally, broadband access is a utility just like power, water, and gas. Regulate it as such.
this.
Every time corps have been left to their own devices people get hurt for profit. Gov attempts to keep it safe.
Paul, I appreciate that this post comes from wanting to be as transparent as possible about what informs your opinions, but I think you may have unintentionally tipped your hand a bit.
When you say that you are an “immovable conservative,” you reveal that your political ideology is simply an ideology that can’t be informed by facts. Practical realities have no place in the debate, because your mind is already made up and defined by your ideology. The problem with that, of course, is that an ideology offers no beginning or ending point. It’s a vague notion that doesn’t know any limits along a spectrum or continuum. It can’t adjust to a new issue because it’s not equipped to consider any of the relevant issues at hand.
In this specific case, this is where your position breaks down. Your contention is that you’d rather have companies making decisions rather than government. That’s not an argument; it’s a restatement of an ideology. The problem is that there’s nothing about it that is any different than someone’s objection to breaking apart railroad monopolies or the need to regulate the monopolistic power of Ma Bell.
An ideology is not enough to address the relevant issues at hand. Your particular ideology would leave no room for any government regulation of any sector. If you say that you’re not that extreme, then you also have to offer what informs your opinions beyond ideology, at which point you would have to admit that basic, real-world realities have to be considered. That is more than you seem to be willing to acknowledge here.
No, he’s not saying any of the things you claim concerning his “immovable” position. He’s saying that – like pretty much everybody else (including you and me) – he’s biased. Don’t you dare punish people for acknowledging their affiliations, and don’t you dare suggest that you stand above bias (and thus above everybody else as well).
Well no, I was saying that just stating an ideological position isn’t enough to satisfy anyone. We may all have biases, but that’s why it’s necessary to provide arguments that go beyond them. That’s the entire point of my comment.
I couldn’t agree more. Every time the government gets involved in privacy enterprise costs rise and efficiency decreases. Look at healthcare or the $4,000 they will pay for a hammer. No wonder you had to leave Engadget where the term Communists could be used to describe alot of the editorial staff.
I agree!
Future & Present Paul,
As always, a very engaging article – especially for such a opinionated topic and while I disagree, I appreciate your candor in bringing this topic to the forefront of opinionated journalism – not just taking a neutral stance by reporting.
I guess my main issue with Net Neutrality is that these companies (ATT/Verizon/Comcast) don’t own the “pipes” but act like they do. Those “pipes,” were largely built by tax payers and government subsidies – as well as investment by the telcos. So why is it so wrong that we want a voice in the matter, in the form that people have a voice – government?
I agree that competition should play a large part in the regulation of the web and the pipes that it runs on but time and time over, these telcos have proven that they can not act in the best interest of their customers. After all, if this T-Mobile deal goes through, we will have only 3 carriers for mobile – that is not the competition that will cause self regulation.
Once again – bravo for speaking your mind.
This is a real “camel’s nose under the tent” issue. Once legislators get approval to meddle in any industry, they will regulate for any reason that will give them political influence. I always ask people who stump for network neutrality if they would appreciate an FCC run by the political opposition- would you want President Palin’s FCC commissioner to have power over ISPs in any regard? Does the thought frighten you? Then don’t give in to your temptation to regulate! If these big ISPs actually behave in monopolistic or anticompetitive ways, there are already mechanisms in the law to deal with those situations.
In this case, I think the behavior of FCC commissioner Julius Genakowski should give anyone who supports net neutrality pause. Here is an unelected federal regulator who, when the courts told him he had no authority to act, just decided unilaterally to change the classification of certain industries so that they would fall within the scope of his control. Again, imagine if President Palin’s regulators decided independently that they should be able to regulate businesses that the courts explicitly told them were offlimits.
As someone who would’ve instinctively answered “of course” to the question of whether the net should be neutral I do find a lot of merit in your position.
Is there any meaningful compromise between a truly “neutral” net (whatever that means), and a totally free-market net? Are there any net “rights” that need to be protected, and which could be sensibly regulated for, leaving parties free to exploit everything else as they best see fit? Or is it a more fundamental “right” that governments simply cannot not interfere?
It seems to me that the internet is probably the single best example of a truly universal service that (all) governments should leave well alone! But then I do worry that the internet that has underpinned so much of this 21st century world in which we live, is one in which access is _generally_ open to all, for all things. Though whether this is the best model for the future, I don’t know.
In the end it seems that people do not seem to have a lot of love for those that run the pipes, and wires, unlike those that send their data down them. But, as is almost too obvious to have to say, if those companies are not financial viable enterprises they will no longer be able to run those pipes and wires, and the data we do love will be going nowhere! Why is everyone else allowed to make money on the internet, except for those that manage the infrastructure itself?
“Why is everyone else allowed to make money on the internet, except for those that manage the infrastructure itself?”
I don’t think there is a single person, on wither side of the issue, that says: “The Telcos shouldn’t be making money.” In fact, it’s quite the opposite – they make truck loads of cash.
Uh they are making truckloads of cash.
Are you agreeing or disagreeing?
Paul,
I mostly agree with you, but have a few comments:
1) The biggest issue I have with legislating for net neutrality is that it will be done wrong. If written badly, it could outlaw all traffic-shaping, which would be bad. If there was no traffic shaping, net use in congested areas during peak hours would be awful.
2) Regulating Verizon or AT&T is a little different than regulating Dell or HP. The carriers/ISP’s use public resources — the airwaves, wires run on poles/land that is owned by municipal governments, etc. The cable operators have exclusivity in most of the municipalities they serve. As such, the government is granting them them monopoly powers over said resources. Given, they pay for the use of these resources, but these resources are largely owned by the commons, and as such, it is potentially in the moral sphere of government to regulate the use of said resources. Whether it is wise or not to do so is another question altogether.
I have pretty libertarian-ish attitudes toward such things, and prefer to err on the side of less regulation than more from a practical standpoint, if not an ethical one.
In general, as a liberal-tarian, I agree that government should in general stay out of they way of functioning markets. However, I think you’re operating under a misconception that utilities like AT&T, Verizon etc are private enterprises competing in a market. In some cases that may be more or less true, as it is with the wireless industry. However, in most cases, traditional internet providers are actually utilities in the literal definition of the word – government granted monopolies. The compromise utilities make with the government is that they will get guaranteed income because of their monopoly and in exchange, the government gets some say in how they operate. The compromise the government makes is that they grant a monopoly in exchange for a large initial capital investment from the utility as well as the utility’s concession to be regulated.
The way most people access the internet – through either a cable provider or telecom company, they access it through a utility. In those cases, I think net neutrality regulation is both necessary and fair game (to prevent utilities from abusing their monopoly). Even in the more competitive case of wireless carriers, they are granted both massive government subsidies and exclusive use of public resources such as wireless spectrum. In exchange for these subsidies and use of wireless spectrum, I also think it’s fair game to require they submit to reasonable, consumer focused regulation.
In order for there to be universal service the internet has to be a right for everyone and that means some government regulation is needed . When bandwidth is sold like a commodity to the highest bidder it is not a neutral pipe meant to convey the data of all equally. Call me a liberal or what have you but all people should have equal access to the internet and honestly the vast amount of Americans today don’t. The internet like, health are, are a means to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and should be regulated by the government.
I totally disagree with you Paul but good article and I miss your input on Engadget.
Interesting view… I’ve never thought of it from this angle. Also, the unfortunate possibility is that the government could just as easily “mess up” the Internet as corporate america could. But I have greater confidence in the ISPs to eventually realize the customers are mad and make a change than I do for whoever we “elect” to office changing a broken system that they fought to implement. So I guess… I’m agreeing with you? Hmm… ;S
Paul,
Engadget really needs you back. The website is just not the same and I hope they realize that.
Even more so now that Josh and Nilay just bounced.
Can anyone provide an example of unregulated business practices that have resulted in benefit for consumers. Historically under-regulation is catastrophic. Just consider the recent financial disaster and the state of cable companies. You simply need a strong government that represents people against rapacious capitalism.
Whether government does it consistently correct or not is beside the point. The call for be for government to do it right, not to get out of the way.
I get where your coming from Paul I do the whole slippery slope deal, but in this case it’s the corporations singular goal for profit that will hinder or shape advancement. In addition as there are some bad examples of government oversight there are also some very very necesary ones. Which this may or may not be. And it is really oversight of corporations were talking not oversight of the Internet. A corporation has only one goal to make money period all else is just a means to an end. so if the public’s goal does not coincide with that your out of luck. Unless the government does it’s job and protects the public’s interest. It’s not unlike national parks but digital with computers and all that. At any rate good writing keep up the god work!
In the most perfect of worlds I would agree with you to 100%, this is not that world.
The internet is already pretty much controlled by the government, not in a conspiracy-way, but the government can control what what we see and how we use the internet if it so chooses. The companies dealing with how we use the internet are already over regulated and overly dependent on the government. They sell a service that dependent on the government.
Giving companies control of what we see and how we use the internet is giving the government more power.
Interesting perspective Paul. I really enjoyed this:
“But I’d still much rather live in a country where business decisions are made by business owners, not the vague machinations of a representative republic.”
What this tells me is something about rights. I completely agree…..to a point. The government should not decide how companies will run, the government simply needs to promote an environment of equality and fairness. Much of the Bill of Rights states what things cannot be done to a person….and in the same swing, the government should do the same thing for net neutrality. Instead of coming of what companies must do, how they must do it, forming the committee to enforce said laws…..just make it a right and slap it on they ole constitution.
Rights never tell people or entities what they MUST do, they preserve a state of fairness and equality. I think it’s time for the 28th amendment to happen.
You don’t mean “immovable conservative”, you mean “libertarian”, Paul. Other than that, great article, well written as always. I miss you on the podcast, and trying to guess whether you have a cold or not! :p
Can We Have a Free Press without Net Neutrality?
I couldn’t agree with you more about government dictation of rapidly evolving technological standards that regulators and legislators don’t understand. Yet I fear that the government will dictate what service providers make available to their customers no matter whether there is Net Neutrality legislation or not. With Net Neutrality, government influence on companies is public and open, and we can debate it. EFF can hold companies’ feet to the fire if they don’t comply with a published policy.
The alternative may be a situation like the recent one with Wikileaks, where Amazon under government pressure stopped hosting the site. These take-downs (or slow-downs that effectively have the same result) may be negotiated behind closed doors. I don’t care much if Comcast slows down DRM-violating packets from YouTube, when it comes right down to it, but I do care a lot if they slow down Al Jazeera and Wikileaks.
a biggest online company in america is looking you as their new chief editor but i hope he never talk about it and i hope he must read this post
When a business owner makes a bad call, consumers can bring correction to the market by choosing not to use or buy the product of that business. When the government makes a bad call affecting the marketplace, in this case the internet, nothing can or will be done to correct it. One bad call by the government will precipitate many more bad calls to fix the original problem so the mess just gets worse and more limiting of freedom.
Believing business owners are mainly greedy for more money and the government is moral and looking out for your best interests display illogical thinking. Both business and government are faulty, but only one is correctable. If a business doesn’t make money, it goes out of business. However, when our government runs out of money, it just prints more.
The United States capitalist economy was based on the free market. I think that you are looking at the bigger picture with Net Neutrality. What if the absolute worst happened. The Congress men and women are looking at this narrowly. ISP providers are not to make you pay $5 for every service on the internet. They are looking at just one. I use Mediacom as my ISP and they have a monopoly in my town. They are the only high speed internet providers. I would be worried if they wanted to charge me extra for Youtube because I would not be able to switch over to another carrier. This cripples the idea of a free market on the Internet. The United States government is a monopoly on itself and they make sure to have a free market in the economy. The ISP on the overhand does not because they are our for profit. This is why I think it is vital for us to adopt some type of Net Neutrality to avoid a collapse of the free market on the internet.