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The government created the internet. For a while in the early 90s corporations tried to create it, and what they came up with were walled gardens, the open inte

by guelo 12y ago

The government created the internet. For a while in the early 90s corporations tried to create it, and what they came up with were walled gardens, the open internet blew them away, look up Compuserve, AOL and Prodigy. The internet works because of the underlying open, bidirectional, equally privileged connections. If the corps are starting to change that it must be stopped. The internet is one of humanities greatest achievements and we can't let greedy monopoly beuraucrats kill it.

smsm42 12y ago
The government didn't create the internet. At the most, the government gave money to some projects that developed some technologies that were subsequently used to create the internet. Yes, there were a lot of failed attempts at how to handle the informational world - like AOL (which btw is alive and well as a company with multibillion revenues), Compuserve, etc. - but some of these attempts worked. And that what we call the internet now. Of course, it's not only companies, but NGOs, universities, etc. >>> The internet works because of the underlying open, bidirectional, equally privileged connections. This is very simplistic view which does not match what really happens on the net. There are a lot of barriers, firewalls, routing preferences, private bandwidth exchanges, etc. It still works reasonably well so far. >>> The internet is one of humanities greatest achievements and we can't let greedy monopoly beuraucrats kill it. You realize that "monopoly bureaucrats" is the very definition of the government? If you were ever scared of huge bureaucratic power that would take away the control from you and use it for its own purposes, the US federal government would fit this role ideally.
- guelo 12y ago
  At least theoretically, the government bureaucrat can be influenced for the general good. The corporate monopoly bureaucrat will fuck everybody over if it serves his interest.
  - smsm42 12y ago
    True, but corporation can be influenced for the general good too - by its customers. In fact, you can argue customers have more control than the voters - if the politician has 50%+1 votes in his pocket and appoints the bureaucrat, the opinion of the rest of 50%-1 voters have absolutely no weight to him (unless he is of a special rare breed of saint which is so rare in real politics). However, for the corporation losing 50% of their customers would be a huge blow, which given healthy competitive market would probably kill it, so the control of the customers is greater. Of course, with monopoly it would be different, but if the monopoly is not externally enforced, large reluctance of the customers to deal with it will eventually lead to the competition emerging and thus the monopoly would be lost. If the monopoly is persisted by law or regulation then this may not happen, but then the problem again is in that regulation that essentially now forces almost 50% of people to use service they do not want to use.
    - guelo 12y ago
      I always considered the libertarian theory that corporate monopolies are caused by the government as very suspect and entirely unproven. Natural monopolies are obvious when you think about it a little bit. When your entire ideology depends on them not existing them maybe it's time for a rethink.
      - smsm42 12y ago
        When you think a little bit, sure. When you think more than a little bit, it's not really that obvious. Remember how Microsoft was a monopoly and EU spent so much time and money on struggling with MSIE to no noticeable effect? Remember what happens now when the most wished for feature of MSIE is "please die already"? So what happened - is that EU that brought that most natural of monopolies down or was there something else? Maybe thinking more than just little a bit is warranted here.
        guelo 12y ago
        Not only EU, the US DOJ also sued Microsoft over their monopoly. Microsoft could have blocked Firefox, they could have banned dual booting Windows on Macs. There's a lot of things they could have done to lock down their monopoly permanently, but they didn't do them because they were afraid of government regulators breaking them up. It was a huge win for government regulation promoting innovation.

by guelo 12y ago

smsm42 12y ago

The government didn't create the internet. At the most, the government gave money to some projects that developed some technologies that were subsequently used to create the internet. Yes, there were a lot of failed attempts at how to handle the informational world - like AOL (which btw is alive and well as a company with multibillion revenues), Compuserve, etc. - but some of these attempts worked. And that what we call the internet now. Of course, it's not only companies, but NGOs, universities, etc. >>> The internet works because of the underlying open, bidirectional, equally privileged connections. This is very simplistic view which does not match what really happens on the net. There are a lot of barriers, firewalls, routing preferences, private bandwidth exchanges, etc. It still works reasonably well so far. >>> The internet is one of humanities greatest achievements and we can't let greedy monopoly beuraucrats kill it. You realize that "monopoly bureaucrats" is the very definition of the government? If you were ever scared of huge bureaucratic power that would take away the control from you and use it for its own purposes, the US federal government would fit this role ideally.

guelo 12y ago
At least theoretically, the government bureaucrat can be influenced for the general good. The corporate monopoly bureaucrat will fuck everybody over if it serves his interest.
- smsm42 12y ago
  True, but corporation can be influenced for the general good too - by its customers. In fact, you can argue customers have more control than the voters - if the politician has 50%+1 votes in his pocket and appoints the bureaucrat, the opinion of the rest of 50%-1 voters have absolutely no weight to him (unless he is of a special rare breed of saint which is so rare in real politics). However, for the corporation losing 50% of their customers would be a huge blow, which given healthy competitive market would probably kill it, so the control of the customers is greater. Of course, with monopoly it would be different, but if the monopoly is not externally enforced, large reluctance of the customers to deal with it will eventually lead to the competition emerging and thus the monopoly would be lost. If the monopoly is persisted by law or regulation then this may not happen, but then the problem again is in that regulation that essentially now forces almost 50% of people to use service they do not want to use.
  - guelo 12y ago
    I always considered the libertarian theory that corporate monopolies are caused by the government as very suspect and entirely unproven. Natural monopolies are obvious when you think about it a little bit. When your entire ideology depends on them not existing them maybe it's time for a rethink.
    - smsm42 12y ago
      When you think a little bit, sure. When you think more than a little bit, it's not really that obvious. Remember how Microsoft was a monopoly and EU spent so much time and money on struggling with MSIE to no noticeable effect? Remember what happens now when the most wished for feature of MSIE is "please die already"? So what happened - is that EU that brought that most natural of monopolies down or was there something else? Maybe thinking more than just little a bit is warranted here.
      - guelo 12y ago
        Not only EU, the US DOJ also sued Microsoft over their monopoly. Microsoft could have blocked Firefox, they could have banned dual booting Windows on Macs. There's a lot of things they could have done to lock down their monopoly permanently, but they didn't do them because they were afraid of government regulators breaking them up. It was a huge win for government regulation promoting innovation.