"Democrats in the New York state Assembly say any broadband provider picked to replace Charter Communications in the state should be required to observe net neutrality. . .Good luck finding a provider willing to do this without an outlandish NYS-style taxpayer or ratepayer subsidy to finance defiance of the laws of economics. Net Neutrality may sound good, but it is really the opposite.
"The lawmakers say whichever company replaces Charter should be prohibited from altering web speeds or traffic to favor certain sites or apps."
Requiring "Net Neutrality" unnecessarily extends government control, worsening service, raising rates for most people, and inhibiting expansion and innovation.
"Unnecessary" because new technologies (eg., 4G LTE) are introducing competition into the marketplace, giving customers options of doing business with another internet provider if they feel their current provider is being unfair to them.
"Worsening service" and "raising rates" because non-affiliated content makers (eg. TV channels, movie industry, news sources, etc. ) will siphon income that the internet provider needs to maintain its network. Remember that Spectrum/Time Warner Cable/ and Harron Communications (locally) began with delivering content (TV), not internet, and their wired networks' well-being depended upon the income received for content.
"Inhibiting expansion and innovation" because a provider will not make the needed investment if an investment will benefit competitors more than itself.
It's like the old "Fairness Doctrine" of 40-50 years ago which required that broadcasters give "equal time" to opposing viewpoints. The result was that many broadcasters simply stopped disseminating any viewpoints at all in order to avoid the government's paper work. Instead of providing the public with alternative viewpoints on an issue, the public would up receiving less information.
With apologies to Mies van der Rohe, "Less (governmental control) is More (public benefit)"
1 comment:
Net neutrality means that I get to choose which sites and services I access through my ISP, not my ISP by controlling what it will cost me to access each. Having an alternative ISP doesn't mitigate that. It only gives another ISP control over my Internet access.
Innovation related to services and sites would be stymied by ISPs controlling access since the ISPs would be able to decide which new services and whose websites Internet traffic can get to and at what cost.
I think you're so focused on government control that you're ignoring unfair vendor control over what has become necessary access to services and information. There is very little confidence in government these days, but the confidence we have in huge corporations is no greater - and for good reason.
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