This sounds very George Orwell, like "Freedom is Slavery".
It's going to take a very strong argument to support the idea that freedom is enhanced by limiting freedom. Not that it's impossible; my glib statement plays fast-and-loose with "freedom", using the same word in one sentence to mean both the overall amount of freedom as well as in a microcosm. But even so, the apparent contradiction should make us think before jumping in.
The Roman republic was preserved so long in part because Roman law and tradition forbade the bearing of arms within the city, and the entry of armed legions from the provinces into Italy proper. The loss of Roman liberty corresponded directly with the progressive breakdown of those regulations, starting with Sulla marching into Rome, Julius Caesar crossing the Rubicon, and continuing with Augustus' Praetorian Guard.
Sometimes liberty is best preserved by limiting the ability of the powerful to bring that power to bear. The alternative is "might makes right", or private tyranny.
Well, it depends if you consider monolithic monopolies or governments a greater threat to freedom.
In the case of US ISPs, most people simply have no choice and are locked into one company. This creates a difficult situation and allows ISPs to easily collude. You theoretically have freedom to switch to another company, but in practice it's not possible because most people would have to up and move their entire family.
Freedom can be enhanced by limiting freedom. In the US, you may not have a slave or be a slave. It is illegal, even if both parties are willing.
Why can't we decide? Because if we could, it would open the door to trickery and coercion. The fact that no slavery arrangement is legal keeps a lot of people from being tricked or coerced into one.
Hence, limiting freedom (of agreements) can enhance freedom generally (no slavery).
Similarly, you can't sell me a house made of popsicle sticks even if I'm informed. We want a market where houses below a certain level of quality just don't exist, because it's better for everyone.
It's possible that net neutrality is like this. "An internet connection where ComCastMovies.com works great but Netflix is severely throttled" would be a crappy product that Comcast is incentivized to sell, and consumers may be tricked (fine print) or coerced (no other options) into buying. It may be in the public interest to outlaw it.
We want a market where houses below a certain level of quality just don't exist, because it's better for everyone.
But are we sure that's true?
A couple months ago I recall seeing that one of the major wireless providers was planning a level of service that was (a) very cheap; (b) allowed unlimited access to Facebook and a couple of other major social apps; and (c) was very expensive for data usage outside that area. It would be marketed toward poorer people as a cheaper means of getting that basic connectivity.
One outcome of the arguments for net neutrality, and your argument in particular, is that there's no means for providing low-cost services designed for the less-rich. It's not obvious to me that setting a bar this high is a good thing for the lower economic rung in our society.
>> We want a market where houses below a certain level of quality just don't exist, because it's better for everyone.
> But are we sure that's true?
It depends on how you calculate the cost of the low-quality thing. Take houses. If people could sell houses made of compressed dryer lint, some would. And some poor people would buy. And many of them would be horribly burned in fires.
What's the cost? It depends on how much responsibility we take in caring for them. Do we pay to treat their burns? Do we pay for their funerals? Do we pay to raise their children and give them counseling? What about the lost potential of all those people to contribute to the world? What about the value of life itself?
> One outcome of the arguments for net neutrality, and your argument in particular, is that there's no means for providing low-cost services designed for the less-rich. It's not obvious to me that setting a bar this high is a good thing for the lower economic rung in our society.
It's not obvious to me, either. But it seems like Facebook-only phones are a bit like dryer-lint houses. How much would it cost society to have its bottom ranks unable to read Wikipedia or look up medical conditions on MedLinePlus or comparison shop on Amazon?
And if such plans succeed, how long until we have to consider every ISP's plans with "features" such as "doesn't block category X" and "doesn't throttle site Y"?
But those are artificial bottom-rung services. We all know that an internet connection is an internet connections, right? So restricting this bogus program to certain websites was an attempt to capture the consumer, nothing more. Its somewhat like offering the poor special-price moldy bread, deliberately poisoned to make them have to buy your medicine or whatever. There's no point to it, except evil.
Its somewhat like offering the poor special-price moldy bread, deliberately poisoned to make them have to buy your medicine
No, that's a completely unfair characterization. There's nothing "poisoned" about the lower level of service being contemplated here, it's just a lot less capable.
You seem to be putting yourself into the position of deciding for these hypothetical poor customers that if they can't have the A+ level of service for top dollars, then they shouldn't have anything at all. It's all or nothing.
If you think that we should limit things in this way, then let's be up-front about it. Admit from the beginning that the result will be that we're preventing low-cost plans, so the industry will be forbidden from selling plans designed for disadvantaged people.
I didn't make my self clear then. Its absolutely poisoned. They had to go to special trouble to disable browsing anything but the services they wanted you to see. Like putting on blinders. Or to use the food analogy, to destroy the food value of the bread so as to influence your subsequent behavior.
The lowest rung, the only rung, on the internet ladder is - a connection. Nothing costs more or less than that. The rest is an attempt to charge rent on property that isn't theirs. To mix the metaphors. They are a carrier; they don't provide web sites and its none of their blessed business which ones you visit using their precious phone.
It's going to take a very strong argument to support the idea that freedom is enhanced by limiting freedom. Not that it's impossible; my glib statement plays fast-and-loose with "freedom", using the same word in one sentence to mean both the overall amount of freedom as well as in a microcosm. But even so, the apparent contradiction should make us think before jumping in.