3 ms·
Yes, unintended consequences are in play with every policy change (not just 'potentially') and they are never considered nearly enough, which is the reason the
by mseebach 10y ago
Yes, unintended consequences are in play with every policy change (not just 'potentially') and they are never considered nearly enough, which is the reason there are so many bad laws (and regulations and whatnot) on the books. People are way too eager to accept that a given change merely brings the benefits that the proponents promise with no downsides.
Interestingly in the case of net neutrality, it is relevant to keep in mind that the status quo is pretty good, having provided home markets for a very large number of the world's most successful internet companies. ISPs by and large are not doing the things that net neutrality prohibits. Netflix is exactly the kind of service that cable companies should want to shut down, but it's alive, well and extremely successful (Verizons peering shenanigans aren't to my best understanding covered by net neutrality). Early YouTube famously thrived on pirated content, which would even give cable companies a semi-legal cover for filtering them, but that didn't happen. The things that are wrong with the status quo are things that aren't addressed by net neutrality: connections are crappy and expensive. But crappy, expensive connections are fine under net neutrality, as long as they are neutrally crappy.
So, basically, none of the intended consequences of net neutrality does much more than perpetuate the status quo. But it adds a large body of new rules that nobody knows what could be used for, and God knows the US has its fair share of creative lawyers. I'm thinking about stuff like getting DMCA safe haven overturned on the back of some ambiguous phrasing written in the 1970s with phone lines in mind.
But hey, nobody says anything will happen. Nothing remarkable did for the past two years. Phonelines are regulated under the same regulations, and it's not obvious that anyone are missing out because of it.