Market Forces and the Internet
Larry Lessig, a Stanford Law Professor, made an incredibly cogent point re Market Forces and the Internet. The Telecomms and their shills at Hands Off the Internet keep pointing out that “market forces” should rule the way the internet works, and not regulation. Larry says that that’s exactly what happened with YouTube. Market forces grew it into the most popular video site on the web, because it was the best video site as determined by the audience, despite deep pockets competition from Google Video. And this would not have been allowed to happen on a non neutral net.
Of course, the Telecomms want those market forces to be forced to work in their favor, not in favor of the little guy, or even another “big guy” like Google. And the market forces they keep talking about don’t really exist. They say that Net Neutrality doesn’t need to be regulated since if they don’t give us what we want we’ll just choose another ISP. But most people only have a choce of one or two thanks to the regulatory largesse and merger approvals those same Telecomms have gotten from the FCC in the past. And with the proposed AT&T BellSouth merger the number of broadband choices could shrink even more for a great number of people, and at a time when other Big Media mergers will, if the Republican FCC members have their way, squash divergent voices by putting most media in this country in the hands of six men.
AT&T, Verizon, and the others are scared to death they’ll be forced someday to actually compete with lots of new services, instead of just divvying up the country, the way they’ve done in the past. Right now they’ll do anything to keep that from happening, but except for a few states like NJ and California, them taking the fight to the State level, after running into opposition at the Federal level, isn’t working so well. Here in PA they tried to squash Municipal rights to negotiate franchise fees under legislation that would enact a statewide franchise with no buildout requirement. Municipalities turned around and squashed any hope of the so called PA cable choice bill being passed.
And talking about market forces, if the FCC, in one mad pro consumer moment, let go of that last mile and let Municipalities lay down their own Fiber and sell franchises to companies like AT&T and Verizon who want to deliver service over it, that would really allow market forces to work properly. It’s called Local Loop Unbundling, for those who don’t know. It’s also the regulation, in one form or another, in most of the countries who are ahead of the US in broadband deployment. And I’m talking REAL broadband, usually in excess of 5mbps bidirectional, not the puny FCC definition of 200kbps one way.
Man the phones, folks. We have to keep after the FCC, and the Senate so Net Neutrality isn’t scuttled.
Technorati Tags: Net Neutrality, Larry Lessig, Internet Market Forces, Hands off the Internet, AT&T, Verizon, FCC, US Broadband Deployment, YouTube, Google
