Oh yeah, in 9 out of 10 cities the city 'fathers/mothers/children' sold THEIR cronies undisputed sole access to neighborhoods and towns but that had nothing to do with the Federal Communications Commission. That was just local criminals and regulators making a profit at your expense.
Obama is old enough to remember Ma Bell, which was even worse to customers than today's cable and Internet providers. And he is smart enough to recognize the Orwellian contradiction in introducing onerous new regulatory regimes in the name of keeping anything "free." The FCC has never been particularly adept at acting in the "public interest." The less control it has over the Internet (and TV and anything else), the better off we will all be.Ma Bell wasn't broken up by the regulators, it was broken up by the courts. I see courts in our future.
2 comments:
I have mixed emotions about this. On the one hand I'm philosophically opposed to anything but the lightest of regulation by our kind and benevolent gub'mint. On the other I find the concept of "internet fast lanes"... at extra cost, of course... abhorrent. So I suppose we should just go with the status quo.
No no. I moved many times. Each move occasioned the changing of my ISP because any given ISP back then had exclusivity and there was zero competition for my ISP needs. You got to choose from a variety of 1. That was the heavy hand of regulators at the city level. If we let the national level enjoy the same sort of contempt for the consumer the courts will get involved. It will take decades to get to where South Korea was 10 years ago when it was offering anybody/everybody gigabit speeds because competition.
All those emails under earthlink or netcom or a host of others are gone because when I moved, I had to change ISPs. It's as well. I see that even blogger has lost my old posts.
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