Brilliant article from Matthew Lasar at Ars Technica examining the issues surrounding government regulation of the Internet though the lens of the issues surrounding the telegraph system. I think that, all too often, the tech punditocracy tends to ignore the thousands of years of human history that proceeded the last decade.
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the last decade? Shit, they can't remember last TUESDAY
the last decade? Shit, they can't remember last TUESDAY
Oh, I know. Most techdweebs have the attention span of an ADD riddled mayfly.
What the government *should* regulate is the playing field, akin to a referee in a sporting match, as that will ensure fair play and even competition. The referee's job (I know because I spent over 15 years officiating Ice Hockey, in three different countries) is to make sure the rules are being followed and players are not causing injury to each other.
Unfortunately in business or government there is rarely an innate sense of fair play, especially given that governments are limited to regionally specific places, and business is transacted throughout known civilization… the Internet being a prime example of a borderless marketplace. Further, governments are often just as corrupt, if not more than the businesses they regulate, as they are often owned, affiliated, etc with business or other special interests. The result, as described in the linked story, is that whoever owns the ability to regulate (be it cash, commerce, communications, or elections) will wield that power to favor the government or business they favor. When it comes to government power, I always counsel people to be very careful of granting it, as it will be used, eventually by the party you oppose, and perhaps against you.
I pretty much agree, which is why I think that Net Neutrality properly done is something that the U.S. government should enforce (to the extent that they can, regional regulation vs. global internet etc.). Unfortunately, I've also seen some wildly retarded ideas bandied about under the flag of “Network Neutrality,” like the douchenozzle we excoriated on Angry Mac Bastards who wants to conflate Net Neutrality with the fucking iPhone App Store.