I think you're ignoring the very real problems with the Internet infrastructure while you raise alarms about prospective problems. The reason utility-style regulation is a good thing is because the Internet is a utility. And like most other utilities, natural monopolies arise and the free market is distorted. There is already a gun to the head of the Internet, but instead of being putatively controlled by the populous at large it is controlled by entrenched rent-seeking oligopolists who are beholden only to shareholders that do not care about the function of the market.
Yes, there is a risk that the regulators will declare any number of rules for any number of reasons. Yes, regulatory capture of regulators is a real problem. The solution to these two problems is not to cede control to multinational corporations. Your lack of faith in human nature should extend to all humans, not just ones who are the apparatus of the state.
> Your lack of faith in human nature should extend to all humans, not just ones who are the apparatus of the state.
It's not that there's some reason to preternaturally trust corporations and to distrust the state, it's that the apparatus of the state is infinitely more powerful. If a corporation acts unethically, you lose the benefits and service it provides. If the state acts unethically, you lose your freedom and/or your life. That's a colossal difference.
Likewise, if the choice is between Google controlling access to the internet and Chinese-style regulation controlling access to the internet, there's really no choice at all: who would pick Chinese internet service over Google Fiber? And make no mistake: with utility-style regulation the only boundary between the FCC and the PRC is "the people", and if this year's election has shown anything, they are a fickle and largely ignorant bunch. "Utility-style regulation" isn't an epithet because the internet shouldn't be treated as a utility; it's an epithet because utility regulation over the past hundred years has been absolutely disastrous, enabling the supreme power of corporations, not limiting it. It's really, really sad to see the internet falling into the hands of telecoms and the FCC.
I am 44 years old, which means I remember growing up at a time when you were not allowed to own a telephone -- because AT&T exercised its corporate monopoly to control what you could plug into your AT&T phone line, and they would only permit that to be an AT&T phone, and they would not ever sell you an AT&T phone, they would only rent you one at an exorbitant price. And they didn't bother to provide you any variety in models, because why would they? There's one phone, that is what you get.
Also, if you wanted to call someone in a different area code, then I hope you are ready to shell out some cash...
If it weren't for state-exercised power, it is quite possible that things would still be this way.
I do not consider today's situation a disaster at all, relatively speaking. (For sure there are still many un-ideal things about it.)
But for the most part, it is just that AT&T kept buying smaller companies, which is just what happens in capitalism when one party starts to win, which is why checks on capitalism are necessary.
And some people are flat out wrong. Monopolies at the local level are very common historically. Small towns would have 1 blacksmith for example as there was not enough work for 2 and transportation was prohibitive.
Yup, and it feels like the blacksmith allocation is very similar to last-mile infrastructure investments. Its not worth putting two sets of infrastructure because either the existing operator is going undercut the new entrant, putting them out of business, or the competitors are going to split up some fraction of the market each, but now, both companies and their customers have to bear the full-cost of capital to wire and maintain the whole market area twice.
What's the problem then if there's not enough work for 2? You're close to a barter economy at that point. The blacksmith can't gouge the customers he depends on for everything else.
Individual sales matter less to the blacksmith than their customers. So, they might not gouge their customers but padding bills is common behavior after all selling 10% less at 20% higher profit is a net gain. Consider how important the internet is to you vs an extra 20$ a month in profit is for a multi billion dollar company.
This is not a moral judgment. It is simply the seller doing what is in their best interest, just like they would in a competitive market.
The difference is that in a competitive market, this self-interest happens to lead producers to do what is in the public interest, but in the monopoly case it generally leads to lower production and higher prices than would be optimal. For more explanation, here's a Wikipedia article that jibes with my college Intro to Econ class:
15 years ago Microsoft had a monopoly on the x86 operating system market and used that position to unfairly take browser market share by bundling IE with Windows. They had agreements with almost all PC manufacturers to ensure Windows was installed on each PC sold.
> The plaintiffs alleged that Microsoft abused monopoly power on Intel-based personal computers in its handling of operating system and web browser sales. The issue central to the case was whether Microsoft was allowed to bundle its flagship Internet Explorer (IE) web browser software with its Microsoft Windows operating system. Bundling them together is alleged to have been responsible for Microsoft's victory in the browser wars as every Windows user had a copy of Internet Explorer. It was further alleged that this restricted the market for competing web browsers (such as Netscape Navigator or Opera) that were slow to download over a modem or had to be purchased at a store.
Well, yes. In the sense that I use search engines other than Google, and I know others who do the same. And I know many people who use operating systems other than Windows.
I get what you mean, but at the same time, a monopoly these are not. Just because there are companies that have a very large market share does not mean there are no alternatives.
To resolve the matter of being unallowed to plug anything non-AT&T into AT&T phone lines, you can just make a law stating that anything that can operate compatibly on the network is allowed to participate, something that allows consumers to bring their own device. You don't have to have utility-style control, nor do you have to break up the company, to resolve that particular issue.
> To resolve the matter of being unallowed to plug anything non-AT&T into AT&T phone lines, you can just make a law stating that anything that can operate compatibly on the network is allowed to participate,
That's pretty much what the Open Internet Order (both the 2010 one that was, except for transparency provisions, struck down and the current one that was just upheld by the same court that struck down the earlier one) does.
> You don't have to have utility-style control,
Which, largely, the FCC isn't doing here. Now, the FCC had invoke the provisions which allow utility-style control because the courts previously struck down its attempt to institute similar "people can plug legal devices into their internet connections and access legal content over their internet connection" rules without invoking the "telecommunication service" common carrier, "utility-style" provisions of the law.
But, while the details of the current order are different from the 2010 order (for one, more of the provisions apply to mobile broadband in the same ways as fixed broadband, because that market had matured in the intervening time period such that the argument that it was too new and evolving to know if the same style of regulation would be appropriate), it mostly doesn't apply "utility style" regulation, even though it invokes authority which would allow utility-style regulation.
If anyone else wants to know the significance of this device, it allowed for the argument to be made that any device should be able to be connected to the network, provided it did not interfere with it. It paved the way for non-AT&T equipment. The FAX and answering machines were allowed as a result (many people/industries still cling to these ideas; they are the reason voicemail hasn't gone the way of the dinosaur). Skype used it in '07 to
"petition for rulemaking was filed with the FCC by Skype, requesting the FCC to apply the Carterfone regulations to the wireless industry—which would mean that OEMs, portals and others will be able to offer wireless devices and services without the cellular operators needing to approve the handsets. However, on 1 April 2008, FCC chairman Kevin Martin indicated that he would oppose Skype's request.[3]"
Or, rather than be bothered passing a law for every possible case, Congress can delegate rule making authority to an agency like the FCC, which develops technical expertise in the domain.
>Likewise, if the choice is between Google controlling access to the internet and Chinese-style regulation controlling access to the internet, there's really no choice at all:
This is a straw man argument, that's not the only choice, in fact it's not even the actual choice facing us right now.
>it's an epithet because utility regulation over the past hundred years has been absolutely disastrous, enabling the supreme power of corporations, not limiting it.
This is not universally true. In the comparatively economically conservative Southeast where power generation and the electric grid have been regulated as public utilities for as long as anyone can remember, there was never a temptation to experiment with deregulation as in CA, and no small bit of schadenfreude when Enron wrecked havoc on the CA energy system as a result.
Stability is an (maybe the most) important characteristic of national economic infrastructure that is susceptible to systemic risk. It enables the forces of innovation to confidently build on top of it - capital formation, ROI forecasting, planning & investment, long-term credit extension to wealth-creating industries, etc. Introducing shocks and instability into the base layer infrastructure makes that wealth creation activity much more difficult and constrained.
> if the choice is between Google controlling access to the internet and Chinese-style regulation
You're committing the fallacy of the excluded middle. There is a massive gulf between unregulated behavior of publicly-held companies and authoritarian dictatorship by an unelected body, and the USA is somewhere there in the middle.
> If a corporation acts unethically, you lose the benefits and service it provides. If the state acts unethically, you lose your freedom and/or your life.
Several thousands people who died in Bhopal on Dec 2, 1984 might think otherwise. Or 2,209 people who died in Johnstown, PA on 1889 when South Fork Dam failed. Or another 502 people killed on Jun 29, 1995 when Sampoong Department Store collapsed. Or...
What about the 10 million people that died during the Holocaust, or the 30 million people that died in the Great Famine (or, for that matter, oppress and enslave African-Americans for 300+ years)? Obviously too little/poor regulation can allow corporations to commit truly awful atrocities, but I've yet to see any private enterprise cause a fraction of the damage that states around the world have.
But I digress -- in any free society people will eventually cause horrible things to happen, it just seems to me that the government inevitably causes much worse things to happen.
Your first assertion read as if you claimed unethical corporations don't kill people. I showed that it's not the case.
Now you say even unethical corporations normally kill much fewer people than unethical governments. Which is true. But I have to ask, why do unethical corporations kill so few people? After all, they're all led by the same greedy people. It's not like CEOs magically become conscientious and say "Well, we can make billions of dollars by screwing all these poor people, but fuck it if we end up killing them!"
The answer: governments. Governments keep corporations in line so that they can't get away with killing people. Where a government is run by better people, corporations tend to not kill people, because they'll face consequences.
So, you are right that an incompetent government can be much more dangerous. However, one way such a government can kill people is by colluding with corporations and voluntarily relinquishing its authority (and duty) to police them as a government should. When you're limiting the government's power over corporations, in some situations, you could be in fact ensuring that the government remains incompetent.
The fact that governments can do terrible things doesn't logically follow that giving the FCC limited authority to keep ISP and telecoms from totally screwing us will lead to the holocaust. I believe you have just Godwinned your thread.
There is active push back from a whole host of multinational megacorps for any relatively toothless threat represented by todays FCC what should concern you is that those same forces are actively largely ok with the real existential threats to freedom on the internet today.
I must ask, where on your scale does the tobaco companies ends up? If we are comparing the potential damage that an ISP can do vs hitler, I think it just fair to bring in smoking as a counter argument that government causes more damage than private enterprises.
Metacomment: I disagree with this comment but was sorry to see it down voted (greyed out) so upvoted it. It doesn't matter at this point why I might disagree with it; it's on topic and did not deserve a down vote just because someone(s) disagreed with it.
The funny thing about these pop "fallacies" is that they're often perfectly reasonable explanations. They're not necessarily fallacious and thus shouldn't be labeled "fallacies".
It seems that someone put a bunch of common explanations on a web page and stuck the word "fallacy" after all of them so that they could use it to try to win arguments with easily-intimidated persons.
Slippery slope is valid when party A is trying to move parties B into a position far down on the slope gradually by easing parties B down the slope.
Many situations exist wherein a series of steps could superficially be arranged in a progression or slope between points a and b but in fact individual steps have different costs and benefits and are in fact independently good or bad.
Often those arguing for/against a subset of the points in the graph have good arguments for/against then some jerk goes and implies that if you allow point 1-3 on the graph somehow by magic you will eventually arrive at point 37. They ignore the fact that its possible and in fact reasonable to support point 1-3 and skip right to the extreme and absurd.
They neatly bypass any and all relevant arguments in favor of 1-3. This is destructive to conversation because you can use it in nearly any situation. It is especially frequently used in anything involving government because somehow all roads that don't lead to anarchy somehow lead to hitler.
Its frequently useful to just point out the obvious fallacy and move on rather than giving a longer treatment because such tracks are frequently useless and drag the entire discussion inevitably towards stupidity.
According to whom? The Internet is delivered to homes on top of existing regulated utilities, that are quite essential to our survival. But I can use the Internet anywhere with a sufficient enough population density if I pay for a wireless data plan. Because the true value of the Internet is global availability of information, access to that information doesn't need to be tied to a physical address in the same way a life-saving device like a telephone does. Really energy and sanitation is what we should be thinking of. They're truly necessary utilities.
> The Internet is delivered to homes on top of existing regulated utilities
This is a popular conception but until this recent FCC order it was mostly wrong.
Most people in the U.S. access the Internet over 4 types of physical networks:
- cable TV coax
- fiber optics to the house
- DSL over existing telephone lines
- wireless signals (4G or WiFi, mostly)
Of those, only the telephone lines were an existing regulated utility. Cable networks, fiber networks, and wireless networks were not classified as utilities and were exempt from most regulations that we take for granted on the phone network, like being able to purchase and use telephone service if you want it, or calling whoever you want without being blocked or paying extra.
> But I can use the Internet anywhere with a sufficient enough population density if I pay for a wireless data plan.
Now you can. Until now, wireless data companies were under no legal obligation to sell to you, and under no obligation to serve you any particular website you request.
In short, it seems the law is catching up to where you already thought it was.
Before we had water and electricity in our infrastructure, those weren't utilities either.
And on point: here in Sweden we have both privately owned and state owned broadband infrastructure, and while it's hard to prove, i'm convinced that this came out of the university networks (SUNET) building out the framework for this in university cities in the 90s and back.
As a result of this we had good grounds for competing ISPs which today is about 12 nation wide (for 10M people), on top of which there are usually a few per city also competing for customers.
This leads to me being able to choose between 16 (!) different ISP:s on my fiber I installed last month, which will cost me $38 USD/mo for uncapped 100/100 Mbps or $89 USD/mo for uncapped 1000/100 Mbps.
Broadband internet services (both fixed-line and mobile) are increasingly being included within the definition.
As for which things are "truly necessary", that definition is not universal. In The Netherlands, over 90% of consumer banking by now is done over the Internet. That has lead to the closing of over 30% of bank branch offices, with associated cost savings. Those savings would not have been possible had Internet access not been classified as a public utility, because bank access was similarly regulated.
So Paolonerd [1] comes in last October and adds his observation to this relatively flimsy wikipedia entry and we're supposed to all just accept that definition. I see.
> A public utility (usually just utility) is an organization that maintains the infrastructure for a public service.
Who is the organization that maintains the infrastructure of the Internet? Does it include my cable modem? My router? Why or why not?
The telephone, electric service, piped-in gas, and even city water were all seen, at various times, as luxuries rather than necessities. Their regulation as utilities is part of what allowed them to become both ubiquitous and dependable, and as a result allowed people to start to depend on them.
In particular, there's no reason why IP-based networks ought to be viewed as less important than telephone service, given that telephony is rapidly becoming just one of many services that happens to be delivered over IP networks.
Yes, there is a risk that the regulators will declare any number of rules for any number of reasons. Yes, regulatory capture of regulators is a real problem. The solution to these two problems is not to cede control to multinational corporations. Your lack of faith in human nature should extend to all humans, not just ones who are the apparatus of the state.