I don’t think the anti-innovation concept here is specific to the internet. Any case where you have a platform which can be constrained for profit, you’re going to raise the difficulty for new or modified entry into that platform.
Take highways as an example. Say we privatize highways and the owners started charging tolls based on the make and model of car that you drive. GM, Ford, Toyota, etc would have the wherewithal to make deals with the highway owner, so you pay a reduced toll if you drive one of their cars. But what if you want to start a new car company that does something very different? Anyone buying one of those cars is going to pay the full toll, and thus they’ll have a much harder time getting customers. Or what if the highway owner decides they don’t like electric vehicles for some reason, so they won’t accept reduced tolls for those. People are less interested in EVs, and thus manufacturers stop making them. Or maybe Ford buys the highway system around New York City, and says Fords pay no tolls but anyone else pays full price. Suddenly there’s nothing but Ford dealerships available for anyone buying a car in that area.
It’s not a perfect analogy, but it’s close, and it’s a lot more relatable for the non-techie folks out there.
Multiplayer online gaming is a good way to frame the conversation for some. Lag puts you at a competitive disadvantage and so the companies that host these games have made massive investments to their networks to reduce the potential for lag as much as possible.
Let’s say that Comcast comes to some agreement with EA, a company with deep pockets, to prioritize their traffic above their competitors. Comcast, or any larger provider or backbone carrier, could effectively ruin the gaming experience for users of any game whose parent company is unwilling or unable to pay their blackmail. How many existing companies would fold? How could new companies afford the cost of entry to such a market, especially when you realize that every major provider and backbone carrier can make their own demands.
Now expand that same concept beyond gaming. When the stakes are in the billions of dollars (e.g., Amazon), there will be millions of dollars up for grabs for carriers and ISPs looking to work out strategic partnerships with existing behemoths like Amazon, Google, Netflix, YouTube, etc. it would be impossible to launch a startup to compete. Any potential future behemoths are killed before they’re born.
And if someone does manage to innovate the next big thing on the Internet, it can be crushed and the idea co-opted as soon as its popularity calls attention to itself.
Of cours, lag puts you at a huge competitive disadvantage is really as far as you’d need to carry the analogy for gamers ;)
I have still managed to get no answers from these people, just questions like,
“Why would a corporation have price bias? What would they seek to achieve? I know some businesses are evil and have an agenda, but the vast majority are out to make a profit. Why would the government want to prevent price bias? What do they get out of it… except that they get more control over the nefarious interwebs?”
So I think it’s just paranoia and overly-Randian thought.
Regardless of the actual impact of net neutrality, all Democratic ads and campaigns are going to blame every single increase in online fees and services that happen between now and the end of time on the repeal of net neutrality.
As commerce increasingly is going to be online this will be the pocketbook issue that keeps on giving. I am not saying its going to be a big one, but a steady drip drip against Republicans going forward. So getting all Triggercut optimistic for a moment, some good could come of it.
Before Facebook & Youtube there was little money to be made. Youtube was certainly no competitor to packaged cable TV, until it was. Even then I was surprised to see the screws being set to netflix so early in the game. So the ISPs have already shown they will abuse their position and that was before there was even real money on the table. I always expected them to do this, but I did not expect them to do it so damn fast.
Also, they invested the same amount with and without net neutrality, actually stating this in black and white on their earnings calls and reports. You know, the ones that require them to absolutely positively not fuck around, lie or stretch the truth or the SEC will cut their balls off.
“Before there were lightbulbs, we didn’t have any regulation of the electric companies, and things went fine! I don’t see why we need those regulations!”
Ugh, that twitter thread has a lot of dumb right-wingers thinking Hamill was complaining about Cruz referring to him as Luke. It was that he referred to him as “Hammill” you Trump-brains!
Douchebag Pai is going to reclassify mobile phones as broadband, so that communities with cell coverage will not qualify for assistance and grants to expand real broadband into their regions.
