Posted on 05/22/2017 4:16:27 AM PDT by IBD editorial writer
Regulation: "Net neutrality" has become the Holy Grail of various so-called consumer organizations. But government regulation isn't what consumers need. Competition is. And there would be more of that if the government would get out of the way.
On Thursday, the Federal Communications Commission voted 2-1 to start undoing the massive expansion of the FCC's regulatory control over the internet, enacted two years ago by the Obama administration under the guise of protecting "net neutrality."
From the reaction — or more accurately, the overreaction — from advocacy groups and know-nothing pundits, you'd think they'd just voted to exterminate the internet.
Let's leave aside the fact that the internet thrived for decades without any federal rules mandating how internet providers manage traffic on their networks. The question going forward is what is the best policy for consumers.
A brief history of the FCC makes it clear that letting its regulators loose on the internet is not the correct answer. The FCC has a long and dismal record of thwarting price-lowering competition and innovation.
What about the claim that internet providers will abuse their monopoly power to benefit themselves at the expense of other content providers?
(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...
bfl
It makes perfect sense from a control freak point of view.
Net neutrality is the fairness doctrine for the internet and nothing more. They don’t want to lose their ability to silence you.
Progressives always want to have control, and net neutrality is their internet vehicle. They’ve done a fantastic job of convincing people that this is about something else other than control, you even see people on conservative websites talking about how we have to protect the internet from “the corporations” which is insanity.
Net Neutrality takes the power to censor away from the googles and gives it to the FCC. Progressives were all for that when they controlled the FCC and the courts.
But now ask Progressives if they want the FCC to have the power to censor when Trump will have control of the FCC and the courts?
Second, the industry is motivated to save money on infrastructure on streaming video. If their customers all use netflix and all stream different HD at the same time, they simply do not have the BW to support that. So they throttle and try to move people into their own network servers. But streaming video is mostly crap. No use pretending that it is part of a first amendment ideal when in reality it is part of bread and circus. The government would like to pretend that the bread and circus is now a human right.
Third, most regulation devolves into a money grab by trial lawyers. The real driving force behind Democratic attempts to regulate internet is class action suits by "aggrieved" parties who wind up with a $5 off coupon while the lawyers collect millions.
Lastly like you say bureaucracy is all about control. Starts out looking benign with relatively minor control. Ends up with the 5000 person bureaucracy performing studies on network fairness in the ethnological dialectic.
I understand the concern that Comcast, which is both an ISP and a cable company, could abuse that power to cripple your ability to stream Netflix.
Current antitrust law, if properly applied, would be able to deal with this.
So called net neutrality is the old fairness doctrine. That was ludicrous and prevented real stories from getting out there
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