[sllug-members]: Government and the Internet.

[Knight Walker]

This is fun.

On Thu, 2007-01-25 at 14:30 -0700, Lonnie Olson wrote:
> I do believe that the Internet is heading toward dangerous 
> over-corporatization.  The reason for the incredible growth of the 
> Internet has been it's openness and freedom.  However, in recent years 
> we have seen fewer and fewer ISPs control more and more of the 
> backbones.  I don't think we are yet at the point of monopoly, but it 
> seems to be heading that way.
> 
> I thought about what, or who, is to blame for this monopolization.

Why should it only have one cause? Isn't this problem large enough to
have multiple contributory factors?

> 1. Evil CEOs bent on world domination?
>     No, this is just silly.  They are just trying to make more money.
>     They are responsible to the shareholders who want more money.
>     This is exactly what Capitalism is meant to promote.

Rant mode = on

Yeah, they're just trying to make money.  Screw the environment, their
employees, pension obligations, safety regulations, etc.  Those things
cost money.

Rant mode = off

Yes, I know they're driven by their shareholders who are just after the
bottom line, and I know I'm just crying in the wilderness about this,
but I for one am sick of the sole pursuit of money.  When all they're
doing is chasing the quarterly numbers, they don't do the sustainable or
responsible things if those are difficult at all.

> 2. Capitalism?
>     No, Capitalism will work fine as long as corporations responsibly
>     compete.  There are laws to insure responsibility.  It is also up
>     to the consumers to keep the competition around.

So long as they are responsible.  That's a pretty big and important
condition.  Especially when marketing companies are now using
psychological profiling and other techniques to manipulate what the
customers want in favor of what they have.

> 3. Government?
>     Maybe, but unlikely.  Many Congress members take loads of money
>     from corporate lobbyists, and make laws to help them out.  In the
>     end, I think our checks and balances should prevail.

Problem is, Congress doesn't realize how this will affect the future.
What seems like a good idea today can end up hurting entire segments of
the economy.  I remember a story about one Senator/Representative who
was given an iPod and that opened his eyes to some of the limitations
and pitfalls of DRM, which Congress passed with a voice vote back in
1998.

> 4. The average Consumer?
>     Yes!  In any Free Market it is up to the consumer to keep the
>     competition around.  They need to make informed decisions.
>     The average consumer is more and more following blindly what
>     these corporations want.  Like a moth to a flame.  It is the
>     consumer who has the ultimate responsibility to maintain a
>     Free Market.

In any Free Market (As any Free environment) it's up to the concerned
parties to keep a check on the power of other concerned parties and
safeguard their goals and liberties.  It is true that most consumers are
becoming mindless drones (See above about marketing), which makes things
for those of us on the fringe or outside the mainstream harder.

> rog made the argument that the Internet's ubiquity is a reason why 
> government should probably step in.  He mentions SPAM as one thing the 
> government can control better.  I agree there are compelling reasons 
> that government involvement in the Internet could help.  However, there 
> are also compelling reasons for the opposite.

Congress has been trying to step in at least regards to spam: the CAN
SPAM act.  Unfortunately it doesn't seem to have done anything at all to
reduce spam.

> The Internet is a *global* network, not a national one.  Without 
> isolating our country's network from the world using something like the 
> "Great FireWall of China", these laws won't have much effect.  I don't 
> think anyone wants that.

No one except the US intelligence agencies and law enforcement, which
have gotten laws passed requiring that networks be tapable, or ignored
laws that hindered their activities.  While this isn't the same thing as
a firewall, I think it's more dangerous, since a firewall simply blocks
access, rather than silently following along and tracking.  While it may
not be desirable to firewall off the country, they can, and seem to be
hell-bent on tracking things they don't like.

> On a side note about SPAM:  There are 2 major reasons SPAM is so bad. 
> 1. There are still millions of people who read, respond, and buy from 
> spammers.  2. Our current system of mail (SMTP) is ancient and horribly 
> broken for modern times.  We can't do anything about #1.  There will 
> always be gullible people.  Replacing SMTP will be very difficult, but 
> it *is* possible.

Which leads me to my point about waiting too long to do something about
a problem.  At this point, there is no practical way to replace SMTP
with something better.  It's simply too entrenched.

...And I'm spent.

-KW