IP: A counter to the lamenter -- The Risks in an Unregulated Internet

[Dave Farber <farber@cis.upenn.edu>]

>Date: Mon, 3 Jan 2000 08:52:02 -0500 (EST)
>From: Scott Bradner <sob@harvard.edu>
>To: farber@cis.upenn.edu
>Subject: Re: IP: The Risks in an Unregulated Internet
>
>A counter to the lamenter (seems like the Internet is just too confusing
>to some people)
>
>Scott
>
>---------
>
>title: The importance of being a dynamist.
>
>Three an a half years ago I tried to explain to one of the judges in the
>Communications Decency Act case that too much reliance on centrally
>mandated standards would hurt the Internet.  I was not as articulate as I
>would have liked to have been and was only able to say "What achieved
>success was the very chaos that the Internet is. The strength of the
>Internet is that chaos. It's the ability to have the forum to innovate."
>The recent book "The future and its Enemies" by Virginia Postrel does a lot
>better job than I did in explaining what I was trying to say.
>
>This is a wide ranging book, taking on everybody from Newt Gingrich to the
>unibomber.  In the words of the author "this book examines the clash
>between stasis and dynamism and explores those contrasting views." I now
>know that I fall into the dynamism camp and what I was trying to explain to
>the judge was some of the implications of following the stasis path.
>
>Historically the Internet has been an environment to experiment in.  There
>have been a few basic rules.  The most important are the standards for the
>Internet Protocol (IP) and the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP). There
>are other important standards for promulgating routing information and the
>like but the real power of the Internet idea is that there are not mandated
>standards for what can run over the Net.  Anyone who adheres to the TCP/IP
>standards can create new applications and run them without getting anyone's
>permission.  No Internet service provider even has to know you are
>experimenting (or playing, that is also OK.)  This freedom produces
>unpredictable results.  New industries can be created almost overnight and
>existing industries severely impacted.  Look at the impact of MP3 on the
>recording industry for an example.
>
>The stasis camp wants to control these innovations, "shape technology" in
>the words of Gingrich.  A dynamist wants to let the market decide.  So far
>the Internet has been let follow the dynamism path - it was mostly ignored
>by the traditional telecommunications industry.  Being ignored was the best
>thing that could have happened.
>
>A friend of mine spent some time a couple of years ago explaining the
>Internet to people in state government.  He reported that the dominate
>theme of the reaction of the bureaucrats was "How do we stop or control
>this thing?"  Lucky for innovation they were not paying attention when they
>could have had a serious impact.
>
>But the threat is not over.  The stasists fear the complexity and
>unpredictability that the Internet is bringing to the economy and to
>society.  They will continue to try to find ways to control its impact. As
>a dynamist I will keep trying to find ways around their fears.