Net Neutrality Is Irrelevant
I’m sure that, like me, most of you have seen some political buzz on the internet regarding Net Neutrality. For those that haven’t, Net Neutrality is essentially a form of state regulation that requires internet service providers provide equal access to all parts of the internet, disallowing them from restricting access or bandwidth to certain sites.
Now to a right-libertarian minarchist, which I used to be a little over a year ago, this comes across as pointless and immoral regulation of the free market. After all, if I am selling access to a given network, don’t I have the right to dictate the terms on which I allow access? Isn’t this a violation of my property right in my own network that links the end user to the internet?
To a “liberal” statist, Net Neutrality is a defense of free speech and a blow at corporate hegemony. The people have a right to access the whole internet, they say, and the corporations have no right to deny this when they sell internet access.
This is all complicated by the fact that the creation of the Internet was not a private matter but directly the result of state funding and research. Couldn’t it be argued that, if our tax dollars helped pay for the internet, that we have a right to access all of it without bias? After all, internet service providers are essentially profiting from providing access to a valuable resource that the American public funded.
So the question we arrive at is, from a consistent left-libertarian perspective, is Net Neutrality good or bad?
Most of the arguments regarding Net Neutrality fall on the false premise that what we have is essentially a free market, and that the debate is over whether or not regulation is necessary over this part of the market.
But we do not have a free market. The entire system is arranged such that large corporations and the state are in bed with one another. Large corporations like Verizon and Comcast get an unfair market advantage due to a number of interventionist economic regulations, such as limited liability, etc. I won’t go into the details here but I highly recommend Kevin Carson’s book Studies in Mutualist Political Economy for a more detailed analysis.
So what does this mean for Net Neutrality? If such regulation is put into place, the state wins; it has its foot in the door to begin regulating and censoring the internet. If such regulation is not put into place, the large corporations win, they have their foot in the door to begin regulating and censoring the internet.
In either case, none of us win. The myth behind Net Neutrality is that it means that we, the people, will control access to the internet. In reality, it’ll simply determine which side of our statist/corporatist ruling class gets to regulate and censor the internet.
As far as personal preference goes, I’d prefer that Net Neutrality regulation is not implemented for the simple reason that right now I can access the whole internet with little to no bias in what I access. Passing new regulation could change that by placing new power into the hands of the state to regulate the internet.
Ultimately though, it’s not going to impact anyone outside of the ruling class much either way. It’s only a matter of time before the internet starts to see regulation and censorship, and it really doesn’t matter which part of the ruling class is doing it. We lose either way.
Nice writing style. Looking forward to reading more from you.
Chris Moran
Comment made by Chris Moran on April 16, 2008 @ 1:44 pm
Does Net Neutrality only apply to ISPs and consumers, or would all routers connected to the internet be required to treat packets equally, whatever that means?
I think regulation have worse effects. For example, what if the current “flat” organization of the internet isn’t optimal? The only way we can figure this out is if routers and providers have the ability to experiment with various schemes.
Even though the barrier is low for new businesses who want to share content online, it still costs money. I would guess that a great many small business would rather take a “second class” ticket to the internet, saving money up front and upgrading when they need more reliability and bandwidth. Different content providers require different network properties in different quantities, so why limit the ability of networks to price these accordingly? If anything, this revenue stream coupled with the desire to win more content providers for one’s network would drive the creation of newer, faster, and more open net infrastructure.
So, to me, regulation could prevent important innovations that could make reasonable amounts of traffic dirt-cheap for newcomers.
I agree that Net Neutrality is far less important than other things impeding innovation: taxes, IP, incorporation, jails, …
Comment made by Matthew Willis on April 16, 2008 @ 4:08 pm
Re 2: No one would know just what crazt legislation that would be the final outcome of the procedure and you can be sure that it will not for long stay as it was first worded as power hungry people expand the program.
I do believe for sure that it would only be applicable to people owning and operating the hardware which is insde the United States governmet’s jurisdiction. However North America plays a huge part in the global interconnections so it will probably affect everyone either directly or indirectly as ISP from other areas of the world is forced to reroute traffic to avoid the affected servers.
Comment made by Lord Metroid on April 16, 2008 @ 5:56 pm
Nice blog, Omniverse. Thanks for the link.
Comment made by Kevin Carson on April 17, 2008 @ 2:36 am
Hey nice article XOmniverse, I liked how you cut straight to the real underlying issue.
Comment made by volition on April 20, 2008 @ 5:18 am
What’s this about the state regulating the internet? Sounds like a problem to me.
Comment made by jason on April 20, 2008 @ 10:43 pm
I’m with you on this one. Net neutrality legislation is the greater of two evils. As much as I loathe “slippery slope” arguments, they all too often apply when discussing the government. Furthermore, the Internet is too big and too popular to be permanently handicapped by the large service providers. If packet-discrimination moved beyond a limit considered acceptable by the vocal Internet users, then someone would step in and provide unbiased service. It might even lead to local Internet cooperatives buying up IP infrastructure.
Comment made by Envark on May 05, 2008 @ 10:33 pm
” Large corporations like Verizon and Comcast get an unfair market advantage due to a number of interventionist economic regulations, such as limited liability, etc.”
How do Internet organizations benefit from limited liability? It is impossible for internet services to be liable. It is actually barriers to entry created by regulations that prevent competitor Internet services.
Comment made by not on May 11, 2008 @ 12:41 pm
If you start seeing increased censorship I am sure someone amongst the ruling class you described would realize that they could actually use “the full internet” at an increased cost to make a profit, and to distinguish themselves from their competition.
Comment made by Iamthey on June 01, 2008 @ 6:15 am
Your analysis is correct, but the difference is that I at least have a vote if the statists get control (”the state” ostensibly meaning “me”). Admittedly, my vote is but a formality and my will is consistently ignored, but at least I get to pretend I have a voice. If the corporatists get control, I can only influence them by voting with my dollars. But with ever more conglomeration, this becomes less meaningful.
Given the choice between these two evils, I’d have to side with the state, unless we prohibit conglomeration, in which case we’re back to the state.
Comment made by GeorgeCarlinRIP on June 27, 2008 @ 2:35 pm