It’s interesting how patterns repeat in history.
Populism began as a movement in the 1880s, when railroad monopolies were squeezing family farmers dry. The railroad companies had been given huge tracts of land to build across the prairies, and now they were raising rates where they had monopolies, while subsidizing eastern rates where there was competition. The prices farmers could get were going down, but their costs were going up.
This unregulated monopoly led many to demand change. The Interstate Commerce Commission was formed to regulate rates. The Sherman Anti-Trust Act was passed to fight monopolies. But the law ground slowly. Populism, as a political movement, was the result.
Fast forward 115 years or so. Telephone and cable companies hold a
monopoly on the "last-mile" of Internet service, thanks to a corrupt
government. Their leaders promise to use this monopoly to squeeze small
information producers, slowing their data flows while taking payments
from larger producers to speed theirs. Never mind that both sides of
every information transaction are already paying for carriage — the
monopolists always want more.
Thus we have, in the issue of network neutrality, the rise of Internet
Populism. It’s a very important tipping point. Folks have long
understood that you either have a competitive market or a regulated
one, and with the threat of Whitacre Tiering, the Bells and cable head-ends seek the very same power over you that railroads held over the farmers so long ago. An unregulated monopoly that lets them crush who they want and squeeze the rest. Just as the railroads had.
The reaction is precisely the same. I predict the result will be. We
have weapons sufficient to the threat, anti-trust law and regulation.
The Bells will not be able to prevent the use of one, or both, upon
their rates.
We will not be crucified on a cross of bits.
We have weapons sufficient to the threat, anti-trust law and regulation.
In other words, Dana is voting Republican this November. He’s finally realized what an intellectual folly “net neutrality” is. He has realized that if a Bell does something as he and other alarmists have made Whitacre’s proposals sound, that the FTC already has the power to directly intervene, and the FCC has some indirect say at M&A time under current law. And if the Bells build a superfast toll lane and nobody (e.g. Google or eBay) finds it more valuable than the current generation of fast toll lane they already use (Akamai, etc.), the shareholders will string Whitaker and his pals up for wasting billions. Dana is fond of pointing out how it didn’t take long with Carly@HP once it was clear that the Compaq acquisition wasn’t panning out quick enough.
The thing I wonder that Dana has never answered… Why does Andrew Orlowski of El Reg continually mock the net neuter crowd? He doesn’t just discredit you and pour sand on your arguments, he toys with you. Kinda like your the kid at school with his finger stuck up his nose and the other kids play nice so they can rape him of his dignity when everyone is looking.
And since this is a liberal issue, why on earth would you want it to be populist? Who is going to join this emerging Mexico-hating net neutrality axis of stupidity? Well, besides Brent Bozo and his evangofascists. That you have to go populist with the argument ought to suggest by example just how dumb the underlying idea is.
We have weapons sufficient to the threat, anti-trust law and regulation.
In other words, Dana is voting Republican this November. He’s finally realized what an intellectual folly “net neutrality” is. He has realized that if a Bell does something as he and other alarmists have made Whitacre’s proposals sound, that the FTC already has the power to directly intervene, and the FCC has some indirect say at M&A time under current law. And if the Bells build a superfast toll lane and nobody (e.g. Google or eBay) finds it more valuable than the current generation of fast toll lane they already use (Akamai, etc.), the shareholders will string Whitaker and his pals up for wasting billions. Dana is fond of pointing out how it didn’t take long with Carly@HP once it was clear that the Compaq acquisition wasn’t panning out quick enough.
The thing I wonder that Dana has never answered… Why does Andrew Orlowski of El Reg continually mock the net neuter crowd? He doesn’t just discredit you and pour sand on your arguments, he toys with you. Kinda like your the kid at school with his finger stuck up his nose and the other kids play nice so they can rape him of his dignity when everyone is looking.
And since this is a liberal issue, why on earth would you want it to be populist? Who is going to join this emerging Mexico-hating net neutrality axis of stupidity? Well, besides Brent Bozo and his evangofascists. That you have to go populist with the argument ought to suggest by example just how dumb the underlying idea is.