The Internet as we know it is facing a serious threat. There’s a debate heating up in Washington, DC on something called “net neutrality” – and it’s a debate that’s so important Google is asking you to get involved. We’re asking you to take action to protect Internet freedom.
In the next few days, the House of Representatives is going to vote on a bill that would fundamentally alter the Internet. That bill, and one that may come up for a key vote in the Senate in the next few weeks, would give the big phone and cable companies the power to pick and choose what you will be able to see and do on the Internet.
Today the Internet is an information highway where anybody – no matter how large or small, how traditional or unconventional – has equal access. But the phone and cable monopolies, who control almost all Internet access, want the power to choose who gets access to high-speed lanes and whose content gets seen first and fastest. They want to build a two-tiered system and block the on-ramps for those who can’t pay.
Creativity, innovation and a free and open marketplace are all at stake in this fight. Please call your representative (202-224-3121) and let your voice be heard.
Thanks for your time, your concern and your support.
Eric Schmidt, CEO
1984!
Anybody know what we Canadians can do? Just contact our members of Parliament? Does anybody know if it has even come up in our system?
(yes… we have the “Internets” up in Canada)
yeah… this is possibly the most important thing that has come up regarding the internet since a couple of computers were wired together at Berkley University way back in the day.
canadians need not worry, as the legislation will only effect those in the US… and I doubt the canadians would ever even consider something like this… as they tend to like freedom even more than money (unlike another nation a bit further south)
With Bush and the Republicans in control Big Business will get its way. They don’t give a rats ass about the citizens, unless the citizen is a CEO of a big corp. We’re screwed.
Another outstanding website that is dedicated to preserving Net Neutrality is: http://www.savetheinternet.com
If Candadians love freedom so much why do they hand so many thing over to socialist government programs?
G-Spank, Democrats are also responsible. All politicians are to blame.
I’m sure your gay lover, Bill Gates, has something to do with it as well.
http://www.savetheinternet.com
I second the greatness of this site. Everyone please visit, and sign the petition/ letter to your senators.
Flame on…..
Will check it out. Suspicious. When things get a yellow belly, gutless coward Lib look-and-feel, I don’t trust it. Loudmouth ‘Entitlement Gen’ Libs whose father was missing in action and grew up to be America haters and irresponsible cry baby never-stand-for-anything, never-fight-for-anything except their own selfishness are losers.
Socialism is not freedom – I suggest you visit “Candadia” and check it out…
Grow Up – is that so?
Grow Up sounds like a loser to me. A Fox News taping, Rush-loving, O’Reilly licking, Hannity blowing loser on cocaine, to be specific.
MDN, you’re a day late to the party. That bulletin went out this morning. The House voted down Net Neutrality this afternoon. Meanwhile, somewhere in Washington, Skeletor, the Grinch, Mr. Burns, and Dick Cheney are toasting yet another victory over traditional American values like freedom, equality and democracy.
The Realist: … and I doubt the canadians would ever even consider something like this… as they tend to like freedom even more than money (unlike another nation a bit further south)
Boy, are you off base or what? Both Canadians and Americans live under the illusion of freedom. They both believe they are democracies. Wrong — the USA is actually a republic. Canada is actually still a Crown colony – just renamed to make it more palatable. They both suffer from tyranical governments who over-tax and over-regulate the citizens.
Ever heard of the term “civil servant”? Governments in both countries are supposed to serve the citizens, not rule them!
Soon, under NAFTA, Canada, the USA and Mexico will be one economy with a single currency (analogous to the Euro). Doubt it? You’re watching it happen!
MW word: “hospital” Just because Canada has cheaper hospitals, don’t think for a minute it isn’t more socialistic!
Grow Up:
Here’s a tip: Do what your handle suggests.
Who’s the moron the introduced this legislation. Sad thing, but as they say: Money talks and BS walks, not just in America but everywhere where little low-lives get greedy…. its human nature
Eric.
From Cnet
Of the 421 House members who participated in the vote that took place around 6:30 p.m. PT, the vast majority of Net neutrality supporters were Democrats. Republicans represented most of the opposition.
Guys, look I’m an Australian and I can’t participate in the petition, but will you all stop trying to score political points and focus on trying to keep the net for what it’s actually meant to be, a means for accessing and exchanging information. MDN has gone for the big picture and so should you. Would you please avoid politics on this one occasion. America is meant to be the land of the free. Please keep it that way and get involved.
As noted, the House vote is over and Net Neutrality lost (3 to 1). The debate over the issue now moves to the US Senate where the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee will vote on its version of the act in late June. So, there is still time. The Senate is likely to be more favorable to the concept of net neutrality, but MDN, Google, eBay, Amazon etc., who favor it, will need to mount their mail campaign before the last minute this time.
“Will check it out. Suspicious. When things get a yellow belly, gutless coward Lib look-and-feel, I don’t trust it. Loudmouth ‘Entitlement Gen’ Libs whose father was missing in action and grew up to be America haters and irresponsible cry baby never-stand-for-anything, never-fight-for-anything except their own selfishness are losers.”
why do I get the feeling that this guy is in a rubber room somewhere typing with his tongue?
All I see that this legislation does is change the franchising requirements for the new players in the provider market. While there is certainly the potential for skullduggery here, it certainly does not mandate that only rich people can use the internet.
As for “blocking the on-ramps for people who can’t pay”, brother, the on-ramps already are blocked for people who can’t pay. I pay upwards of $50/month to Comcast for high-speed access here in Virginia, and Comcast has NO COMPETITION AT ALL.
There are disturbing potential ramifications here, but I’d be willing to at least entertain thoughts of the new provisions if it would remove Comcast’s throbbing member from my ass.
I guess Google got religion on ethics AFTER they gave the PRC that digital hummer over search results this earlier this year.
to those confused about what the legislation does:
Comcast could say that Google.com can only be accessed by its costumers who pay the most. If you have just the basic package, you will be blocked from google.
goyim:
its also curious that Google didn’t seem to care about restrictions in China.
ps. do you only date goyahs?
Monopolist in Chief, Texan, Greaser of Political Palms and all around bad guy- Ed Whitacre
To quote BusinessWeek Interview
How concerned are you about Internet upstarts like Google (GOOG ), MSN, Vonage, and others?
‘How do you think they’re going to get to customers? Through a broadband pipe. Cable companies have them. We have them. Now what they would like to do is use my pipes free, but I ain’t going to let them do that because we have spent this capital and we have to have a return on it. So there’s going to have to be some mechanism for these people who use these pipes to pay for the portion they’re using. Why should they be allowed to use my pipes?
The Internet can’t be free in that sense, because we and the cable companies have made an investment and for a Google or Yahoo! (YHOO ) or Vonage or anybody to expect to use these pipes [for] free is nuts!“
Financial Times Interview
Ed Whitacre, AT&T’s chairman and chief executive, warned on Monday that internet content providers that wanted to use broadband networks to deliver high-quality services such as movie downloads to their customers would have to pay for the service or face the prospect that new investment in high speed networks “will dry up.”
“We have to figure out who pays for this bigger and bigger IP network,” said Mr Whitacre, who was in New York ahead of AT&T’s annual presentation to investors and analysts on Tuesday. “We have to show a return on our investments.”
“I think the content providers should be paying for the use of the network – obviously not the piece from the customer to the network, which has already been paid for by the customer in Internet access fees – but for accessing the so-called Internet cloud.”
While they have emphasised that they are not seeking to charge additional fees for content and other services delivered on a ‘best effort’ basis, they argue that content providers seeking guaranteed delivery of high quality content should be willing to pay.
“If someone wants to transmit a high quality service with no interruptions and ‘guaranteed this, guaranteed that’, they should be willing to pay for that,” the AT&T chief said.
The TelCos have hired Mike McCurry, former Clinton frontman and have ben liberally spreading around the wealth. Everything from big timely contributions to home district charities (in an election year) to the more usual arrangements.
Went to google. Clicked the petition linkk aandd signed it.
Take time to write the letter, folks. That way your local legislature sees that they arre receiving something other than cookie cutter statements. Also keep the B.S. out of the letter. They don’t need to know that you can’t stand Windows. This is very important.
G-Spank – just by reading your wisdom, one can only asscertain[sp] that your a complete f&*#@!g idiot.
Ed Whitacre sounds like a d-bag with weak and in some cases blatantly incorrect points.
Too late. The House Republicans blocked it yesterday by a vote of 269-152. While I agree that I don’t want the government sticking their nose in the market, there’s only one problem. There IS no market. When telco’s ARE the ISP’s as well as the owners of the network, then a market doesn’t exist and a monopoly does. This is when the government needs to step in. But unfortunately, our representatives have already been bought by the telcos.
So why’s google saying this….and then censoring searches in China?
How do ideals apply in your own backyard, but not when it comes to making a buck overseas? Sad.
After reading a few comments, I think a lot of you don’t understand what net neutrality is all about. It isn’t so much about the end users as it is the content providers. Without net neutrality, the ISP’s like Verizon and Comcast can tell a website that if you want to be on their top level service plan, you need to pay them. Otherwise, a Comcast user may have trouble accessing Google because the Quality of Service may not be that good. Whereas, MSN may have paid Comcast to be on their top level of service, and the Comcast user can access MSN extremely fast but because Google didn’t pay, that Comcast user has trouble connecting to Google.
Its basically extortion, ala The Soprano’s.
I find it very “interesting” that the one OS that clearly stands to gain the most is Windows and its native browser. Don’t think that’s an issue? Here’s but one for-instance: Verizon is a committed keeper and promoter of the MS flame, yes, once in a blue moon you can get some support for Mac OS and Verizon products, but Verizon clearly only wants to produce and sell communications products that are Windows only.
Like it or not, it all fits together. Is it a big conspiracy? No. Its a nakedly obvious monopoly – government sanctioned.
to “Grow Up”
hate people much?
Testimony of Jeannine Kenney of Consumers Union before the House Energy and Commerce Committee Subcommittee on Telecommunications & the Internet
“Consumers have suffered under monopolistic cable pricing that has resulted in a 64% increase in rates– approximately 2 1/2 times the rate of inflation– since Congress deregulated the cable industry in the 1996 Telecommunications Act. In addition to skyrocketing rates, consumers have virtually no choice of providers or channel offerings.
…The Communications Opportunity, Promotion and Enhancement Act not only fails to ensure the national franchising system it creates will benefit customers, it almost surely represents a significant step backward. While the legislation laudably protects community rights to establish broadband networks, it eliminates other protections that ensure all residents have access to competitive, advanced communications services. The legislation abolishes communities’ authority to ensure all residents are served by new and existing cable providers without establishing any federal build-out requirements in it’s place, opening a wide door to redlining. It rolls back state and local authority to establish and enforce consumer protections without requiring new, strong federal protections. And it strips the Federal Communications Commission of it’s authority to establish rules ensuring that broadband network owners do not impair or block consumer access to competitive Internet content, services or applications. Moreover, enforcement provisions within the legislation are weak or absent. In short, the legislation not only fails to ensure that consumers will benefit from new video competition, it may expose them to the risk of higher cable rates, reduced quality and reduced access to competitive choices offered via the internet.”.
Fascism– is a radical authoritarian political philosophy that combines elements of corporatism, totalitarianism, extreme nationalism, militarism, anti-communism and anti-liberalism.
“Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power.”
so says – Benito Mussolini
and he should know.
Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
Lets not go after Microsoft on this. They were actually on the same side as Google, Amazon, and eBay. None of them want this because without a net neutrality law, all of them will be targets of the telco’s. The only way to stop this would be for all of them to refuse to pay the extortion fees. But it will only take one of them to cave.
But don’t think about those content providers. This will absolutely destroy innovation on the internet. Forget about coming up with the next big thing. As soon as you get popular, you’ll have some guys come to your house and say something like, “you know, it would be a shame if our customers all of sudden couldn’t access your site. You pay us and we’ll make sure that doesn’t happen.”
Way to go Republicans. Sold us out yet again.
Part of me says this may or may not matter. If WiFi gets finalized and can deliver faster speeds to more people in more locations, these cable and phone guys will regret having ever brought this up.
From Testimony of Paul Misener of Amazon.com before the House Energy and Commerce Committee Subcommittee on Telecommunications & the Internet
“…The phone and cable companies are going to fundamentally alter the Internet in AMerica unless Congress acts to stop them. They have the market power, technical means, and regulatory permission to control American consumers’ access to broadband Internet content, and they’ve announced their plans to do so.”
“Currently, consumers pay for internet access, and have the freedom to select lawful content from providers like Amazon, who themselves have invested billions of dollars in content and pay network operators millions of dollars a year for Internet access. We fear a circumstance in which broadband network operators, among whom consumers have no real choice, are permitted to prefer certain content and thereby limit consumer access to other content.”
“What exists (ISP), unfortunately, is at best an oligopoly and, for the vast majority of Americans, a duopoly of the local phone and cable companies. Widespread deployment of alternative broadband technologies capable of high quality video remains a distant hope, and the promise of inter-regional local phone company competition is all but dead. In such oligopolistic conditions, firms can easily can and do leave consumers with fewer services, higher prices, or both.”
“Unless Congress acts soon, American consumers will receive artificially limited choice of broadband Internet content. Phone and cable companies plan to restrict American consumers’ access to such content based in large part on lucrative deals they intend to cut with third parties”
The full text of this is available in PDF at
http://energycommerce.house.gov/108/Hearings/03302006hearing1823/Misener.pdf
It erally makes me wonder What was our Government thinkg by letting a bill like this fall through?
They don’t have the interests of the users in mind at all.
CNet has a good article here: http://news.com.com/House+rejects+Net+neutrality+rules/2100-1028_3-6081882.html?tag=nefd.top
Yes, I notice MDN doesn’t mention that this is a REPUBLICAN-backed initiative, not a “debate.” And yet they’ll post some tripe saying that Democrats would “hypothetically” raise taxes that don’t even exist.
Weak.
“Way to go Republicans. Sold us out yet again.”
Yeah, and 10 Democrats co-sponsored this bill as well you moron. You might want to do a little homework next time…
To Reality Check:
The overall bill, COPE, of which net neutrality is only one part, was cosponsored.
The ENTIRE NET NEUTRALITY AMENDMENT was proposed by DEMOCRATS, you moron, and OPPOSED BY REPUBLICANS.
See here:
http://news.com.com/Republicans+defeat+Net+neutrality+proposal/2100-1028_3-6058223.html
Unfuckingbelievable…you’re all just shameless liars.
“Yes, I notice MDN doesn’t mention that this is a REPUBLICAN-backed initiative, not a “debate.” And yet they’ll post some tripe saying that Democrats would “hypothetically” raise taxes that don’t even exist.”
Read above…Democrats back this initiative as well. You might want to do something called “research” before you spout off with such tripe next time.
H.R. 5252 Bill sponsors:
Joe Barton (R-TX)
Charles F. Bass II (R-NH)
Michael Bilirakis (R-FL)
Marsha Blackburn (R-TN)
Rick Boucher (D-VA)
Barbara Cubin (R-WY)
Eliot L. Engel (D-NY)
Michael A. Ferguson (R-NJ)
Vito Fossella (R-NY)
Paul E. Gillmor (R-OH)
Charles A. Gonzalez (D-TX)
Bart Gordon (D-TN)
Jay Inslee (D-WA)
Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ)
Charles W. Pickering (R-MS)
George P. Radanovich (R-CA)
Bobby L. Rush (D-IL)
John Shimkus (R-IL)
Cliff Stearns (R-FL)
Bart Stupak (D-MI)
John Sullivan (R-OK)
Lee Terry (R-NE)
Edolphus Towns (D-NY)
Fred Upton (R-MI)
Greg Walden (R-OR)
Edward Whitfield (R-KY)
Albert R. Wynn (D-MD)
To DumbDonkey:
Markey, Boucher, Eshoo and Inslee are all DEMOCRATS. They are the sponsors of the net neutrality amendment.
Stop trying to pawn this bullshit off as “bipartisan,” the way you tried to pawn off the REPUBLICAN Jack Abramoff scandal.
It saddens me to think that instead of uniting together to stop this potentially idiotic law, we have a relatively high percentage of dickwads coming in with moronic statements about Canada, freedom, anti-democrat, anti-republican, anti-liberal, anti-corparate, bllah blah blah.
Try to use a little intelligence like the other 80% of the posters in this group.
Keep the internet free…..
HR 5252 is the COPE Act in its ENTIRETY.
Net neutrality is only ONE PART–specifically, an amendment that was entirely sponsored by DEMOCRATS.
Get it through your thick goddamn kool-aid drinking skulls. You’re the bad guys.
Notice that the ‘Decider’, the ‘Hammer’, the primary sponsor of this bill, Whitacre of SBC/ AT&T etc are all from Texas. Wheelin’ & Dealin’ with your rights, freedom and wallet– the Texas way.
Many of you based on dis-inforamation would sell your souls to the Devil, the govt can rarely do ANYTHING right, and yet you would allow them to control and manipulate the businesses that hold the keys and pipes to the Internet, some of you just don’t get it at all, probably never will..
This is Google’s and Ebay’s and several other companies idea by using the Govt and legislation to manipulate broadbad companies to try and provide a level playing field irregardless of whether its really fair or not. Anyone’s access should be based on how much one pays to get that access not for some govt entity to tell me or you or any company what I should get or what’s “fair”
All I can say it I went with ClearWire. Screw the cable and phone companies. I’m tired of dealing with them and all their extra fees. Next on he list is Vonage. I’ll be glad when I have no more land lines connected to my house.
Wake up peeps, its You vs. the State, not Liberal vs. Conservative, and especially not Demorats vs Republicons, they are fake divisions designed to play off of each other…. i.e. Nixon opened the doors to Communist China, and Clinton got NAFTA passed. Think about it. Oh yea, someone did make an interesting prediction concerning the North American economy… I’m guessing the new currency will be called the “Aero”, replacing the dollar they are now destroying on purpose. Just ask Gates or Buffet who, over the past year, have cashed in their dollars for Euros, they know what’s coming,
Some Democrats are Republicans. Look at Lieberman. He should have left the party a long time ago.
Again— this government needs to spend less time debating what goes on inside my bedroom, my pants and my internet, and more time debating this stupid goddamned war.
k
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?c109:2:./temp/~c109VPETcw::
if anyone wants to actually look at the bill itself theres the link. I was surprised to see a few protections for consumers, but I still ardently loathe this legislation.
It is a retarded, ANTI-consumer initiative by some major corporations (i.e., Google, Amazon, etc.) interested in fleecing other major corporations (i.e., telcos, etc.), to the detriment of consumers. Telcos have every right to charge whatever they want to whoever they want for services they offer through their pipes. As it turns out, that position is also PRO-consumer. Allowing broadband providers to recoup their investment as they see fit will result in more broadband investment and thus, better–and ultimately cheaper–broadband. The feds could do one thing to help though–eliminate busybody local “community” regulators from the process, preventing the locals from granting monopoly licenses to their favorite cable providers or telephone companies. Other than that, the federal government is the problem on this issue, not the solution. Frankly, it is amazing how naive most MDN readers are, how easily so-called “idealists” are manipulated into supporting some greedy corporations’ agenda and shooting themselves (i.e., consumers) in the foot in the bargain.
More Econ 101 for the masses, and let’s make it mandatory!
Kate
Amen, Kate – there’s way too much blustering here and not a lot of grounded arguments. People talk about the net as if it were a discovery – like fire or electricity – that would exist freely for everyone without the evil telcos. This is not true – the net exists because people work every day to make it exist and make it accessible.
The net will be more free in the end without hobbling the people and companies who bring it to your door. HR 5252 is certainly no perfect piece of legislation, but any alleviation to the current patchwork quilt of franchising whorehouses should be welcomed by the consumer, who will benefit from a more competitive, healthier list of providers. It is axiomatic that the market makes better decisions and provides better services when it is unencumbered by a faceless committee of civil servants sloganeering about things like “net neutrality”.
Kate:
The net exists because of a government initiative – popularly known as DARPA-funded ARPANET. The ever-hated Al Gore took the lead in 1988 funding the high speed nodes that became the precursors to what we use to day, as well as later allowing private, commerical interests on it, and keeping it largely unregulated so as to help them make a buck from the opportunities it afforded. Later, the telecos (who inherited almost the entire setup from the the British JANET & U.S. NSFNET programs) got plenty of tax breaks in this country to upgrade their ‘pipes’.
Most of the story can be found here:
http://www.isoc.org/internet/history/brief.shtml
And yet now you think these same beneficiaries of the public teat should be able to make the internet their own private pay-to-playground? Our taxes made the net, not Verizon or AT&T et al … therefore the government has every right – in fact, a duty – to make sure we don’t get fleeced for helping these companies become the communications powerhouses they are today.
Oh, and I absolutely love this statement: “The feds could do one thing to help though–eliminate busybody local “community” regulators from the process, preventing the locals from granting monopoly licenses to their favorite cable providers or telephone companies.”
Kind of off topic Kate, but it does show you really are a special kind of fool. For your edification, it’s the cable providers and telecos – your freemarket champions – that spend millions to lobby the government, at all levels, to ENSURE their anti-free market monopolies stay intact. The federal government had a few bills in pending in Congress in the 90s that were intended to break those monopolies. I’ll give you 3 guesses which party scuttled the project, and the first two don’t have to count.
BTW – for the record, I’m an Independent (perhaps another kind of fool). Basically I believe in gun ownership, progressive taxation, & free markets for consumer goods. However, I also realize that a sizable portion of those who run the larger for-profit conglomerates would sell their own mothers into slavery if it meant making a buck – because that’s just what they do, nothing personal. Pardon me for not wanting to be inadvertantly victimized by the mentality fostered by that quirk of the system though. You see, no matter how great it is at making refrigerators affordable, if any economic system doesn’t ultimately serve the humans who invented it, I feel it needs to be checked. Call me crazy.
Speaking of crazy, what I find most amusing are the capitalist groupies, all dreaming of the day they will be so rich as to not have to concern themselves with their fellow man in the least. Who ironically hate the government with all the righteous passion they can muster, but who couldn’t survive a day in a world without it, because they’re nowhere near as rugged as they think they are. And who have never & would never turn down their own chance at the public trough, whatever form that might take.
People like Ann Coulter. And, maybe, even you Kate.
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“if any economic system doesn’t ultimately serve the humans who invented it, I feel it needs to be checked.”
should read, “if any economic system at some point doesn’t serve the humans who invented it, I feel it needs to be checked at that point.”
from Odyssey67
“…a sizable portion of those who run the larger for-profit conglomerates would sell their own mothers into slavery if it meant making a buck…”
Where’d you get that ridiculous idea? Do you think that providers should only be “not-for-profit”? Why the tone of moral superiority over people you don’t know?
“…, if any economic system doesn’t ultimately serve the humans who invented it, I feel it needs to be checked. Call me crazy.”
OK – you’re crazy. Anyone who doesn’t see the obvious superiority of capitalism for both the immediate and long-term prosperity of its people needs to compare results with other economic models. I know it’s cool these days to bash capitalism. It’s also foolish. Capitalism has “served the humans who invented it” rather well.
Sounds like you’ve got a lot of repressed anger, man.
bah says: “Where’d you get that ridiculous idea? Do you think that providers should only be “not-for-profit”? Why the tone of moral superiority over people you don’t know?”
Where? From the “ridiculous” premise that profit making corporations exist for the sole purpose of making profit. They do nothing else, and those leading them serve that master above all else. I purposely used an exaggerated example to drive that point home. Get a clue.
As for moral superiority; I – like all thinking, well-adjusted humans – am morally superior to a corporation, simply because I have morals. By definition, corporations are amoral, b/c morality isn’t necessary for their modus operandi.
“Anyone who doesn’t see the obvious superiority of capitalism for both the immediate and long-term prosperity of its people needs to compare results with other economic models. I know it’s cool these days to bash capitalism. It’s also foolish. Capitalism has “served the humans who invented it” rather well.”
Capitalism is superior for marshalling resources to provide consumer goods and services in a competitive, and demand elastic environment. If competition diminishes, or consumer demand is inelastic (meaning people have no choice but to use the good or service), capitalism begins to fail as a system that serves the population as a whole. Absent any outside regulation, it becomes a haven for oligopic or monopolistc behavior, which invariably leads to higher prices and less innovation. How dramatic this failure of the system is, is in direct proportion to how extreme the anti-competitive/inelastic consumer environment is.
Example: Health care. It is not only an inelastic good (i.e. everybody needs it), but it is also provided in an oligopic/monoplistic fashion (a few major providers with immense power over their own specific regions). The result is that health care prices in this country – with almost no countervailing government effort at reigning them in – are stratospheric, when compared to other advanced economies that do utilize government power to prevent that.
“Sounds like you’ve got a lot of repressed anger, man.”
Repressed? No. Crazy? …. well, at least I’m not repressed. But hey – you’d be angry too if you had to explain the obvious to people who are grown enough to know better. A lot.
My 2 ¥:
IMHO net neutrality is essential. The Internet will be an absolute mess without it. ISPs get pissed at companies like….let’s say…..iTMS because they have tens of thousands of their subscribers going to iTMS and purchasing/downloading music. This eats up bandwidth. What they want to do is charge iTMS (just an example) a fee for using up so much of their bandwidth. The same would go for Google as well. Your ISP wants compensation for it’s bandwidth usage (I cannot say their beef is without total merit). Some people’s ISPs already do something called packet-throttling. If you’re “tagged” as a heavy downloader, they start throttling you – slowing down your connection speed to save bandwidth. Not only that, but your download is not exactly a direct connection. The packets have to hop through the Internet to get to you. Well, the people at those “Hop Spots” that relay the data toward you (other ISPs) are also complaining about not being compensated for bandwidth usage. Everyone want’s a piece of the pie. Either web hosting costs are going to skyrocket, or the consumer is going to have to take up the slack in the form of higher access fees. I would bet on the latter. This may lead to LESS choice, contrary to what some believe. Anyone who believes any market can TRULY self-reguate forgets one thing: HUMAN NATURE. Capitalism will never be truly self-regulating – there will always be laws and rules applied to prevent the abuse thereof.
“…Where? From the “ridiculous” premise that profit making corporations exist for the sole purpose of making profit…”
The little kid down the street has a lemonade stand that ‘exists for the sole purpose of making a profit’. Would she sell her mother into slavery, too? Profits are the point of business. At least, successful ones.
“…health care prices in this country – with almost no countervailing government effort at reigning them in – are stratospheric, when compared to other advanced economies that do utilize government power to prevent that…”
Take a closer look at the health care systems you trumpet, my friend (I’m assuming UK or Canada – if I’m wrong, my bad), and they reveal themselves as far less than the medical wonders their proponents claim them to be. Average wait times for major surgeries, in particular, are so long as to be virtually unavailable, which accounts for the heavy traffic to the US for these procedures. The US health care system suffers far more from draconian malpractice legislation and rampant insurance fraud than it does from the inelastic nature of healthcare itself.
I’ll stop being obtuse here and agree that careful, highly scrutinized doses of socialism, like medicinal arsenic, can be successfully applied in areas not readily accessible for entrepreneurial efforts. I’m just not sure that internet access qualifies for this highly risky procedure. Better to err on the side of capitalism than to toss the internet forever into the abyss of politics.
Re: (“…a sizable portion of those who run the larger for-profit conglomerates would sell their own mothers into slavery if it meant making a buck…”
Where’d you get that ridiculous idea? Do you think that providers should only be “not-for-profit”? Why the tone of moral superiority over people you don’t know?)
Perhaps you should take a look at the Ford Corporation just as an example. In the 70s they released a car you might of heard of called the Pinto. Anyway, the good folks at Ford did some quick calculations, and decided that it would be cheaper to sustain lawsuits from fuel tank explosions than to install a stronger barrier between the fuel tank and the rear bumper for $11 dollars per car. So they let people burn to death in a horrific, grotesque fashion. For $11 dollars per car.
Corporations are in business to make money, not to safeguard the rights or even physical well-being of their consumers. I believe that is the point that the original poster was trying to make, and that you, in your ideological bluster (FREE MARKET $*#$*@$*&^~*&!) completely missed.
Sorry, should be: “might have heard of.”
Hey nuflux –
it’s you who’re missing the point. Your example about Ford is so simplistic. Ford released a dangerous model car – the Pinto – that was vulnerable to explosion when hit from the rear. Therefore, Ford’s decision to release the car anyway for short-term profit resulted in massive financial losses when their perfidy was revealed. So a concern for the ‘rights and well-being’ of Ford’s customers, as a lesson to fledgling capitalists, would have better served the company’s profits in the long run. That’s why, among the thousands of cars released since the seventies, so few have had dangerous safety problems.
And, by the by, do you actually think non-profit, faceless government committees have no blood on their hands? Your mistrust of the marketplace surely doesn’t accompany a belief that civil service is championing your interests and safeguarding your person, does it? Really?
gorsh says: “Your example about Ford is so simplistic. Ford released a dangerous model car – the Pinto – that was vulnerable to explosion when hit from the rear. Therefore, Ford’s decision to release the car anyway for short-term profit resulted in massive financial losses when their perfidy was revealed. So a concern for the ‘rights and well-being’ of Ford’s customers, as a lesson to fledgling capitalists, would have better served the company’s profits in the long run. That’s why, among the thousands of cars released since the seventies, so few have had dangerous safety problems.”
Actually, you’re missing a very big component that makes your ‘fledgling capitalists learn a moral lesson’ narrative work at all; that Ford was successfully sued b/c the government passed laws – like Net Neutrality – that made what they did with the Pinto illegal. You take government regulation out of the picture, and the money that got paid out to those families vanishes. What would have been the ‘cost effective’ solution then? Probably exactly what the bean counters orignally thought – that the costs of fixing the product weren’t worth it. What would fledgling capitalists have taken away from that?
“And, by the by, do you actually think non-profit, faceless government committees have no blood on their hands? Your mistrust of the marketplace surely doesn’t accompany a belief that civil service is championing your interests and safeguarding your person, does it? Really?”
Really. See, a democratic government is – typically – more directly accountable to the people who elect it. Even when some special interest can spend a buttload getting their industry protected, that protection only lasts for as long as the politicians & parties in question feel their jobs & position aren’t at risk. Yes, businesses are accountable to customers too, but they are also accountable to shareholders in a much more direct way. Based on how a corporate charter works, as long as what they do is profitable for the shareholders, even if it isn’t pro-consumer, then that’s the motivator that wins out.
Plus I’d also point out that a corporations customer base – even if they were motivated to ‘revolt’ against something – can often be very small in relation to the damage done by some profitable activity the corp undertakes. For example, the companies that sold Dioxin-based products were poisoning the environment and affecting a number of people that dwarfed the number of people who actually bought and used the products. In that case, what are all of these non-customers being poisoned supposed to do? What real influence would they have in a strictly laissez-faire market? None of consequence. If not for government, and the moral – human – component it more directly brings to bear, we would be living in the protypical Hobbesian world – nasty, brutish, short.
In fact, we once did live in a world something like that, at the turn of the last century. The reason we have so many consumer-friendly protections today is largely b/c our grandparents unionized and protested and otherwise changed the system – through democratic means – to reign in the worst aspects of unrestrained capitalism.
A good read on the subject is Upton Sinclair’s the Jungle. Check it out for free here:
http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Literature/Sinclair/TheJungle/
Look, I’m not saying government is all good, or that capitalism is all bad. My position is that people need to be very vigilent when government is involved in anything, and that when capitalism is dealing with relatively inconsequential consumer goods and services, it performs like a champ with minimal oversight. However, when entrusted with providing more crucial human needs, or required inputs to keep the overall economy humming (like the internet), it’s more like the fox providing feed to the hens. In the latter case, if you REALLY feel the fox can do the job better for some reason, you’d still better have a farmer with a big ol shotgun watching over him.
How’s that for an analogy?
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“Really. See, a democratic government is – typically – more directly accountable to the people who elect it.”
should have been “Really. What’s more “faceless”; a government committees or a corporate boardroom? See, a democratic government is – typically – more directly accountable to the people who elect it.”
“…How’s that for an analogy?”
Excellent and time-tested. Also, your points about the “worst aspects of unrestrained capitalism” are timely and well-taken. I disagree, however that american capitalism ever approached Tom Hobbes’ dark vision, even during the time of the poorly-named “robber barons” who built the nation’s infrastructure, albeit on the backs of what was little more than slave labor.
I think that you and I must come from different places – I was raised by a successful small businessman in a little Virginia town who interjected morality into every aspect of his business, and maybe I’m a little quicker to grant some of those characteristics to larger companies. To me, a corporation or company or firm or partnership is simply a group of men and women in business together, and their business practices reflect their personal practices and beliefs. I know the textbooks will ascribe all manner of evil transformative power to capitalism itself, but it’s only people who can make their lives nasty and brutish. A market is just a market.
It is the allure of power – the worst aspects of government – that seem far more dangerous than any market’s profit motive. Rarely (if ever) in history have markets caused mass murder, genocide, war, or racism. Governments, on the other hand…