Axle Grease
Posts: 306 +262
How is this socialism?.
It's not difficult to comprehend the philosophic bent of people in the FCC pushing for this bill when the mask drops to unveil nuggets like this: "It also seeks feedback on whether broadband Internet service should be considered a public utility." To treat privately owned broadband Internet services as public utilities is about as blatant a step towards government control over internet service provision as you can get short of outright nationalization. Yeah, that's socialism alright. No doubt about it.
Its simply a regulatory move to insure that the big entrenched players can't squelch their competition by starving them of bandwidth.
The bill applies to *all* ISPs in the U.S.
That's the very epitome of REAL capitalism where the playing field is supposed to be level
That's not capitalism. The level playing field of capitalism is in having equality before the law, not a government that ensures competition. The epitome of capitalism is a government forbidden to block new entrants into the marketplace nor favour some at the expense of others.
What we have in the US these days, particularly when it comes to the telecom industry, is a cartel of companies who are merging and acquiring their way to complete monopoly. There's is no "free market" when a handful or corporations can set prices and act as gatekeepers to all Internet content. Do you want the Internet to look like the oil industry? Because allowing ISPs to arbitrarily decide who is deserving of a "fast lane" is exactly how you get there.
The objective of the free market is ever better quality products at lower prices. It's not about who owns how much of the market share. So if a large number of customers are dissatisfied with quality or price then you've got to wonder why there are no new entrants to take advantage of the situation. In the case of network provision it's usually due to local regulations pricing them out. Where I am there's so much environmental red tape these days that only "big" "entrenched" players can afford to lay down networks and with taxpayer's money being poured in, too.