Milena Popova looks at both sides of the net neutrality debate. One of the three things I learned from my economics & politics degree (I'll tell you the other two some other time) is neatly summarised by the following stat: out of said three-year degree, we spent one week learning how the free market worked, and the remaining time learning about all the ways in which it doesn't.
Having grown up in communist Bulgaria, I have a known for a long time that the state is just as unworthy of our trust as the market. I find the example of net neutrality illustrates both points beautifully, so here’s a little look at the economics and politics of net neutrality. The story so far: net neutrality is the idea that internet service providers (ISPs) should treat all traffic equally, as zeroes and ones, rather than differentiate based on the content those zeroes and ones represent. Proponents of net neutrality believe that all users should have equal access to the net, regardless of the type of content they are viewing, the sites they are visiting, the platform or device they are using. If I can install Linux on a badger and want to use it to indulge my kink for Hansard, then I should be able to do that, without interference from my ISP. Opponents of net neutrality, on the other hand, believe that ISPs should be able to discriminate against or prioritise certain traffic based on content or other factors. This would allow ISPs, for instance, to prioritise traffic from certain content providers, or to sell different packages based on content (much, for instance, like Sky TV does). They argue that the free market will work it all out in a way that is fair and efficient, that there is no need for regulation. My colleague @robcoh has a fun model for this. He calls it the RyanAir principle: if you don't have checked luggage, or use the toilet on the plane, why should you pay for it? Equally, if there is a part of the internet you don't use, why should you pay your ISP for access to it? Rob would quite like a Sky-style internet access package. Other customers may have a need for other types of packages - demand and supply will sort all of that out. more... http://zine.openrightsgroup.org/comment/2011/selling-the-internet _______________________________________________ NetBehaviour mailing list [email protected] http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
