Wednesday, January 03, 2007

NetNeutrality == Evil

Here is an op-ed from the New York Times supporting Net Neutrality legislations:

This is rather astonishing. If I would have asked computer geeks if they would ever support government regulation of the Internet to benefit the worlds largest corporations at the expense of small ISPs, I probably would have been punched in the face for such a suggestion. Yet here we are in 2007 and that is exactly what the majority of "fight-the-man" computer geeks are doing.

The problem is that populist rhetoric is addictive; you can sell anything with the right words. Feedom fighters from Stalin to Hitler to Castro to Hussein got away with. It looks like Microsoft is going to get away with it too, because geeks are just not as smart as they would have everyone believe.

For the record, I believe in the principle that government should be barred from regulating the Internet in much the same way they are barred from regulating the press and religion. I don't suppose I'll ever get my wish.

No comments: