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When people want something nationalized, it usually comes with the asterisk *as long as the gov officials managing it are part of my tribe and preferred policy
by natalyarostova 9y ago
When people want something nationalized, it usually comes with the asterisk *as long as the gov officials managing it are part of my tribe and preferred policy set. This isn't always bad, since sometimes we all are in general agreement, but it's important to ask yourself: in political systems power can shift fast, do you want these policies to be part of this shift? Do you want the internet to be managed by trump appointees?
- rhino369 9y agoEven if it isn't caught up in partisan fighting, the average voter isn't going to want to spend money on upgrades. Do you think your grandma wants to increase the price of her internet by 10 bucks a month to get gigabit? Mine wouldn't.
- confounded 9y agoIndeed, while I really want to like the proposal, democracy in the US doesn’t seem strong enough (and the judiciary don’t seem interested enough) for it to work. It’s easy to imagine the Internet facing a different class of threats, from a united front of spooks, rights-holders-groups, and moralists. I can’t imagine the open uncensored web surviving long, unless it had some kind of mini constitution of its own. This said, the future under private companies doesn’t look great either. ISPs are uncompetitive, exploitative, and anti-consumer, and the corporations who act as censors (Google, Apple, Facebook) have increasing skin in the rights-holder-group game, and are happy to build censorship machines for lobbyists, spies, and other authoritarians. Maybe it’s worth thinking about what such a “Constitution for the Internet” might be now, before it completely disappears. (And perhaps while TBL and Vint Cerf have some fight left in them for a roadshow)!