[IP] READ Internet founder blasts ISPs for hurting national interests

[David Farber <dave@farber.net>]

________________________________________
From: Karl Auerbach [karl@cavebear.com]
Sent: Thursday, July 24, 2008 2:05 PM
To: David Farber
Cc: ip
Subject: Re: [IP] Internet founder blasts ISPs for hurting national interests

David Farber wrote:
> Subject: Internet founder blasts ISPs for hurting national interests

> "Basically, it's like little kids in a tantrum: 'I'm not going to
> build this system unless you give me three scoops of ice cream and a
> pony,'"

Let's see if I get this right... Let's consider an extremely large and
market dominating search engine company that wants to build a new data
center.  So it shops around to find the community that will give it the
biggest incentive package and tax breaks.

I would imagine that this is considered OK.

But for an ISP to try to even suggest that it might want to be selective
when lawfully investing its money into capital expansions, well, that is
somehow to be condemned?

It might be unsavory to some, but the business of business is to make
money, with the limits of law, over a short or long term.  To condemn an
entity for wanting to maximize the value of its investment dollar is
about as meaningful as condemning a wolf for wanting to eat meat.  (By
the way there is actually a pretty good musical about what happens when
you try to make wolfs into vegans.)

Over the last 120 years (using the ICC and Sherman Anti Trust Act to
mark the epoch) we have learned that sometimes it takes a change of laws
or a regulatory body to curb abuses.  But sometimes the legal framework
that is created serves to foster and protect what can become an abusive
system - consider how AT&T overcame its rival telephone companies by
becoming a regulated monopoly and, within that regulatory framework,
became The Phone Company - TPC (from the movie The President's Analyst.)

We have often learned that a better answer is to build a regulatory and
legal framework that encourages competition - so that the wolves fight
one another rather than chase the bridal party's sled and devour the
bride (how's that for an oddly placed literary reference?)

The internet is suffering from too much concentration of ownership, I
think we can all agree on that.  We have too many Telcos, Verisigns, and
Googles and too few Brett Glass' and Lariat.

What we need are not so many rules that say "no" but more rules that say
"yes" to new investment by new competitors.

We need to open the doors so that new players will provide alternatives
to the existing telco and cable TV local copper.

                --karl--



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