| Mr Khan said: What's to be skeptical of? All traffic should get equal priority, especially given that the "bigger" companies already get better speeds, since you're often bottlenecked by the server's response time rather than your ISPs limitations. Companies can compete simply by upgrading server capacities rather than telling ISPs to throttle other traffic. Net neutrality is akin to antitrust rules in its execution: it encourages fair practices and "pure" competition. |
Sure, it's wonderful in theory just as antitrust rules are wonderful in theory. But whereas the market rarely creates or sustain monopolies, the government (a violent monopoly itself) frequently does. So it seems rather backwards to me to run to the FCC - an entity with a proven track record of censorship - based on fears that ISPs might begin to censor the internet.
The fact that their net neutrality rules already had huge exemptions - including a giant catch all exemption for "reasonable network management" - would mean that all ISP activity would henceforth be within the purview of the FCC much like all health insurer activity is now within the purview of the Secretary of HHS. Until we have regulatory neutrality where the rules apply to everyone equally, this will just be another playground for cronyism and perhaps lead to a more anti-competitive environment than the one net neutrality is supposed to prevent.
Given how close the present state of affairs already is to the ideals of net neutrality, I see no reason to be anything but skeptical of government regulation. The regulation that is today intended to preserve the status quo can - and almost invariably will - be used to stifle good innovations and encourage or enforce bad ones in the future.
