3 ms·

I'm with you, I think it's not going to work, but these are the kinds of arguments people make. In some ways it's a question of whose freedom are you defending?

• gshulegaard 10y ago
  I thought about how the best respond to your comment. I think your intentions are pure, but you conflate a lot of different issues together that it's kind of difficult to respond. So let's start with the economics. At the heart of Capitalism is the idea of Perfect Competition[1]. There is no ethical considerations in an Economic model, only a core set of assumptions one of which is that each individual acts in their own self-interest. But just because everyone acts selfishly doesn't mean that there can't be a benefit to both parties. In fact trade rests on the idea that two parties can engage in a mutually beneficial transaction[2] (and it is trivial to come up with an example). In a Perfectly Competitive market, a seller can't charge a high price because another seller will undercut their price. Likewise, a buyer can't demand a lower price, because no one will sell to them at a lower price. There is an implicit "equilibrium" where the seller maximizes their profit and the buyer maximizes their utility. So in a way, you could say that the buyer and seller "freedoms collide", but that precise collision should result in an mutually beneficial transaction of sorts. At this point you might be thinking that if competition means market equilibrium, then why does HN want regulation at all? Well the trouble with Perfect Competition is that it is an impossible ideal: > there is no actual perfectly competitive market in the real world [1] This is because of all the conditions required for Perfect Competition. Some of my favorites are: * A large number of buyers and sellers * Perfect information * Homogenous products * No externalities Some examples of real-world American failures pertaining to these examples: * A large number of buyers and sellers -- Internet providers. There are few providers outside of Time Warner and Comcast. * Perfect information -- Health care. When was the last time you saw hospitals post surgery prices online so you could pick most affordable option? Oh wait, an Oklahoma Surgery Center did that [3] and you know what happened? Californians flew out to have surgery because even with travel it was far cheaper than their local alternatives. * Homogenous products -- Coke vs. Pepsi. You could argue they are homogenous (both soda pop), but most people would disagree. Moreover with recipe protections, it may very well be impossible/illegal for Pepsi to make an exact clone of Coke or vice-versa. * No externalities -- Pollution (e.g. Global Warming). Pollution is often a cost to society as a whole and not on a corporation. If dumping your factory run-off directly into the river is cheaper than properly disposing of it, most companies would choose to do just that (e.g. the Mississippi pollution levels [4]). Well so if Perfect Competition is impossible, then what should we do? This is where Government regulation comes in and where there is often a debate. But from an Economic standpoint, I think it is pretty safe to say that we should do everything we can to maximize competition. That's why most of HN is fond of Tom Wheeler. By and large his policies protected net neutrality and ensured that ISPs couldn't artificially favor one service over another thereby reducing competition. How could a Hulu compete with a Netflix if Netflix just shelled out massive amounts of capital to buy "fast lanes" with contractual non-competes with all the major ISPs in America? But that was my point. The argument that ISPs will "reinvest" this new revenue into improving service for their customers is a fallacy. ISPs will only invest in things that increase revenue...not because they want their customers to have $10 cheaper internet service. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_competition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_competition [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade [3] http://kfor.com/2013/07/08/okc-hospital-posting-surgery-prices-online/ http://kfor.com/2013/07/08/okc-hospital-posting-surgery-pric... [4] http://www.stltoday.com/lifestyles/health-med-fit/health/mississippi-river-is-second-most-polluted-u-s-waterway/article_bce8579e-7449-11e1-9b27-001a4bcf6878.html http://www.stltoday.com/lifestyles/health-med-fit/health/mis...
  • entee 10y ago
    Ha! I'm not sure who you're trying to convince, I keep saying I agree with you! I'm merely phrasing things a little differently. A fully free market with no regulation or intervention, as you point out, is frequently impossible. Especially with in infrastructure where natural monopolies abound. Free markets have a tendency to become monopolies or abusive without efforts to maintain competition, and as you point out we have to encourage competition. But this requires making tradeoffs. The person who put the cable in the ground feels they are free in this (theoretical, but non-existent) free market, to charge whoever they want whatever they want to use the cable. The person using the cable has no choice but to accept those terms because there isn't effective competition. Wheeler chooses the freedom of the consumer to choose versus the freedom of the provider in order to favor competition among providers. I agree with this balance, Wheeler was good, I don't like this new guy at all so far. My original objective was to try to explore the other guy's point of view, to give some of the arguments they would give in favor. I find them unconvincing, but those are the arguments those opposed to net neutrality give.
    • 9935c101ab17a66 10y ago
      Just wanted to say that I appreciate your respectful discourse
  • 9935c101ab17a66 10y ago
    I very much appreciated your respectful discourse and well-articulated response.