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Innovation, Regulation and The Internet
Thanks to Lawrence Lessig for pointing the online version of his latest piece. It's entitled "Innovation, Regulation, and The Internet". As always, the piece is well thought, this time dealing with issues of regulation (duh) over the Internet. But the position is tricky than one would think -give it a full read, and add your thoughts below.
If AT&T hadn't been a government sanctioned and protected monopoly in the first place, it wouldn't have needed regulations to force it to do things that the free market would have forced it to do.
Open Source licenses (GPL, etc) secure rights for the creators of the source. Lessig wants to trample on the exact same rights if they belong to companies investing $billions in new infrastructure.
Yes, sometimes those companies will do boneheaded things (blocking port 80, etc). But cable vs. DSL vs. wireless vs. (soon) satellite competition is the way to straighten those things out, not by getting Big Brother involved. (And if Big Brother wasn't so greedy with the spectrum auctions and heavy-handed in its regulations we'd have a lot more wireless options...)
Technically, I don't see how this tax scheme is possible to implement short of some central internet authority. But if I'm taxed on the internet, I want to see benefits on the internet from that.
Just my two bits worth...
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
OK, let's break it down:
...
1. Taxation is inevitable. Deal with it.
2. Regulation of Internet Access is Good. We need Open Competition between providers. We don't need restrictions on this. We also need guarantees that when we order DSL or Cable Modems, they'll be installed in 10 working days (or less), and that outages are fixed promptly. Beyond that, the government should butt out. [note - I own shares in AT&T, Cisco, AOL, Cox, a bunch more - and I'm hurting my profit picture by saying this]
3. Taxation is still inevitable. Stop whining.
4. Censorship is Bad. Information to permit consumers to know which spam or web site is X-rated or has violent images is ok, but not if Congress decides which is which. Multiple rating services should be permitted, so consumers can choose which (if any) they wish to use. I'm going to choose one for my son that bans violence and sex with violence (and until he's older, sex). And maybe right-wing loonies.
5. The Internet Will Be Taxed. Get a life
6. The only other regulation we need is guaranteed low-cost access for anyone, like basic telephone service. No matter where they live in rural or remote areas. Tax the high-speed access people for this. Yeah, it's taxes. Deal with it.
Will in Seattle
Well you can't have pizza delivery without a telephone. Just try it, I dare you.
"but there are also other means of communication than a phone."
Hey YOU can use tin cans and string, I'll keep my telephone. Maybe carrier pigeon. Telegram.
See my point? What other means of communication are there? Only ancient ones that no one uses anymore. Email? Well you need phone lines (or at least cable lines) for that.
If you live way out in the boonies, and you fall and can't get up, how are you going to get an ambulance? I guess you're NOT unless you have a phone. We may not have a RIGHT to be GIVEN a phone, but we certainly have a right to get one if we want one. Which is why they do lay lines for people in Nowheresville and don't charge them more. That's why local phone is a government regulated monopoly (right now, in most areas).
There is no other good alternative means of communication other than the telephone, whereas with pizza, you can go out and grow a tomato garden or something.
Net access hasn't grown to the point yet that phone service has. Someday it probably will.
Education:
The thing about this is that people who are poor generally don't have the time on their hands to home school children, unless they're on welfare. And if you're on welfare, how much education do you have? Generally not enough, otherwise you'd have a skilled labor job. It's a catch 22. This is why if education is no longer available to the poor, that would be a BAD thing... the poor wouldn't have the opportunity to become more educated and have the potential to get a good job.
I suspect over the next ten years or so we'll see the Net, or its successor(s), subjected to the same sort of backward-looking defensive strategies that have been involved in DVD/ebook-style "copyright protection". Right now the Internet doesn't have the right kind of infrastructure to, for instance, restrict access by geography (you can sort of do it by reverse DNS lookups, but that doesn't really work well) so that something illegal in Germany can't be downloaded to or routed through Germany. But there's no reason you couldn't do that in a future "next generation" Internet, given sufficient government funding.
I don't want this to be the case, but I suspect that the Internet we've known, with its great freedom (based on technological limitations, for the most part), is a temporary thing. When it's replaced, the governments of the world will be paying a lot more attention than they did last time, and the resulting network will be quite different in consequence.
I've heard of the principle of end-to-end in the design of the Internet, but frankly, I'd forgotten it and I needed this piece to apply it to these very policy issues. I knew open access was good but couldn't articulate it as he has done. Now I won't forget it.
I see the pressure of the network provider at work in my wireless internet provider. Windows and Windows CE are supported products. I've had to call tech support twice in the last few days and pretend that I used Windows and their software (which I've never actually seen in operation) to access the wireless network. Now they want everyone to get a proprietary, network-compression protocol that isn't available for Linux. I may not be able to keep a service that I've used for almost a year.
Anomalous: inconsistent with or deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
Anomalous: deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
Canard: a false or unfounded repor
Lessig's main point is that he feels that there should be regulation concerning the emergining broadband technologies so that there is "free access" for all. Not free as in money, mind you, but freedom to pick an ISP reguardless of who developed the infrastructure. You need to assume if we allow certain companies to develop these networks, they'll be extremely protective of their infrastructure. I highly doubt that TimeWarner or Adelphia or whomever will be willingly inviting other ISPs to use their cables and routers and what have you, unless there is some sort of motive--and the motive here is regulation. And, HOW ELSE WILL YOU MOTIVATE THESE COMPANIES TO KEEP THE NETWORK FREE OF PROPRIETARY STANDARDS?
As for those of you who are reading this outside of the US, the arguement is for regulating ACCESS TO THE NETWORK IN THE US.
But in the end, it comes down to this, there is work being done in Washington to regulate FREE ACCESS to the Internet and yeah, it will affect you sooner or later. Wether you choose to sit behind a screen all day is your business, but don't allow your misconceptions to color your view of the world. You might even want to actually pay attention to the Sunday news shows once in a while.
This is another view of the world.
As a whole, Lawrence Gets It(tm). he's thoughtful, and has the proper wide view on alot of stuff, particularly regulation of the (US-portion) Internet.
Cable companies should most certainly be forced to provide Open Access. They've got a government-sanctioned monopoly, and are in (for all practical purposes) the same position that your local ILEC (nee RBOC) is in. We'd all be very upset if PacBell/BellSouth/BellAtlantic/et al. suddenly were allowed to shut off ISP access to anyone but their own ISP, wouldn't we? It's the same boat here.
However, in the longer term, I advocate something that not alot of people either consider (or may disagree with). I advocate the Nationalization of the Local Data Infrastructure. That is, just like you have the local Road Dept, there should be a local Data Dept. (Note, I think that the larger-scale infrastructure is doing just fine as it is, it's just the local data link that needs help.)
Now, before you all yell Commie!, thing about this. The big fight right now is over the last mile access - the CO to house, or curb to neighborhood. With the convergence of TV, phone, and data, it really makes no sense (from anyone's economic point of view) to have 4 or 5 companies maintaining different information infrastructures, with all the costs associated with them. Info lines are now as critical as roads, and realistically, we should have someone dedicated to that.
What I'd like to see is that each Municipality take over the last mile work, and essentially be fully responsible (and SOLELY responsible) for providing physical connectivity to each household. Then at the local CO, you can anyone to put in lines to their company to provide access of any kind they want. Open Access for Everyone, with no monopoly on any part of the process. Part of your taxes would pay for this Department, and you'd have direct feedback on how this was spent (vs. Do you really think SuperMegaCorp is that responsive to your community needs? view the spotty DSL/cable rollouts).
The big snag on this is that this really requires fibre to the house. It'll cost alot, but it'll be worth it to say the least. And having local control over the infrastructure means you can probably get better response than having it controlled by SuperMegaCorp#1.
Also, to everyone who complains about subsidizing rural areas: GROW UP! Think beyond the end of your nose, and quit being selfish. Having Universal Telephone service changed this country, as did complete Electrification, both of which were paid for by slightly taxing high-density areas to allow for the installation and maintenance of rural areas. Providing these services to rural areas is what allowed huge gains in farm productivity, so all you city-dwellers, remember who feeds you.
Just some thoughts!
-Erik
There are always four sides to every story: your side, their side, the truth, and what really happened.
The Author seems to think that the concept of regulation is of one type only - government taking care of the little guy (you and me), protecting us from Big Corporations.
You must have been reading a different article, check your link.
The article being discussed has entire paragraphs dedicated to three different kinds of regulations and how they have affected innovation.
In fact, his article was directed at people like YOU -- who hear the word "regulation" and immediately start channeling Ayn Rand. Re-read and pay attention to the parts where he says regulation DOES NOT MEAN BIG GOVERNMENT "taking care of the little guy" as you put it.
The 20 somethings that he mentions in the beginning of the article bring up the slippery-slope argument, that if you start regulating broad-band, satellites, and other networks will go next...This is a good point - one that he doesn't grasp
He grasps it more effectively than most folks here. Tell me, were you complaining about the "regulation" that prevented phone companies from charging more for data than voice? That's exactly what Lessig is speaking of when he refers to phone companies that would have kept the internet stillborn.
The phone companies wanted to protect their lucrative ISDN and T1 lines, so they were quite upset at the idea of people sending data over a regular voice line. They wanted to charge more (not that it cost them any more to send data than voice) and "big government regulators" said they were being idiots. Without that regulation the internet would still be a university toy and we'd still be dialing onto BBSes and downloading messages for offline reading.
Lessig wrote this article to educate those 20-somethings (like you) who seem to think all these toys sprang from nowhere and were inevitable. "Deregulation" is not deregulation at all, it is a different kind of regulation. And of course government (legal) regulations are only a THIRD of what he's talking about...
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
About five minutes into the session, two staffers came in late. And after about a minute more of my presentation, one of the latecomers had heard enough. Here I was, he objected, arguing that the government should "begin regulating the Internet." Where was the limit? Where would I draw the line? Today I was calling for the regulation of broadband cable; should we also regulate broadband wireless? And if wireless, then satellite too? Was there any stopping this "new" regulation of cyberspace? Was I proposing that we regulate Linux (or "Line-Ucks," as he mispronounced it) because it might become as popular as Windows? </quote>
Sounds like that staffer was your normal
Had to smile...
- "Yeah man, I tell ya what, man...That dang ol' Internet, man...You just go one there and point and click...Talk about
This whole "regulation is evil" is remarkably similar to the arguments I've heard from pro-M$ people against DoJ sanctions.
... um ... just use my cell for everything) choices. Because MediaOne only has RoadRunner, and no one else can provide over that line, I would have been forced to use a service that blocked most of the useful port numbers, and made horrible restrictions on content. (Yes, they do... there are things they mention in the contract that make me sick) Fortunately, DSL was also an option, and with competition, they couldn't afford to pull that sort of thing. Too bad some areas only have cable, with phone lines that can't sustain DSL, or cable providers would go out of business. And that would be just fine by me. If PCs had not been M$ only for so long (like cable lines are service-choiceless), they would never have become big enough to abuse their monopoly the way they have. The same goes for connectivity. If it requires government regulation, so be it. There are times when a less profit motivated party must exert some control, for the good of the consumer, and for the long term good of all.
Right now, there is a large battle going on between DSL providers, Broadband Cable providers, and dialup networks. DSL is winning by a huge margin, primarilly because it is regulated for open access. I had an option of getting Cable from MediaOne (LA area cable service) at discount, because my building provides the basic cable service, or one of about ten DSL companies that could hook it up on my line. I have to say, it was less painful than my local phone service (get reamed by PacBell or
-- Still waiting for the Nike endorsement
Lessig is a very smart guy and very capable of expressing himself. He is worth reading.
The summary of his article (IMHO):
(1) There ain't no such thing as "no regulation". Regulation is not just laws, but also (social) norms and technological feasability. Realtime Blackhole List is regulation. Setting the router to reject obviously spoofed packets is regulation. Not-building pro-surveillance features into 'net protocols is also regulation ('cause it effectively regulates ability to do surveillance).
(2) Regulation is not necessarily bad, especially in a monopolistic or near-monopolistic situation. If they could, don't you think Baby Bells would have started to charge you $9.99 per minute for data calls to other ISPs and $0.09 per minute for calls to its own ISP? They couldn't because of regulation. The point is: sometimes regulation leads to more choice, not less. And more choice is good.
(3) One of the reasons for the 'net's success is that the network is dumb. All it does is shuffle IP packets. All the intelligence resides at ends, with the users. This may seem natural to Slashdotters, but other ways are certainly possible and phone companies, for example, would much rather have an "intelligent" network (which provides services that they can charge for) than a dumb commodity network. See also George Gilder and his ideas about "dark fiber".
Lessig argues that the dumbness of the network was a major factor in the success of the Internet (in particular, it avoided specializing the network for some particular use). His point is that we should do the same with broadband: keep the network dumb and freely accessible at the ends. If necessary, regulate to keep it that way.
I am not a big fan of regulation at all, and I certainly trust the government much less than Lessig does, but his arguments are certainly food for thought.
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
Nothing in that article had anything to do with taxation.
Here's my summary of the article:
His point: geeks are using the rhetoric wrong, and it will burn them in the halls of government.
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-*- Any technology indistinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced -*-