Am I The Only Techie Against Net Neutrality?

[tehdoomsayer]

Story : http://www.forbes.com/sites/joshsteimle/2014/05/14/am-i-the-only-techie-against-

Proponents of Net Neutrality say the telecoms have too much power. I agree. Everyone seems to agree that monopolies are bad and competition is good, and just like you, I would like to see more competition. But if monopolies are bad, why should we trust the U.S. government, the largest, most powerful monopoly in the world? We’re talking about the same organization that spent an amount equal to Facebook’s first six years of operating costs to build a health care website that doesn’t work, the same organization that can’t keep the country’s bridges from falling down, and the same organization that spends 320 times what private industry spends to send a rocket into space. Think of an industry that has major problems. Public schools? Health care? How about higher education, student loans, housing, banking, physical infrastructure, immigration, the space program, the military, the police, or the post office? What do all these industries and/or organizations have in common? They are all heavily regulated or controlled by the government. On the other hand we see that where deregulation has occurred, innovation has bloomed, such as with telephony services. Do you think we’d all be walking around with smartphones today if the government still ran the phone system?

I know this story is really old, but it's suddenly so relevant I thought I'd post it up here.

On top of that, it's the only story I've read on the subject that adequately explains my opposition to it in a way I could never hope to express on my own.

[IneptVagrant]

That article doesn't debate the merits of Net Neutrality (NN). It only debates the merits of government in general. If you assume the government can do no good, then a government enactment of NN will do no good.

The corporations have shown they will violate the tenets of NN. So if you value the tenets NN, in any measure, then you must find or create another entity(s) to uphold those tenets. Granted there may be no going back, but when the choice is bad vs unknown I choose to be an optimist about the unknown.

In fact the article is so out of touch with what NN is, that we can substitute the phrase 'utilitize internet access' and have the same article and the same debate. But they are not the same thing, and the two have different pros and cons. NN is an ideal and thus will be debated for ever and ever, but converting internet access into something like a utility is something I view as both necessary and universally good.