Frankly, any libertarian should support net neutrality as a principle. Its how the internet has always been run, up until recently. Any internet service provider that acted otherwise was routed around, and cut out of the net by its peers. The problem comes when that principle is acted against, and in responding to that. In a rational and unbiased competitive environment, consumers would have a reasonable choice of internet service providers, and any ISP that chose to censor or limit access, would lose customers, and either correct themselves or go out of business. Unfortunately, we dont have anything like a free and competitive market in internet access. Government regulation and favoritism has created huge monopolies (or at best duopolies, and no, wireless access is not realistic competition given the distorted market and cost structures there either) over internet access. Getting government involved does generally make things worse. Unfortunately government is already involved. Weve reached a point where the monopolies that government created and support, are in fact deliberately applying unfair restraint against their critics and competitors. Since they are monopolies and are already supported by the government, the market is not allowed to correct the undesirable private action. This means that, unfortunately, government action IS required. The issue now, is to try to make that action less stupid and restrictive of the market and of liberty, than it otherwise would be.
Posted on: Tue, 11 Nov 2014 01:27:35 +0000
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