[GRLUG] NOT LINUX - net neutrality

[Bob Kline]

On Fri, Sep 23, 2011 at 2:55 PM, Michael Mol <mikemol at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Fri, Sep 23, 2011 at 2:52 PM, Bob Kline <bob.kline at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Yes, there's all that. But some
> > kind of regulation is often needed.
> > AT&T worked well as a regulated
> > monopoly for something like three
> > generations - it's what made universal
> > service come about.
>
> Worked well? Why do you think it took so long for network services to get
> cheap?
>

Because one had to shift to a new
business model.  The regulated monopoly
produced universal service - that was the
deal, and included a guaranteed rate of
return.  In the days of slower moving
technology, that was a worthy goes - at
the end, before the divestiture of AT&T
in 1983, 96% of the US population had
access to a phone. "Long Lines," the old
name for long distance, subsidized local
service to the tune of about $11B in 1981.

As time went on, there were cheaper
ways of doing aspects of things - long
distance for example - but a period of
cherry picking followed, wherein the
most profitable parts of AT&T's businesses
were picked off.  That couldn't work either.

>
> > But I take your point more generally.
> > The government's current war on the
> > private sector is not doing any of us
> > much good...
>
> And Net Neutrality is about escalating that.
>

How so?  A side comment, capitalism is
a flawed system as well.  Unfettered, it can,
and always has, led to monopolies. Who will
break them up if the gov't doesn't?  Or was
M$ just another business?  Standard oil?

Alas, a missing piece of capitalism is keeping
competition going, and competition is the
thing that produces quality and lower prices.
Few businesses actually want that if they
can gouge people instead, as the railroads
did a century and more ago when they were
the only real game in town.

    -- Bob


>
> > On Fri, Sep 23, 2011 at 1:56 PM, Dagny Scott <parsleyfirefly at gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> >>
> >> When people talk about "enforcing net neutrality," realistically what
> they
> >> really mean is handing over decisions about Internet service over to the
> >> United States Government. The same people who have already taken it upon
> >> themselves to seize domain names without due process. I don't want to do
> >> that. You may have a whole host of good intentions, but it's not like
> >> there's one government for seizing domain names and performing
> warrantless
> >> wiretaps and another, Good Person government who will enforce net
> >> neutrality. It's all the same guys.
> >> Dagny
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