comments on previous post.

Comments from Post "The end of the internet as we know it?"

oldhats said...

I'd be alarmed by your predictions if I didn't have some other relevant facts. 1) The vast majority of consumers have a choice of more than 2 ISPs. 2) The free market works. 3) Net neutrality is not being threatened and, if it were threatened (see 1 & 2), the market would solve the problem quickly.

9:12 AM

John Michal Whitten said...

I wish you were right. However, 'the market'is not the solution. It is the problem. The 'market' is not a free and independent entity. The market is simply the reflection of choices made by huge corporate and political power in this country. There is no 'free' market.

Lets take this analogy, you are shopping in a Farmer's Market and are amazed at the variety and price of goods avaiable to you. You think, "wow, the market is good for everybody". The problem is, that major interests control who gets to sell at the Farmer's Market. Each little space must be approved by these interests. Corporate Power determines who gets to participate. In other words, it is the middle man that makes up the market. You have the vendor and the buyer and a middle man who puts them together in such a way as to maximize his own profit over the interests of the other two.

This middle man is the 'free market'.

I stand by my prediction, the internet is vulnerable to corporate and political control and the 'free market' is just a smoke screen.

8:10 AM

said...

Let me add one more point. A 'free Market' system can only work with the collusion of government. This is because corporate powers tend to seek to control the market. If government is honest, regulations and oversight are available to keep corporate power honest. However, when government is owned by corporations then the regulations and laws are written solely to support corporate power at the expense of consumers and other businesses that do not have this clout.

The American government is wholly owned by corporate power. There is no free market.

BOG

10:18 AM

To further augment my point:

"...CORPORATE POWER -- AOL CENSORED ADVOCACY GROUPS' EMAILS: Dozens of advocacy groups have teamed up to oppose AOL's decision to "charge companies about 1/4 cent to send a message that will bypass spam filters." E-mails from paying companies will go straight to a user's inbox, but e-mails from non-paying companies will go through the "gauntlet of spam filters that could divert them to a junk-mail folder or strip them of images and Web links," even if they're not spam. A coalition of groups with about 15 million members -- DearAOL -- formed recently to campaign against AOL's scheme, arguing that it will not stop spam and will create a two-tiered Internet of the haves and have-nots, harming nonprofits and small businesses. AOL's strategy to counter their critics: censorship. According to the Electronic Freedom Foundation (EFF), AOL yesterday began blocking delivery to AOL customers of all e-mails that include a link to the DearAOL coalition's website. Twenty minutes after EFF distributed its release about the censorship, AOL ended the practice, but the fact that it occurred at all is very troubling. "The fact is, ISPs like AOL commonly make these kinds of arbitrary decisions – silently banning huge swathes of legitimate mail on the flimsiest of reasons – every day, and no one hears about it," an EFF official said..."

Plainly put, the Corporate world is not interested in a free market and they aren't going to allow it. Period.