Quid Pro Quo. That’s one reason net neutrality lost in the House.
More than that, too many people in the Internet space are too willing to take what the Bells say at face value. Dave Farber, for instance. Don’t write laws until they do something nasty sounds good and fair and liberal.
But when you know how ruthless the Bells are, what liars the Bells are, well you ought to take Ronald Reagan’s old advice at least and "trust, but verify." That means an enforceable standard.
I think this vote was important, however, for setting a marker. Those in the Internet space now know who their enemies are. They know who the enemy’s lobbyists are, what their tactics are. They won’t forget. And they won’t forgive.
The Internet has become a political issue.
Once an issue moves from the elite market of the regulators to the mass market of the people, it stays there until the people get what they want. And what the people want, what they demand actually, is net neutrality. We the people want our bits — in a fair, impartial, unbiased neutral way. And we won’t stop fighting until we get them.
Regardless of how the Senate vote turns out (and I suspect cloture will
be hard for the Bells to achieve there without a net neutrality
provision) Washington is changing. And, as we noted yesterday, the Bells’ technology hand is very, very poor.
Cable wires are thicker. Cable can increase the number of bits it sends
you dramatically, without major investment. And as the width of your
pipe increases, the danger caused by violations of net neutrality
decrease, naturally.
The real issue here is breaking the TV barrier, the speed at which the
exchange of video becomes practical to the mass market. Despite
everything the Bells and copyright industries have done, that barrier
is being broken. Sites like YouTube and Crooksandliars prove it. You can see videos now on thousands of blogs.
The wall against the Internet just can’t be built. But we’ll remember
who tried to build one. And no one in their right mind will do business
with them, or trust them, or endorse their supporters, ever again.