What is “Net Neutrality”? Binswanger letter
Harry Binswanger Mar 01, 2015 02:07 am
The FCC just voted to impose “net neutrality” on us. What is this all about?
The Left has discovered to its horror that products of human intelligence and effort–such as the delivery of internet service–are being sold on the market. For a citizen to have “access” to such products, he has to arrive at a deal with the provider of that product. This, in the Left’s universe, is both unfair and dangerous. Unfair–because those with more money can buy better versions of the product (such as faster internet service) than can those with less money. Also, by offering to buy in bulk, they can negotiate better terms. Dangerous–because the provider of the product could refuse to sell to anyone at any time, depriving him of the “access” to the product that is his by divine right.
Applied to the case of internet service, the objection is that companies like Comcast could offer higher speed service at a higher price. That would be unfair, they believe, because some people would have faster internet merely because they are wealthier and can pay more to get it. That is unfair, since it leaves the poor with slower internet, and that makes them feel bad when they compare themselves to the rich. And what is to stop Comcast from denying service to racial minorities? Or to those who want to put up web sites with content that Comcast doesn’t like?
Apply it to other products, say gasoline. The Left would have to say it is unfair that higher octane gasoline is sold at a higher price. And that taxi fleets that buy large quantities of gas can negotiate a lower price. Or apply it to air travel. What could be more unfair than offering First Class seating at higher prices? The poor are deprived of “access” to those seats. We have to have air neutrality, with only one class of service. Otherwise, those with less money will feel inferior to those traveling in the First Class compartment. And what if all the major airlines conspired to refuse air service to, say, Democrats? Air travel is a basic human right, so we must institute air neutrality right away.
It seems that people with more money have more and better goods than those with less money. To the Left, this is the basic social injustice. How did those people get more money? Blank out.
It’s a side issue that it’s harder to switch internet service providers than it is to switch gasoline companies or airlines. There is no inherent reason, except government coercion, preventing there being more competing providers than the present cable and phone company ones. The almost “monopoly” status of companies like Comcast is only the excuse for the net neutrality campaign. The real motive is the opposition to having to pay the producers for their products. “Access” here, as in healthcare and a growing number of enterprises, is the package-deal used to confer “rights” to the products of others–which means the “right” to parasitize.
At bottom, the neutrality here is wiping out the difference between the earned and the looted. We are to be neutral as between the creators and the aspiring parasites demanding “access” to what the creators create.
The practical consequence of the recent ruling is that the government now controls the internet. In the name of limiting the power of firms like Comcast, the power has been given to the government. I don’t expect any immediate changes for consumers. But check back with me in ten or twenty years. |
