Great new analogy why Net neutrality is an irrational policy in a new The Hill editorial
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Thu, 2007-12-06 12:51
I always enjoy learning about a new fresh take on an old issue.
Kudos to Dr. Daniel Ballon who wrote a great editorial on net neutrality for The Hill newspaper: "Net neutrality punishes everyone for Comcast's actions."
He recounts a great analogy about how "neutral" networks on Black Monday, the stock market crash of October 19, 1987, was made worse by a traffic jam of orders that couuld not be managed in an orderly fashion to keep the stock market functioning and open.
- "After Black Monday, exchanges recognized the need to create “express lanes” and prioritize traffic to ensure orderly market function. The chairman of the House Telecommunications and Finance Subcommittee, Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass), also understood the benefits of placing “sensible speed limits on our market participants so that individual investors and our biggest market players can happily co-exist.” Markey recognized that neutral markets fail as predictably “as if we turned off all the nation’s stoplights,” and “made all speed limits voluntary.”
At its core, the policy of net neutrality, that all traffic is always treated equally no matter what is -- unreasonable, unwise, and irrational.
- Common sense dictates that a rigid "auto-pilot" policy like net neutrality can be very dangerous, because some network management is absolutely necessary to avoid traffic gridlock, aggressive abuse by the few of the many, and to manage unforeseen problems or crises.
- Ask the Moveon.org/SaveTheInternet crowd if they would want to fly in a "neutral" or "dumb" commercial airplane with no pilot "managing" the flight?
Net Neutrality
Removing net neutrality would be the same as having a six lane highway where:
on the first lane their is a huge traffic jam 24/7 for poeple who just need to go somewhere but don't have the means to pay for it
the second lane containing a jam still but moving a bit faster for poeple who choose to pay
the third lane constantly moving though still a bit slow for poeple who pay more
the fourth lane actually moving (not at best speed though but acceptable) for poeple who pay a LOT more
the fifth lane moving quite fast for just the richest of the richest
and than the sixt lane having 1 car/truck moving at insane speeds every 15 minutes, just for the mega-corperations/conglomerates
With net neutrality that same highway would have almost no jams (except maybe for the peak hours) moving a lot of traffic, at speeds between comparable to speeds between fourth and fifth lane
Also without net neutrality it would be possible to charge a shop for having customers travel over the road their on! Wich seems totally insane to me, and when not willing to pay have the road closed to them or customers being seriously limited in their speeds to reach the place (possibly making customers choose a different shop).
consumers allready pay for their bandwidth, a webshop allready has to pay for the hosting AND their bandwidth, so its to the ISP's who provide said bandwidth to honour their agreement and have enough available!
Net neutrality is just about being FAIR, everybody has the same chance to reach google at good speeds, download a file or watch live tv or listen to live music, it isn't socialistic (for it to be socialistic everybody would have the same speeds and those who have more money pay more for the SAME)
Concerning black monday
Without net neutrality black monday would've been worse!
Only those who had paid huge sums of money to have higher priority above others would've had orders come through
Those without priority or a lower one would've had NO orders coming through!
Net neutrality is just a first come first serve principle, what would it be that when you go to the bakery/seven-eleven that you'd first have to buy a priority ticket and those without one would have to wait all day in line at the till becouse others are constantly slipping in before them becouse of priority tickets!