Who would have thought the reaction from the left to newly-imposed "net neutrality" regulations would provide such entertainment value in the form of amusing inanities?
On his radio show Friday, former Crossfire host Bill Press and his guest, Julian Hattem, technology reporter for The Hill, provided a helpful roadmap for liberals', uh, thoughts on the issue.
Press also divulged what irritates him most about the Internet, a practice he considers "outrageous" even though he engages in it himself (audio) --
PRESS: All right, Julian, I want to be like your mommy (Press says things like that), what's net neutrality all about? It was adopted yesterday by three to two, right, OK.
HATTEM: Sure. Party-line vote, three Democrats voted for it, two Republicans against ...
PRESS: And these are some pretty strong rules, right?
HATTEM: Yeah, they are the strongest that the FCC has ever seen in terms of net neutrality. They're the strongest that the country has ever seen. And basically, to put it bluntly ....
PRESS: We talked about it before, but give us your best everyman's definition of it.
HATTEM: Basically the FCC said the Internet should be regulated like a utility. There should be strong rules to prevent Comcast or Time Warner Cable, whatever Internet service provider you choose, to prevent them from blocking or slowing or messing with your access to the Internet. Basically there should be no toll roads, quote unquote, on the Internet and that everything, that once you log on, everything is free and open and equally accessible to everybody, no matter who they are.
Regulating the Internet "like a utility" means that "everything is free" -- as with electricity and water, two other utilities. The notion that anyone should pay for them is patently offensive, wouldn't you agree? Both require significant infrastructure and daunting labor costs, but neither should cost anything to anyone. Plenty of people would be willing to work without compensation to provide them, especially union members employed in the trades. As for infrastructure, the Chinese would be more than happy to send us vast amounts of steel and cable for our sprawling power grid at absolutely no cost. After all, their political economy is based on the timeless belief that "everything is free," or at least ought to be.
At this point Press suggested a revealing analogy --
PRESS: I was thinking about this yesterday. Is it, am I right in saying it's sort of like the airlines, you know, there won't be any first class, business class ...
HATTEM: Yeah.
PRESS: ... economy plus and coach, it's just equal access. Everybody who goes online has the same access to any website they want to get to in the same amount of time, right?
In other words, everyone flies coach -- except the many thousands of people employed by the Aviation Neutrality Administration who would regulate such a system. They'd fly first class, as would their families, along with countless other people granted waivers, deferments, etc., after thorough scrutiny of their applications by many other dutiful bureaucrats in the ANA.
Hattem offered a different comparison --
HATTEM: That's correct. I think of it as a highway kind of, similar analogy but and, basically, yes, once you're on the road, it's the same highway, like the Autobahn, right? No speed limit, everyone can go as fast as they like. There's no toll road, there's no ...
PRESS: Diamond lane?
HATTEM: Exactly! There's no diamond lane, and once you're on, everyone's on and everyone's open. Which is important because there have been concerns that that might not happen in the future, that you could try and go to Netflix and they say, actually, if you're a Cox customer it's super slow, but if you're a Comcast customer it's superfast. And that's not going to happen anymore.
"That's not going to happen anymore," Hattem reassures us -- all of a single sentence after saying that there are "concerns" about what might happen in the future without the net neutrality regs. Even Press didn't sound convinced after hearing that --
PRESS: Right. I didn't realize how important this is until we got into it like a little bit. I think that's very important. To me, that is what the Internet should be all about, right?
HATTEM: And it's really the future and, you know, you can't imagine five, 10, 20 years that the Internet will not be an even more integral part of our lives than it is right now. And I think that there was a concern ...
Hmm, yet more "concern" -- of what might happen in the future if we don't nationalize the 'net --
HATTEM: ... that if you allow any sort of deviation in the way this is created, both for us as users but also for, you know, some nerd in a dorm room right now who's making the next Facebook or the next Netflix or the next whatever, that it's important that they also be able to compete with Netflix and Facebook on an equal playing field and not have to, you know, pay a lot of money or something like that.
And not have to work hard, pay their dues, you know, odious things like that. It took Mark Zuckerberg and many others who toiled along the way more than a decade to build the online empire known as Facebook -- but for the sake of fairness, current college nerds toiling in their dorm rooms on the Next Big Thing (or far more likely, not) must be given "an equal playing field," as decided by FCC kommissars. And heaven forbid we allow any "deviation" in the ongoing evolution of the 'net, given the palpable risk of transformative innovations that could result. Facebook and Netflix come to mind as previous examples.
Just when you thought the discussion could not get more insipid, Press digs deep and doesn't disappoint --
PRESS: Maybe it's just a sidebar, but the thing that drives me most crazy on the Internet is when I go online, I'll give the New York Times as an example, right? You go online and you read a story in the New York Times or maybe two, and then they'll say, Oh! You've read all the stories you're allowed to get for free! Or go to the Wall Street Journal, we tried the other morning to go to the Wall Street Journal just to read Rudy Giuliani's (criticism of Obama ...?) and to have to pay for something on the Internet, it's just, I think it's just outrageous, to me it contradicts, now if those companies are dumb enough to do that, then I hope they lose a ton of money and then they'll finally see the light of day 'cause there have been other companies who put up a paywall and then just took it down and said, you know, this doesn't make any sense.
Another example of a media entity "dumb enough" to put up a paywall instead of giving away its content for free -- the website for Press's radio show. Last I checked, Press charges podcast subscribers $7.95 a month or a $59.40 annual fee. Talk about outrageous -- almost as if Press believes that what he provides has value, and he should be compensated! I'm guessing the people employed by the New York Times and Wall Street Journal share the sentiment.
