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I'm big on the free market, laissez faire, and deregulation. As with many topics that incite so much handwringing in congress (health care being another great

I'm big on the free market, laissez faire, and deregulation. As with many topics that incite so much handwringing in congress (health care being another great example), many of the problems would likely solve themselves if regulations protecting giant corporations from competition were done away with. If it were possible for startup telecom companies to compete with the big 3, then the competition in telecom would likely enforce net neutrality on its own. In other words, we are spending a lot of time and effort debating the wrong problems here. No system is perfect, but I will always lean towards less is more when it comes to regulation.

mattnewton 9y ago
Is it too much regulation, or not acting on the trust busting regulations we already have that prevents newcomers? In the case of telecoms, it is hard to imagine a startup being able to pay the entry costs of building infrastructure, which are extremely substantial, and then offer lower prices. Granted, the situation also suffers from telecoms striking monopoly deals with municipalities, so if that could be prevented it would help too.
hackuser 9y ago
> If it were possible for startup telecom companies to compete with the big 3 One reason to regulate markets is to preserve a competitive environment where this is possible. Big, dominant players in a market want less competition, not more, and left on their own they find ways to prevent it. Look at how Microsoft used the Windows monopoly, for example, to eliminate competition in office suites and web browsers. They made it technically difficult for customers to use other products, they pressured vendors into selling Microsoft's products over others', they used their OS monopoly to give them a technical advantage in applications that ran on it, they distorted open standards to lock in their products ('embrace, extend, extinguish'), etc. It took a government lawsuit to open the web browser market and even that was too late for the competition, who were out of business. (The office suite market never again had competition until maybe the online suites now, and I don't know how much market share they have.) > competition in telecom would likely enforce net neutrality on its own I don't see why that particular outcome would be likely. Plenty of industries do things, sans regulation, that are bad for consumers and that consumers don't like. Look at the fraud in the financial industry, for example, or the privacy problems in IT products, or all the nightmares of the health insurance industry.
- trey-jones 9y ago
  Maybe I shouldn't have been so generally anti-regulation in my initial post; I am specifically referring to regulation that exists solely to protect large corporations and their monopolies - these do seem to be more common at the state and local level. Your points are taken.

mattnewton 9y ago

Is it too much regulation, or not acting on the trust busting regulations we already have that prevents newcomers? In the case of telecoms, it is hard to imagine a startup being able to pay the entry costs of building infrastructure, which are extremely substantial, and then offer lower prices. Granted, the situation also suffers from telecoms striking monopoly deals with municipalities, so if that could be prevented it would help too.

hackuser 9y ago

> If it were possible for startup telecom companies to compete with the big 3 One reason to regulate markets is to preserve a competitive environment where this is possible. Big, dominant players in a market want less competition, not more, and left on their own they find ways to prevent it. Look at how Microsoft used the Windows monopoly, for example, to eliminate competition in office suites and web browsers. They made it technically difficult for customers to use other products, they pressured vendors into selling Microsoft's products over others', they used their OS monopoly to give them a technical advantage in applications that ran on it, they distorted open standards to lock in their products ('embrace, extend, extinguish'), etc. It took a government lawsuit to open the web browser market and even that was too late for the competition, who were out of business. (The office suite market never again had competition until maybe the online suites now, and I don't know how much market share they have.) > competition in telecom would likely enforce net neutrality on its own I don't see why that particular outcome would be likely. Plenty of industries do things, sans regulation, that are bad for consumers and that consumers don't like. Look at the fraud in the financial industry, for example, or the privacy problems in IT products, or all the nightmares of the health insurance industry.

trey-jones 9y ago
Maybe I shouldn't have been so generally anti-regulation in my initial post; I am specifically referring to regulation that exists solely to protect large corporations and their monopolies - these do seem to be more common at the state and local level. Your points are taken.