6 ms·

How Robber Barons hijacked the "Victorian Internet"

57 points by alecco 17y ago

steveklabnik 17y ago
Very cool article. As someone who's very much for small gov't, net neutrality has been a really hard issue for me, personally, as it's making another law to ensure more freedom? Those two concepts are kind of hard to fit together sometimes.
- RyanMcGreal 17y ago
  > making another law to ensure more freedom? Those two concepts are kind of hard to fit together sometimes. Really? What do you think guarantees freedom, if not the rule of law?
  - gojomo 17y ago
    Laws enforced against deceit and theft and murder help freedom. Laws dictating what's legal to sell, at what price, not at all. The FCC that would enforce "neutrality" also enforces "indecency" rules and has in the past required a minute-for-minute accounting and balance of political expression -- the "fairness doctrine". There is reason to doubt whether neutrality laws would be freedom-promoting or welfare-promoting, in the long run. How well did "rail neutrality" work, in the long run? See: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/03/opinion/03lee.html http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/03/opinion/03lee.html
    - pyre 17y ago
      How about laws requiring that ISPs be 100% transparent with all filtering/throttling/etc that they do with company-crippling penalties for avoidance (instead of laughable penalties that large companies will just write off as the 'cost of doing business')? edit: Thinking more about this, ISPs would just bury this information in the EULA in obtuse legalese so that normal users would ignore it or at least have a hard time understanding it. Then they would be in the letter of the law, but not the spirit and they would still get away with stuff. Though it would help in places like taking the ISPs to court (as right now what happens on their network is essentially a blackbox and when there's a problem they can just shift the blame to someone outside of their network and there's little you can do to prove/disprove that).
    - weavejester 17y ago
      > Laws enforced against deceit and theft and murder help freedom. Laws dictating what's legal to sell, at what price, not at all. Laws are far from the only way to restrict what is sold to the public. Large corporations can leverage their market share to shut down competition in other areas. In order to maintain a healthy market place, you have to ensure that a market is not completely controlled by a few large corporations.
      - dpatru 17y ago
        A simple way to do this would be to limit some of the advantages of a corporation, which is itself a state-created entity. I've no problem with government limiting the freedom of its own creation which enjoys unlimited life, limited liability, tax advantages. I do have a problem with government restricting the freedom of individuals and partnerships to contract freely in the marketplace.
        weavejester 17y ago
        I think the problem still remains; a free market does not necessarily mean it is an optimum market, and the government is not the only factor that can adversely affect a marketplace.
      - gojomo 17y ago
        ...you have to ensure that a market is not completely controlled by a few large corporations. Maybe. But if so, that's an argument for antitrust enforcement, not net-neutrality type-and-price-of-service regulations. As the example of regulatory capture in many industries should make clear, regulations often turn out giving an advantage to the few large operators who can play at Washington rulemaking games -- with large staffs of lobbyists and big donations at election time -- no matter what the regulators' initial rationale.
        weavejester 17y ago
        Isn't net-neutrality a form of antitrust law? Net neutrality is essentially a way of stopping corporations from using their influence over communication lines to unfairly affect other markets that use those communication lines.
  - steveklabnik 17y ago
    Usually laws restrict what individuals can do, limiting thier individual freedom, to provide what will (hopefully) be a better situation for the greater good.
    - icey 17y ago
      In the case of net neutrality, it's an exchange of freedoms - giving the individual greater freedom at the cost of freedom for companies.
      - steveklabnik 17y ago
        But companies are owned and run by individuals, so you're interfering with an individual's ability to run his company as he sees fit. I'm not saying I don't agree with Net Neutrality, because I do, I'm just torn about _why_ I agree with it.
        gloob 17y ago
        But companies are owned and run by individuals, so you're interfering with an individual's ability to run his company as he sees fit. But governments are run by individuals, so saying that they aren't allowed to pass such-and-such a regulation means interfering with the individual's ability to run their government the way they see fit. The notion of "absolute freedom" suffers a stack overflow if you actually try and think about it. Any action whatsoever, not merely government regulation, reduces the freedom of some people and increases it for others.
        steveklabnik 17y ago
        > The notion of "absolute freedom" suffers a stack overflow if you actually try and think about it. Any action whatsoever, not merely government regulation, reduces the freedom of some people and increases it for others. Yep. But this isn't neccessarily about 'absolute,' it's about "minimal as possible," at least in my eyes. As I said to someone below, I prefer to fix problems after the fact, rather than before, but I feel like this will almost certainly be a problem, so why not just cut to the chase?
- sili 17y ago
  I believe in a democracy+capitalism gov't has to be as large as necessary and no larger. We cannot always say that gov't has to be small, it has certain duties one of which is to make sure, through legal means, that the system does not destroy itself. Once we agree that net neutrality is required for healthy capitalism, what possible ways are there to guarantee it other than a meaningful amount of regulation. It is in the same vein as regulation needed to prevent monopolies.
  - steveklabnik 17y ago
    Ideally, the market would just take care of it. EDIT: Holy crap, everyone. Please refer to my two responses just below about the reason I said "Ideally." This statement is in response to "what possible ways are there to guarantee it other than a meaningful amount of regulation." So I gave one.
    - pyre 17y ago
      Just like how the market prevented crap like Enron? Just like how the market punishes companies that dump toxic chemicals into waterways? I'm sorry but the idea that the market will solve every problem the world could ever dream of is a ridiculously out-of-touch-with-reality idea. Though the idea that Congress can come up with laws to solve even one problem without creating side-effects is equally naive. The 'market' can be gamed, and there are plenty of people that make a career out of it. As long as you can bury the truth in bureaucratic nonsense and hide behind diffusion of responsibility you can get away with practically anything.
      - steveklabnik 17y ago
        There's a reason I said "Ideally." I don't think it would work that way, hence my support of Net Neutrality. But I still like to think long and hard about restricting market forces, and so I'd almost rather wait until the market is proven unable to handle it before enacting legislation, rather than doing it pre-emptively.
    - jbooth 17y ago
- Andys 17y ago
  Ahh, but see, what if we also took away the laws which governed who could run a Telco? For example, there's cases where cities have been forced to remove their free wifi networks. The technology exists now to make (slow, but) free wifi mesh networks among citizens. If anyone can make An internet, then who cares if The internet is no longer neutral?
  - steveklabnik 17y ago
    Yeah, plugin laws are certainly an alternative. But more people seem to be behind net neutrality, so it's more likely to get passed...
javert 17y ago
I smell a straw man here. All the problems mentioned arose because WU was a monopoly. But, why was WU a monopoly? Telegraph lines could only be installed profitably along railroad lines. Thus, the railroad companies could create a situation where there could only be one telegraph company--a monopoly. Why could telegraph lines only be installed profitably alongside railroad lines? Well, one could lay telegraph lines through the countryside fairly cheaply, but the problem is: high taxes on the land you're using, government not allowing you to bury lines below roads and other obstructions, and similar regulatory issues. In other words, there were no non-regulatory reasons one couldn't set up a competing telegraph company (at great profit, if it's true that WU charged exorbitant prices and spied on your messages). Likewise, in the modern telco industry, there are government-granted monopolies to certain companies like AT&T and Time Warner through regulatory means. E.g. typically, only one company is allowed to install communication lines in a given area. Doing away with government-granted monopolistic regulations is the solution. Consider what happens if the other route is taken. The other answer is to have government more heavily regulate the existing monopolies - which will lead to abuse and corruption. If you allow for excessive regulation, you have the recipie for the problem cited in the article: government and certain companies will conspire with each other, to everyone's detriment. It's already happening with AT&T and the US government (consider the extra/quasi-legal spying AT&T has done for the government), and it will get worse under net neutrailty.
- pradocchia 17y ago
  > Doing away with government-granted monopolistic regulations is the solution. I have no prescriptions, but I do observer that the grantor and grantee are typically two hands of the same will. That monopolies are granted because the grantee wants it, and has found ways to make it so. How do you do away with that? Capitalism is premised on the concentration of wealth to fund capital-intensive investment. Given the concomitant concentration of power, how do you prevent regulatory capture and the general perversion of government? How do you dilute power and preserve the system?
  - anamax 17y ago
    Of course the grantee wants it. However, if there's no grantor, it doesn't matter what the grantee wants. > Given the concomitant concentration of power, how do you prevent regulatory capture and the general perversion of government? A govt that doesn't regulate isn't subject to regulatory capture. A "not govt" that tries to regulate can usually be ignored.
chrischen 17y ago
"Freedom is not a zero sum game, where taking it away from some gives more to others. Taking away freedoms of some takes away freedom from all." I wonder how he'd feel after we make murder legal, and then I shoot him in the face. Have him see how much freedom he has when he's dead. My point is that it's a gray area. It's not all freedom or nothing.
- gills 17y ago
  Some might see your analogy as backwards, especially if they view individual freedom as having natural bounds which are easily identifiable to mentally stable humans. I have a feeling that's why you were voted down (not by me, sorry). An example of this line of reasoning: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Theory_of_Justice http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Theory_of_Justice
nickpinkston 17y ago
Why is no one here mentioning plug-in laws? With proper governance (ie: laws) we can remove the market externality that exists in the natural monopoly of telecom infrastructure. These laws force all infrastructure owners to sell access at bulk rates (like a T3) that allow new ISPs, etc. without any burdens (ie: throttling). Most people would pick the independents without restrictions. Net neutrality, as it's currently setup, makes it too easy for companies to influence the law. Plug-in laws are at work in many developed economies, and are more subject to market forces due to the competition for bulk rate product.
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]

57 points by alecco 17y ago

Very cool article. As someone who's very much for small gov't, net neutrality has been a really hard issue for me, personally, as it's making another law to ensure more freedom? Those two concepts are kind of hard to fit together sometimes.

RyanMcGreal 17y ago
> making another law to ensure more freedom? Those two concepts are kind of hard to fit together sometimes. Really? What do you think guarantees freedom, if not the rule of law?
- gojomo 17y ago
  Laws enforced against deceit and theft and murder help freedom. Laws dictating what's legal to sell, at what price, not at all. The FCC that would enforce "neutrality" also enforces "indecency" rules and has in the past required a minute-for-minute accounting and balance of political expression -- the "fairness doctrine". There is reason to doubt whether neutrality laws would be freedom-promoting or welfare-promoting, in the long run. How well did "rail neutrality" work, in the long run? See: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/03/opinion/03lee.html http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/03/opinion/03lee.html
  - pyre 17y ago
    How about laws requiring that ISPs be 100% transparent with all filtering/throttling/etc that they do with company-crippling penalties for avoidance (instead of laughable penalties that large companies will just write off as the 'cost of doing business')? edit: Thinking more about this, ISPs would just bury this information in the EULA in obtuse legalese so that normal users would ignore it or at least have a hard time understanding it. Then they would be in the letter of the law, but not the spirit and they would still get away with stuff. Though it would help in places like taking the ISPs to court (as right now what happens on their network is essentially a blackbox and when there's a problem they can just shift the blame to someone outside of their network and there's little you can do to prove/disprove that).
  - weavejester 17y ago
    > Laws enforced against deceit and theft and murder help freedom. Laws dictating what's legal to sell, at what price, not at all. Laws are far from the only way to restrict what is sold to the public. Large corporations can leverage their market share to shut down competition in other areas. In order to maintain a healthy market place, you have to ensure that a market is not completely controlled by a few large corporations.
    - dpatru 17y ago
      A simple way to do this would be to limit some of the advantages of a corporation, which is itself a state-created entity. I've no problem with government limiting the freedom of its own creation which enjoys unlimited life, limited liability, tax advantages. I do have a problem with government restricting the freedom of individuals and partnerships to contract freely in the marketplace.
      - weavejester 17y ago
        I think the problem still remains; a free market does not necessarily mean it is an optimum market, and the government is not the only factor that can adversely affect a marketplace.
    - gojomo 17y ago
      ...you have to ensure that a market is not completely controlled by a few large corporations. Maybe. But if so, that's an argument for antitrust enforcement, not net-neutrality type-and-price-of-service regulations. As the example of regulatory capture in many industries should make clear, regulations often turn out giving an advantage to the few large operators who can play at Washington rulemaking games -- with large staffs of lobbyists and big donations at election time -- no matter what the regulators' initial rationale.
      - weavejester 17y ago
        Isn't net-neutrality a form of antitrust law? Net neutrality is essentially a way of stopping corporations from using their influence over communication lines to unfairly affect other markets that use those communication lines.
- steveklabnik 17y ago
  Usually laws restrict what individuals can do, limiting thier individual freedom, to provide what will (hopefully) be a better situation for the greater good.
  - icey 17y ago
    In the case of net neutrality, it's an exchange of freedoms - giving the individual greater freedom at the cost of freedom for companies.
    - steveklabnik 17y ago
      But companies are owned and run by individuals, so you're interfering with an individual's ability to run his company as he sees fit. I'm not saying I don't agree with Net Neutrality, because I do, I'm just torn about _why_ I agree with it.
      - gloob 17y ago
        But companies are owned and run by individuals, so you're interfering with an individual's ability to run his company as he sees fit. But governments are run by individuals, so saying that they aren't allowed to pass such-and-such a regulation means interfering with the individual's ability to run their government the way they see fit. The notion of "absolute freedom" suffers a stack overflow if you actually try and think about it. Any action whatsoever, not merely government regulation, reduces the freedom of some people and increases it for others.
        steveklabnik 17y ago
        > The notion of "absolute freedom" suffers a stack overflow if you actually try and think about it. Any action whatsoever, not merely government regulation, reduces the freedom of some people and increases it for others. Yep. But this isn't neccessarily about 'absolute,' it's about "minimal as possible," at least in my eyes. As I said to someone below, I prefer to fix problems after the fact, rather than before, but I feel like this will almost certainly be a problem, so why not just cut to the chase?
sili 17y ago
I believe in a democracy+capitalism gov't has to be as large as necessary and no larger. We cannot always say that gov't has to be small, it has certain duties one of which is to make sure, through legal means, that the system does not destroy itself. Once we agree that net neutrality is required for healthy capitalism, what possible ways are there to guarantee it other than a meaningful amount of regulation. It is in the same vein as regulation needed to prevent monopolies.
- steveklabnik 17y ago
  Ideally, the market would just take care of it. EDIT: Holy crap, everyone. Please refer to my two responses just below about the reason I said "Ideally." This statement is in response to "what possible ways are there to guarantee it other than a meaningful amount of regulation." So I gave one.
  - pyre 17y ago
    Just like how the market prevented crap like Enron? Just like how the market punishes companies that dump toxic chemicals into waterways? I'm sorry but the idea that the market will solve every problem the world could ever dream of is a ridiculously out-of-touch-with-reality idea. Though the idea that Congress can come up with laws to solve even one problem without creating side-effects is equally naive. The 'market' can be gamed, and there are plenty of people that make a career out of it. As long as you can bury the truth in bureaucratic nonsense and hide behind diffusion of responsibility you can get away with practically anything.
    - steveklabnik 17y ago
      There's a reason I said "Ideally." I don't think it would work that way, hence my support of Net Neutrality. But I still like to think long and hard about restricting market forces, and so I'd almost rather wait until the market is proven unable to handle it before enacting legislation, rather than doing it pre-emptively.
  - jbooth 17y ago
Andys 17y ago
Ahh, but see, what if we also took away the laws which governed who could run a Telco? For example, there's cases where cities have been forced to remove their free wifi networks. The technology exists now to make (slow, but) free wifi mesh networks among citizens. If anyone can make An internet, then who cares if The internet is no longer neutral?
- steveklabnik 17y ago
  Yeah, plugin laws are certainly an alternative. But more people seem to be behind net neutrality, so it's more likely to get passed...

javert 17y ago

I smell a straw man here. All the problems mentioned arose because WU was a monopoly. But, why was WU a monopoly? Telegraph lines could only be installed profitably along railroad lines. Thus, the railroad companies could create a situation where there could only be one telegraph company--a monopoly. Why could telegraph lines only be installed profitably alongside railroad lines? Well, one could lay telegraph lines through the countryside fairly cheaply, but the problem is: high taxes on the land you're using, government not allowing you to bury lines below roads and other obstructions, and similar regulatory issues. In other words, there were no non-regulatory reasons one couldn't set up a competing telegraph company (at great profit, if it's true that WU charged exorbitant prices and spied on your messages). Likewise, in the modern telco industry, there are government-granted monopolies to certain companies like AT&T and Time Warner through regulatory means. E.g. typically, only one company is allowed to install communication lines in a given area. Doing away with government-granted monopolistic regulations is the solution. Consider what happens if the other route is taken. The other answer is to have government more heavily regulate the existing monopolies - which will lead to abuse and corruption. If you allow for excessive regulation, you have the recipie for the problem cited in the article: government and certain companies will conspire with each other, to everyone's detriment. It's already happening with AT&T and the US government (consider the extra/quasi-legal spying AT&T has done for the government), and it will get worse under net neutrailty.

pradocchia 17y ago
> Doing away with government-granted monopolistic regulations is the solution. I have no prescriptions, but I do observer that the grantor and grantee are typically two hands of the same will. That monopolies are granted because the grantee wants it, and has found ways to make it so. How do you do away with that? Capitalism is premised on the concentration of wealth to fund capital-intensive investment. Given the concomitant concentration of power, how do you prevent regulatory capture and the general perversion of government? How do you dilute power and preserve the system?
- anamax 17y ago
  Of course the grantee wants it. However, if there's no grantor, it doesn't matter what the grantee wants. > Given the concomitant concentration of power, how do you prevent regulatory capture and the general perversion of government? A govt that doesn't regulate isn't subject to regulatory capture. A "not govt" that tries to regulate can usually be ignored.

chrischen 17y ago

"Freedom is not a zero sum game, where taking it away from some gives more to others. Taking away freedoms of some takes away freedom from all." I wonder how he'd feel after we make murder legal, and then I shoot him in the face. Have him see how much freedom he has when he's dead. My point is that it's a gray area. It's not all freedom or nothing.

gills 17y ago
Some might see your analogy as backwards, especially if they view individual freedom as having natural bounds which are easily identifiable to mentally stable humans. I have a feeling that's why you were voted down (not by me, sorry). An example of this line of reasoning: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Theory_of_Justice http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Theory_of_Justice

nickpinkston 17y ago

Why is no one here mentioning plug-in laws? With proper governance (ie: laws) we can remove the market externality that exists in the natural monopoly of telecom infrastructure. These laws force all infrastructure owners to sell access at bulk rates (like a T3) that allow new ISPs, etc. without any burdens (ie: throttling). Most people would pick the independents without restrictions. Net neutrality, as it's currently setup, makes it too easy for companies to influence the law. Plug-in laws are at work in many developed economies, and are more subject to market forces due to the competition for bulk rate product.

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]