Keep the Internet Open

Unequivocally today's Republicans are heavily weighted, not exclusive, toward classism. It is a good and proper thing that there are rich, middle, and poor. People are different, egalitarianism is P.C. nonsense, and the classes should be preserved. People aren't equal. Better people have more wealth, wealth gives them goods and services like privacy, and even better justice because they can afford better lawyers. There are very few true rights, in this neo-feudal ideology. That is what explains the policies, including that of the new FCC.

Evil? No. I don't believe in anything supernatural. And far be it from me to imply anything. I see this as objective fact. Tone isn't required.

This isn't the Republican party of the 1920's or even the 1950's where we had massive subsidies for certain kinds of public infrastructure associated with having a civil society: telephone service was subsidized, obviously roads heavily subsidized, and the postal service was subsidized in these rural areas. There was simply no other way to level the playing field. They, and Democrats, built massive amounts of infrastructure.

And like any aristocracy, Republican policies will favor established players. Netflix is now a player, and they are paying for better access. Now, this game only gets enhanced, which will act as a barrier to entry to future competitors. It's bad for free market folks, and it's bad for fair minded civil society folks, because it isn't either of those things. This is finders keepers, losers weepers. It's a party largely about classism.

And Democrats largely provide the veneer of opposition, but really that's specious. But like any crotchety old man with poor hearing, sometimes they get the message and we're not all just left eating cake.

A pair of riots in Berkeley within a month, San Jose during the election, the Brendan Eich situation, myriad letters from CEOs post election. To quote sama's recent post [1], "Almost everyone I asked was willing to talk to me, but almost none of them wanted me to use their names—even people from very red states were worried about getting “targeted by those people in Silicon Valley if they knew I voted for him”. One person in Silicon Valley even asked me to sign a confidentiality agreement before she would talk to me, as she worried she’d lose her job if people at her company knew she was a strong Trump supporter."

Care as much or little about the concerns of people not like you as you want, just don't act like you want to have a conversation with them too in the same breath.

1. http://blog.samaltman.com/what-i-heard-from-trump-supporters

Easier said than done. As with utilities like power, water, or gas, it's not exactly that easy to get multiple companies running infrastructure to every home.

And to be clear, all of Americas Internet provider problems stem from the last mile monopolies, not the core infrastructure.

I agree there is a lot of detrimental regulatory overhead, but I disagree that it is the primary hurdle.

Last mile infastructure is not fluid. If the customer doesn't buy, it can't be sold to someone else and the builder is stuck with the bill. It's just too expensive to build and maintain for investors to want to enter in saturated markets.

Actually, this is why I feel wireless networks need less regulation than wired ones. Radio spectrum is fluid and normal market marchanics are more at play.

If you violate some obscure statute, you can be fined. (At best.) If you don't pay the fine, the penalties can escalate until the local police or feds arrest you (at gunpoint, if you resist) and lock you in a box.

There's 180,000 pages in the federal register [0].

How is that "easy to ignore"?

I'll take "business that I can stop paying at any time" over "armed gunmen with the legal authority to arrest me" every time.

[0] https://regulatorystudies.columbian.gwu.edu/sites/regulatory...

In the Carnegie model, 2G and 3G towers could be subsidized for accessing Wikipedia (for example) while new 5G towers are only available to premium subscribers.

Look at the Millions be spent dismantling the 2G network. That bandwidth could be subsidized by the FCC for the common good. https://www.att.com/esupport/article.html#!/wireless/KM10696...