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He's just better at dodging my questions than you are :). But please, keep erecting your straw man. The entire point of this is that the internet would be fund

He's just better at dodging my questions than you are :). But please, keep erecting your straw man. The entire point of this is that the internet would be fundamentally different if it were democratically controlled. That does not mean we would miss out on innovations like streaming video. It does mean that average users would have faster speeds and more control over their data. This of course assumes a political environment geared towards the average citizen. Sadly, in the United States, that is not currently the case. But it is achievable, and we used to be much closer to that ideal.

tptacek 10y ago
This isn't complicated. To believe the USG could have created an equivalent or better Internet as a regulated public utility, you have to believe that none of the major attributes of the modern Internet were produced through competition, because that is what you lose when you nationalize and regulate an industry. Electricity, gas, and water work as utilities because to a first approximation, the only competitive access is price. One thing regulation can do is drive prices to an acceptable place (often not the lowest price, but a satisficing price). But that is not the only axis of competition for Internet service. Nobody knows or cares what the quality of their gas service is, but most people can tell you how fast their Internet connection is, and not everyone wants the same service. As I pointed out downthread, when telecom was a regulated utility, we didn't even have competition in telephone handsets.
- borkborkbork 10y ago
  Yeah, they'll tell you their internet connection speed is shitty. Unless you live in Chattanooga, where the evil Department of Fiber Optics is busy oppressing them.
  - tptacek 10y ago
    Go look up EPB's ASN and see which public utility companies they're peering with to get Chattanooga customers in touch with Google. But this is entirely silly. EPB is great. More cities should run their own last-mile networks. What they do instead is impose regulatory frameworks that forbid companies that could run gig fiber networks from doing so unless they also serve markets where they would hemorrhage money. But the success of public utilities in places like Chattanooga is not an argument that a public utility could have built the modern Internet. To see just one reason why, try to host Youtube or Netflix on EPB's network.
    - borkborkbork 10y ago
      You're right. They're prioritizing access over the financial concerns of the providers. That's what public utilities do. That's what we did when we electrified the South. That's why I keep pointing to your fundamental political assumptions. It's not that we can't do it, it's that certain people don't think it's valuable.
      - tptacek 10y ago
        Please stop attacking me personally. You have no idea what my fundamental political assumptions are. If you're frustrated about how unpersuasive I find your argument, perhaps stop arguing; you aren't entitled to persuade me, but you're starting to write as if you feel you are.
        borkborkbork 10y ago
        I'm actually enjoying this conversation. That's why I've stuck around this long. To quote your last comment: "What they do instead is impose regulatory frameworks that forbid companies that could run gig fiber networks from doing so unless they also serve markets where they would hemorrhage money." Who cares if they're hemorrhaging money? The Public Works Administration hemorrhaged money electrifying the South. The Post Office hemorrhages money delivering to far flung rural areas. Society however has made the judgement that these costs are worth it because they promote inclusiveness and equality. You are making the opposite judgement. That judgement is inherently political.
        tptacek 10y ago
        You don't even seem to be reading my comments anymore. You've invented a disagreement that we don't even have, so you could reintroduce politics. I'm not interested in having a political argument with you. Incidentally, you may be chuckling at the tenor of this conversation and where it's going, but as I've told you repeatedly, I am taking offense. I am not enjoying it, and I wish you'd stop.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  > most people can tell you how fast their Internet connection is Most people on HN, maybe. Most consumers can maybe recall the speed advertised by their ISP (but maybe not, given how ISPs mostly used named tiers and often don't prominently identify even the advertised speed), but that can be a very different thing from how fast their connection is in practice.
- dtornabene 10y ago
  This presumes that innovation comes about only as a result of competition.
  - tptacek 10y ago
    I don't believe that it always does. I do believe that almost all of the innovation we've seen on the Internet has come from competition.
    - dtornabene 10y ago
      Would it not be fair then, to say that came about from specific circumstances peculiar to America?
      - tptacek 10y ago
        Why would that be the case? Has it generally been the case that innovations on the Internet have been generated from countries where the Internet is (more like) a public utility, and only then imported here? That's not my impression.
        dtornabene 10y ago
        My own feelings on this would take a long time to sketch out, and are pretty diffuse tbh. They would also depend not so much on the internet per se but on high technology in general. I would point to early Israel, which was highly, almost exclusively socialistic (and in ways not reproduced anywhere else, i.e. the kibbutzim) as being capable of high tech innovation with a highly dynamic state sector. Also, I feel it worth pointing out that (even though it doesn't make my argument any stronger) that just because something has been the case up until now doesn't make it The Only Way It Works.
        tptacek 10y ago
        So, just to be clear: this isn't a blanket belief I have about technology. The modern Internet, however, appears to me to have developed largely in response to consumer demand, first for email, then for web pages with pretty pictures, then for secure web pages, then person-to-person audio, then small-scale video, then large-scale video. At each interval, some random company introduced software demonstrating one of those features, and it caught on, and the Internet was built up in response to it. An ISDN BRI was zippy fast in 1997. I liked my ISDN! And if it weren't for Youtube, I might still like my ISDN. If the Internet were a regulated utility, we'd have to petition for the local Internet authority to roll out something faster than 128kb/s. But of course, I didn't petition to get my DSL line: I just switched ISPs to one who'd provide it. Lord only knows what Google would have had to do to get Youtube connected to the counterfactual regulated Internet. Like I said elsewhere, I think regulated utilities work reasonably well when there's just one figure of merit (usually: price). I think the approach falls apart when the number of variables increases.

tptacek 10y ago

This isn't complicated. To believe the USG could have created an equivalent or better Internet as a regulated public utility, you have to believe that none of the major attributes of the modern Internet were produced through competition, because that is what you lose when you nationalize and regulate an industry. Electricity, gas, and water work as utilities because to a first approximation, the only competitive access is price. One thing regulation can do is drive prices to an acceptable place (often not the lowest price, but a satisficing price). But that is not the only axis of competition for Internet service. Nobody knows or cares what the quality of their gas service is, but most people can tell you how fast their Internet connection is, and not everyone wants the same service. As I pointed out downthread, when telecom was a regulated utility, we didn't even have competition in telephone handsets.

borkborkbork 10y ago
Yeah, they'll tell you their internet connection speed is shitty. Unless you live in Chattanooga, where the evil Department of Fiber Optics is busy oppressing them.
- tptacek 10y ago
  Go look up EPB's ASN and see which public utility companies they're peering with to get Chattanooga customers in touch with Google. But this is entirely silly. EPB is great. More cities should run their own last-mile networks. What they do instead is impose regulatory frameworks that forbid companies that could run gig fiber networks from doing so unless they also serve markets where they would hemorrhage money. But the success of public utilities in places like Chattanooga is not an argument that a public utility could have built the modern Internet. To see just one reason why, try to host Youtube or Netflix on EPB's network.
  - borkborkbork 10y ago
    You're right. They're prioritizing access over the financial concerns of the providers. That's what public utilities do. That's what we did when we electrified the South. That's why I keep pointing to your fundamental political assumptions. It's not that we can't do it, it's that certain people don't think it's valuable.
    - tptacek 10y ago
      Please stop attacking me personally. You have no idea what my fundamental political assumptions are. If you're frustrated about how unpersuasive I find your argument, perhaps stop arguing; you aren't entitled to persuade me, but you're starting to write as if you feel you are.
      - borkborkbork 10y ago
        I'm actually enjoying this conversation. That's why I've stuck around this long. To quote your last comment: "What they do instead is impose regulatory frameworks that forbid companies that could run gig fiber networks from doing so unless they also serve markets where they would hemorrhage money." Who cares if they're hemorrhaging money? The Public Works Administration hemorrhaged money electrifying the South. The Post Office hemorrhages money delivering to far flung rural areas. Society however has made the judgement that these costs are worth it because they promote inclusiveness and equality. You are making the opposite judgement. That judgement is inherently political.
        tptacek 10y ago
        You don't even seem to be reading my comments anymore. You've invented a disagreement that we don't even have, so you could reintroduce politics. I'm not interested in having a political argument with you. Incidentally, you may be chuckling at the tenor of this conversation and where it's going, but as I've told you repeatedly, I am taking offense. I am not enjoying it, and I wish you'd stop.
dragonwriter 10y ago
> most people can tell you how fast their Internet connection is Most people on HN, maybe. Most consumers can maybe recall the speed advertised by their ISP (but maybe not, given how ISPs mostly used named tiers and often don't prominently identify even the advertised speed), but that can be a very different thing from how fast their connection is in practice.
dtornabene 10y ago
This presumes that innovation comes about only as a result of competition.
- tptacek 10y ago
  I don't believe that it always does. I do believe that almost all of the innovation we've seen on the Internet has come from competition.
  - dtornabene 10y ago
    Would it not be fair then, to say that came about from specific circumstances peculiar to America?
    - tptacek 10y ago
      Why would that be the case? Has it generally been the case that innovations on the Internet have been generated from countries where the Internet is (more like) a public utility, and only then imported here? That's not my impression.
      - dtornabene 10y ago
        My own feelings on this would take a long time to sketch out, and are pretty diffuse tbh. They would also depend not so much on the internet per se but on high technology in general. I would point to early Israel, which was highly, almost exclusively socialistic (and in ways not reproduced anywhere else, i.e. the kibbutzim) as being capable of high tech innovation with a highly dynamic state sector. Also, I feel it worth pointing out that (even though it doesn't make my argument any stronger) that just because something has been the case up until now doesn't make it The Only Way It Works.
        tptacek 10y ago
        So, just to be clear: this isn't a blanket belief I have about technology. The modern Internet, however, appears to me to have developed largely in response to consumer demand, first for email, then for web pages with pretty pictures, then for secure web pages, then person-to-person audio, then small-scale video, then large-scale video. At each interval, some random company introduced software demonstrating one of those features, and it caught on, and the Internet was built up in response to it. An ISDN BRI was zippy fast in 1997. I liked my ISDN! And if it weren't for Youtube, I might still like my ISDN. If the Internet were a regulated utility, we'd have to petition for the local Internet authority to roll out something faster than 128kb/s. But of course, I didn't petition to get my DSL line: I just switched ISPs to one who'd provide it. Lord only knows what Google would have had to do to get Youtube connected to the counterfactual regulated Internet. Like I said elsewhere, I think regulated utilities work reasonably well when there's just one figure of merit (usually: price). I think the approach falls apart when the number of variables increases.