wrkng

There was an earlier version of this back in the early 2000s, and I was a subscriber then: https://thoughtbot.com/blog/umbrella-today

(author of the post here)

Sure, that's true

But what's also true is that we will continue to see things -- things that are perfectly acceptable to society, or at least will come to be that way -- that are out of sync with current laws and regulations. So the question is how do we get there. Clearly every innovation is not positive, but many are, and we want to give ourselves the opportunity to try things and learn from them.

The trick to releasing data is to provide the right incentives.

For example, relaxing the traditional regulation in exchange for data.

Or, releasing the platforms for some types of intermediary liability in exchange for the data

Agree that absent of a proper incentive there's no way this could come about

(author of the post here)

There are issues on a number of levels. One is "public safety" which is essentially the licensing issue. Another is externalities like traffic, which aren't about licensing for safety but more about regulating for other impacts. Then, there are the economic / labor issues, which deserve their own consideration.

I like the way Kim-Mai Cutler ties them together: techcrunch.com/2015/07/22/uber-airbnb-and-the-conflict-between-policys-ratchet-effect-and-techs-accelerating-speed/ -- the connection being the strain they both put on public infrastructure, and the extent to which they test existing regulations which were designed for another era

For folks who really want to dive into the technical arguments here, I highly recommend this paper by the new FCC CTO (and UCI CS prof) Scott Jordan: http://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/168/88

This addresses ALL of the concerns raised on this thread about incentives, competition, various arguments for/against net neutrality, and it finally proposes what I consider to be a very fair solution. I just read it yesterday and am planning to write up a summary blog post, unless someone else beats me to it.

that is true for sure

i like to believe that competition can solve this particular problem, but the honest truth is that real competition in broadband internet access is a distant distant idea, regardless of what policies we put in place (which would also be long term policies -- like dig once). enabling real competition would also require even more "heavy handed" regulation, like requiring open access to infrastructure & public right-of-ways, which are at the heart of the physical portion of broadband networks, and which would be a 10x bigger fight than the net neutrality fight.

yes exactly

this point is at the heart of the misleading rhetoric of the anti-NN crowd

yep that's right -- it was the de-facto state of affairs basically from the beginning of time until now