Silicon Insider: Go Net Neutrality
As corporations crack down on Internet speech, net neutrality offers freedom.
Oct. 25, 2007 — -- That does it: I am now a full-fledged convert to net neutrality.
We live in a world with so much noise, so many desperate people calling for our attention and action, that we inevitably put up filters and barriers to keep from being overwhelmed.
It would be nice to be committed, one way or another, to all of the important issues we face, but frankly, with the proliferation of news sources from the daily paper, and a handful of TV stations, to thousands of Web sites, bloggers, cable news and satellite radio, I (and probably you, too) just don't have enough time, energy or passion to spread that far around.
Empathy fatigue has become a very real factor in our lives.
And that brings me to net neutrality. I know that, as someone who has made his career writing about technology, that I should have, long ago, taken a side in the debate over a free and open Internet. But the very thought of getting involved, like a lot of disputes over theory, rather than reality, just made me sleepy.
It's not that I didn't understand the debate. I could certainly support the notion that the Web ought to be a wide-open, level field, the online equivalent to open systems, in which all of the world's billions could operate with full freedom. Nice idea, very Jeffersonian, and I had seen too many technologies get locked up by one or more major players (i.e., Microsoft Windows), and get locked down into standardization, long before that technology had reached its full potential.
On the other hand, I try to be a realist and not get suckered into this month's latest Utopian fantasy. I'm always wary of people with an absolutist view of anything — and the notion of a perfectly pure and open Net had a bit of that smell to it.
Besides, I'm a good entrepreneurial capitalist. I not only have no problem with people making a buck, I applaud the very idea. I want everybody to get rich — and if that means that parts of the Web needed to be segmented in some way to protect the intellectual property of its creators … well, maybe that says there's something wrong with the Net neutral model.
