Net neutrality: be careful what you wish for

I know you love my ‘net neutrality obsession. I saw you kissing it in a tree.

Here’s an excellent summary by Martin Geddes of reasons why net neutrality is ill-defined, unenforceable and technologically naïve. A brief excerpt:

An open, free net is an emergent outcome, not an a-priori input to be legislated into existence. We need to capture and accelerate the experiments in how networks are built, financed and sold; and protect those experiments from incumbent wrath until the results are in.

... read the whole thing, it’s quite persuasive. (I love when people make my points better than I.)

Here’s an account of Michael Powell’s comments, and he echoes my concerns that we should be careful what we wish for:

The legislative process does not work well when it has a weak understanding of innovation and tech policy. [...]

You live by the sword, you die by the sword. It is much harder get a law off the books than to get it on. Someone will think it is a good idea to apply the same rules to the other side's products and services.

Simply put, legislation cannot build a network, and well-intended rules are like in-laws that never leave. As I’ve said many times, I think those that are arguing for neutrality mandate will be very unhappy if they achieve it.

There are too many cool things that haven’t happened yet. Let’s not legislate the still-nascent ‘net.

Hat tip Om.

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Unfortunately, we still must overcome this sort of hysteria. You’ll see me as ORinSF in the comments.

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Update, just thought of a new tag line: “Net neutrality: Sarbanes-Oxley for the Internet!”

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Update (Wednesday afternoon): Republicans defeat Net neutrality proposal over at News.com. Their reasoning is correct, though this seems to bounce between yes and no every day. Let’s make it stick.

Comments

[TwoHands88Keys]

I find it interesting that a lot of the Left will demonize the big 3 Internet providers. Yet, they're afraid to actually do anything about it because they love their precious Internet too much. They're even more afraid of anyone else manipulating the Internet. All-in-all, the Internet is still too young to be graduated into public service.

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