We’re About to Lose Net Neutrality

> I'd rather just agree to disagree on philosophy and economics.

I'm sure you would. I'm armed with a long list of time-honored principles that allow a big player to anti-competitively grind a small player into the ground long before any real competition can take place.

You are armed with your faith in the market.

> Where we disagree is whether or not it is possible to create the conditions for a truly competitive market primarily by reducing state involvement. I believe it is.

You hit the nail on the head: I believe that there are a handful of important markets where the "more freedom!" approach not only doesn't lead to optimization, but leads to counter-optimization.

I take international comparisons of health care costs/efficacy as my evidence.

> In my opinion, fears of private monopolies are generally unwarranted, that most "natural" private monopolies are flimsy and temporary.

If only I could force reality to comply with your opinion, I would be a much happier person.

> I fear more the monopolies created by the government, such as the monopoly that "licensed" physicians hold

Seriously?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_heal...

I fear a "free" health care market more than I fear a single-player "govrnment monopoly."

I also object to the use of the term "monopoly" in relationship to the government. Market monopolies have direct incentive to screw you for whatever they can, and they get to keep the spoils. The government has checks and balances that frustrate the process, and the people involved get to keep a far smaller fraction of the spoils. Market monopolies are worse.

It's true that there is a rural/urban breakover point; I'd contend that is at far greater densities than most people think, especially if we made use of the entire spectrum rather than the drips and drabs meted out so far by the FCC. The portion of the population getting shafted right now, all the "rural" (and most suburban, and urban in Texas-style "sprawling" cities) folks, is definitely a majority. "Laws of physics" arguments aren't convincing at this point, since engineers have had their hands tied by FCC regs. Let a big market for this type of radio tech exist for a decade, and then we'll see what can be done.

Amen.

I would argue that it's not even clear how the market would respond to this, and yet the pro-neutrality camp paint a picture of corporate apocalypse. This seems reasonable to me:

Neutrality rules are repealed. Some ISPs begin discriminating against certain publishers that do not pay up, but can use the payments to subsidize reductions in cost of consumer access. The "multitudes" of neutrality proponents begin demanding undiscriminated connections, calling for boycotts, switching to providers that offer such connections. Neutrality activists develop tools to compare and publicize connection rates to different publishers through different ISPs. Small-time providers form associations to raise awareness of the issue as well. Ethical marketing comes into play as some ISPs and some big publishers reject connection rate differentiation. Some ISPs that also own publishing properties are caught or implied to be preferring their own content over competitors, drawing political attention. In some areas, net neutrality laws (not just "rules") are passed, which is a draw for startups. Meanwhile, many who had no home connectivity in the past are now able to afford the "subsidized/sponsored" service level.

What irks me about the middle-class idealogues raising a fuss about this now is that they arbitrarily draw the line of equality around big corporations, with little attention given to the fact that service is tiered at all. If it doesn't make sense for small publishers to be penalized for not ponying up, it should make even less sense for certain individuals in society to be penalized for not being able to afford anything more than dial-up or basic DSL. Going further, it should be more appalling that the most financially under-resourced can't even afford the most basic service level, and live without any internet participation. Instead, they prefer corporations to carry the costs of keeping the level field artificially level, while doing nothing to help those below them have the same level of access they do.