[12704] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: EFF and the big bad T (tax) word [long]
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Russell Nelson)
Thu May 26 15:40:12 1994
Date: Thu, 26 May 94 00:59 EDT
From: nelson@crynwr.com (Russell Nelson)
To: djw@eff.org
Cc: com-priv@psi.com, alt-politics-datahighway@cs.utexas.edu,
frezza@radiomail.net, don.wills@swc.com
In-Reply-To: <199405251745.NAA15467@eff.org> (djw@eff.org)
Rant, rant, rant. Delete this if your mind is closed.
Date: Wed, 25 May 1994 13:45:24 -0600
From: djw@eff.org (Daniel J. Weitzner)
A network that only serves a limited part of the population is
useless, therefore it makes sense to price it so that everyone
(almost) can be online.
By this theory, because the Internet only serves a limited part of the
population, the Internet is useless.
In the ideal world, competitive pressure will force prices down to
the point that less support is needed in order to keep services
affordable.
When the government forces things, it removes choices from people.
Building codes force a minimum level of quality. Minimum wages force
a minimum level of job pay. Telephone systems must meet a minimum
level of service. While all of these improvements are laudable, they
also remove people's choices. Someone may choose to live in a shoddy
but cheap house while saving money to go to college. Someone may only
be able to do $4.00/hr worth of work in a $4.50 minimum wage world, in
which case they are unemployable.
The government makes things unaffordable, then has to take money from
some people to give to other people so that they can afford the thing
in the first place. And in any case, affordable is relative to the
person who's paying for it.
But, it is unlikely that this will happen all of a sudden, and
quite poossible that many areas will not experience the benefits of
competition for some time.
You ignore the reason why the government prevents competition. Why
*has* the government shut out all but one vendor from the local loop
market? If competition provides benefits, why were those benefits
taken away?
2. Direct subsidy to end users: EFF has supported direct goverment support
to subsidize network access for libraries, schools, and other public
institutions, where those institutions could not otherwise afford to be
online.
If they do not spend the money to be online, then they are making the
decision that other things are more important. Why do you seek to
cancel their decision?
What if Stahlman and Frezza were around when the Communications Act
of 1934 was debated? That law guarantees all of us access to affordable
telephone service. Frezza would probably have railed against the
"entitlements program" being created, claiming that we should just let the
market take care of providing phone service to rural areas and
hard-to-serve regions.
The market *was* taking care of providing phone service to rural
areas. Don't believe me, do the research. Go read a history of rural
phone service.
Stahlman would have mandated for time immemorial crank-up phones
with multiparty line access only, on the theory that this whole
"telephone age" was just a bunch of hype.
The telephone industry is required by the government to amortize its
equipment over a 40-year period. Why?
For the last two years, EFF has been at the forefront of
crafting policies that promote an open, accessible information
infrastructure. To correct Stahlman's erroneous assertions, we
have not given up on ISDN.
To which I reply, the telephone industry is required by the government
to amortize its equipment over a 40-year period. Why?
This kind of regulation is not a matter of charity to poor, but
serves to ensure that we have a seamless national communications system.
It's happening without the regulations. People want it because it's good.
many new, innovative services, but that most telephone companies (the only
ones able to provide this service) were failing to deploy it or price it
No, damnit Dan, the only ones *allowed* to provide this service. How
about allowing co-location? For years we force others to stay out of
the teleco business, I have no problem is we now force the telcos to
allow others onto their premises.
In the end, I doubt that Frezza or Stahlman want to live in a
totally deregulated communications environment. Frezza relies on
orderliness in the airwaves so that messages he sends out via RadioMail
arrive without interference from other services. Federal regulation
maintains this order.
Nope. Radio stations managed to avoid interfering with each other
before the government nationalized the airwaves. They did so because
one summer, some radio stations got tired of trying to compete with
other stations, and started deliberately interfering with others.
Whoosh, in steps the government to solve that nasty competition problem.
Governmental relief from competition is a powerful force. Hey, I'd
love it if the GAO required all network adapters purchased by the
government to have packet drivers.
-russ <nelson@crynwr.com> ftp.msen.com:pub/vendor/crynwr/crynwr.wav
Crynwr Software | Crynwr Software sells packet driver support | ask4 PGP key
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