Think Again. Is "Net Neutrality" good for us?
Supposedly "net-neutrality" legislation takes authority away from Telcoms and other providers of Internet bandwith who might wish to discriminate against certain types of traffic, especially traffic from services provided by their competitors. The legislation therefore sounds like it's promoting the principles of democracy and freedom, but think again.
"Net neutrality" is not the freeing of Internet pipes but rather the de-privatization of Internet pipes. The freedom to communicate and to offer Internet services will, under net-neutrality, be subject to the authority (some would say the whim) of the American federal government. Net-neutrality exchanges the risk of capricious action from a Telcom and replaces it with the risk of capricious action by the government. Another way to look at it is that net-neutrality is the socialization of the Internet. If you like socialism, you'll like net-neutrality.
Opponents of net neutrality are ones that see a benefit in private property and competition, who think that it brings ever increasing supply (of bandwidth) at ever decreasing costs and with ever more types to choose between. The pessimists among them say "Choose your enemy... a Telcom that might want to throttle the bandwidth of competitors or a government that might want to throttle the bandwidth of detractors." The optimists among them say "Competition among private operators is the only way to preserve the freedom of speech the Internet once promised."
