Re: 'Net Neutrality' — Let the Free Market Reign

Progressives are up in arms after Google appears to have caved on Net Neutrality by partnering with Verizon to abandon their core aims. Writing at Huffington Post, Josh Silver of the ironically named Free Press laments:

For years, Internet advocates have warned of the doomsday scenario that will play out on Monday: Google and Verizon will announce a deal that the New York Times reports ‘could allow Verizon to speed some online content to Internet users more quickly if the content’s creators are willing to pay for the privilege.’

Let us, as the postmodernists say, deconstruct this.

What a shocking thing it would be if people were allowed to get higher speed service by being — gasp — “willing to pay for the privilege.” Why, that’s almost like — bigger gasp — voluntary trade nudged by price signals. Last I checked, a Ferrari costs more than a Hyundai and paying more for the first was still legal.

What is an “Internet advocate” anyway? Since the Internet is not a cause, and — Chicken Little pronouncements aside — is in no danger of disappearing, one has to wonder what Silver had in mind. Could it be along the lines of “homeless advocates,” i.e. those who wish to use the power of government to violate the property rights of some in favor of others?

Rep. Markey’s worry that “no private interest should be permitted to carve up the Internet to suit its own purposes” is unfounded. It may come as a shock to Congressman Markey but the Constitution guarantees exactly what he fears — that the Internet will be carved up by private interests. In fact, it already has been. It is, after all, private property.

The kind of advocacy Silver favors can only be yet another Progressive code phrase for “advocate of Internet control” by the Federal government. Exercising it ‘democratically’ by appointed officials is slim comfort. In more honest times that would’ve been known by its proper name: censorship.

There being no crisis to go to waste here, Progressives have to create one. They’re aided by the pretense that Verizon’s adjusting traffic speeds for different kinds of content would be equivalent to censorship by business.

Even if, which they’re not about to do, Verizon choked off all packets containing the strings “Obama is keen” or “Keynesianism works” they’d be within their rights. They’re not morally obligated to carry any message of which they disapprove.

The whole faux concern for free speech and an “open Internet” is simply another Progressive cover story, this one in order to violate the equal property rights of the ISPs and their customers. Phone companies et al. have the right to do whatever they like with their gear.

Ironically, the Net Neutrality crew’s plan would actually make the situation non-neutral — in terms of property rights. It’s nothing but an attempt to make the rights of some — the “little guy” — more important than those of others — the “big guy.” It’s another foolish, Marxist equivalence between “economic power” and “political power.”

As it happens, though, and as Progressives well know, ISPs are not in the business of judging content from a human-information perspective. And if some kinds of use cost them more in infrastructure investment than others, they’re entitled to do something about it.

Even if Verizon’s only motive is to make a bigger buck, and not just to resolve a technical capacity problem, they’re well within their rights to charge based on usage. Ferrari gets to charge whatever they want. So should Verizon. Even under the semi-free market in telecommunications that exists today, users and hosting companies have a choice between technologies and vendors. There’s plenty of competition. (Though there should be even more.)

The underlying premise of the Progressives is that ISPs only have a right to operate freely to the extent they provide a public service, a utilitarian social value. This is bunk. If businesses don’t provide a service their customers want, the market will drive them out of business. They have the right to try in any non-fraudulent way they like, whether any Progressive — or the FCC — feels they’re “operating in the public interest” or not.

Much as the Left would like to pretend (and others innocently but mistakenly believe), the Internet is not a public commons. You can walk wherever you like on public property and no one has a right to slow you down. But the Internet is not public property. It’s a large mesh of technology owned by millions of private individuals and companies, each exercising their property rights.

The Feds have no role to play in regulating how they’re exercised except to ensure there’s no fraud, no matter how popular and important web communication has become in modern society.