Capitalism & Net Neutrality

Big "Net Neutrality" debates going on at the moment... during a very intelligent debate I was able to have with a couple of people I spent about 5 hours of work time formulating this response (in between calls, clients, and paperwork)


As much as people like to think that capitalism and the 'free market' are such great and wonderful things, taken to their logical conclusion it is a disaster for almost everyone. The end result of any completely successful capitalistic system is for one person to own everything and everyone else to be his serf.

People and, by extension, the companies they run have a tendency to degenerate into vehicles for extracting the maximum profit in the minimum amount of time and to hell with the consequences. While ultimately an unsustainable, the collateral damage can be substantial. We've been reminded of this with the recent 'crash' of our financial markets and the current "2nd Great Depression".

One of the primary purposes of the government is to regulate and to temper the worst excesses of capitalism. To provide a basic level of protection for its people and to provide the rules for the game of economic activity and enforce them to the betterment of society as a whole. If that means that a small number of people at the top have a little less so that the rest of the people suffer a little less, then they are doing their job. Of course this brings cries of "Socialism!" immediately to the lips of those at the top...

Unfortunately America has joined many other countries in forgetting this. Of course the ironic part is that the current state of affairs is ultimately self defeating. In the drive for just a couple of million more this quarter we've completely destroyed the virtuous cycle.

Virtuous Cycle:
1) Workers make decent money ->
2) Money is available to spend ->
3) More things are bought ->
4) More factories, etc, are needed to make more stuff ->
5) Workers (and the companies) make even more money ....
6) Rinse and repeat...

The people who run the companies make decent profit through out. A little less in the short term, but sustainable and so total profits are much higher over time.

What we are stuck in is the vicious cycle.

Vicious cycle:
1) Workers make less money ->
2) Less money available to spend ->
3) Less things are bought ->
4) Less factories, etc, needed to produce less and less ->
5) Companies slash payrolls to the bone ->
6) Rinse and repeat until multiple millions of jobs are lost... sound familiar?

The people who run the companies (and said stock holders) make a larger amount in the short term, but it's unsustainable and the entire economy sinks into recession, depression and collapse.

What I find pathetic is that the people in charge know this. We have gotten to the point that we don't actually make things anymore.

That's the fiction that is intellectual property. We are buying and selling 'ideas'. It is more accurate to say that the people in power are using the law to force other people to pay them for imaginary things. What is a patent if not the right to use an idea? What's copyright, the right to make a copy of something yourself? It's not like people are fighting for the right to have someone else make them more copies of something for free -> they just want to be left alone to use what they already have as they see fit. Even worse... now they want you to pay them if you want to sing a song that you composed based on another song you heard?

"Intellectual Property Rights" is about transferring money from people who do stuff and make stuff, into the pockets of people who don't make or do anything but had the money to buy the right to a certain thing.


On the topic of Net Neutrality as the issue we are debating:


Net neutrality legislation is needed desperately. Not the false, short sighted, "let those in power squeeze the 'golden goose' just a little tighter" mess we'll probably end up with, but real long term forward thinking, fair legislation.

Things it needs to contain:
1) Networks are a natural monopoly, anyone should be able to compete over the same wires. If you don't want to be in the business then get out of it. Compete by offering the most reliable, fasted network at the most reasonable price.

2) People should get what they are paying for. No 'up to' bullshit, no fuzzy 'acceptable use policy' crap, no talk of 'bandwidth limits'. If you sell them a 6MB connection then don't complain if they actually use 6MB.

3) Treat every destination equally. Everyone's a server or a client. The reason the internet's been such a boon is the availability of practically anyone to be seen, to develop innovative applications, etc.

4) If you are going to 'prioritize' then that has to be the user's choice NOT the company that's providing access. Not Comcast favoring their video over some other internet video site. Not AT&T favoring their VOIP over a third party VOIP. Especially nothing favoring company A's content over company B's just because company A's giving the ISP a bucket of money.

5) If you're an ISP, your customer's data is just that, their data. No SNOOPING. You want to do something, it's strictly"OPT IN" not "We'll do this, bury it in fine print... but give you the option to opt out if you ever find out we are doing it... which we'll try as hard as we can to prevent". If you can't convince people to sign up then it probably isn't something they want in the first place!