In addition to picking up some interesting ideas and wisdom from the F2C folks, I also seem to have picked up a rather nasty cold that has really slowed me down. So I’m a little . . . slow.
In response to comments on the previous post – Geddes hasn’t convinced me that pushing for Net Neutrality legislation is *necessarily* a bad idea right now. As Susan Crawford notes, we need more evidence before we can make a fully informed decision on the matter. But I remain worried that by the time we get that information, it may well be too late. One of the few things I think Powell got right in his speech was pointing out that there is usually a very narrow window of opportunity in which proponents of a regulatory action can make a real difference. And I while I’m not sure that we’re in that window right now, I certainly don’t want to wait until the RBOCs have slammed it shut.
In the end, I’d prefer to serve the values motivating the Freedom to Connect crowd through competition in an open marketplace. But that’s the key – it requires an open marketplace. And I don’t think that its continued existence is at all a given. As Tim Wu’s review of the historical behavior of common carriers has shown, they’ve rarely passed up an opportunity to distort a market. And with all that practice, they will likely be able to accomplish it before the public has even understood what’s happened.