[12743] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Information subsidies
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Draper Kauffman)
Fri May 27 19:47:16 1994
Date: Fri, 27 May 1994 01:50:18 -0500
To: com-priv@psi.com
From: draperk@io.com (Draper Kauffman)
When I pay for my phone line, one of the things I'm paying for is the
ability to reach almost anyone in the country (and a lot of the rest of the
world). So, in principle, I'm willing to pay a small portion of my bill
toward achieving that universality because it has value to me. This isn't
to say that the current transfer system is still necessary or that it is
the most effective way to achieve this goal. It is just a reminder that
universal connectivity is a "good" that benefits _all_ users, not just the
recipients of the subsidy.
Having said that, however, I'm puzzled as to why the EFF feels any
subsidies are necessary. IP access is already as cheap as phone service in
most US cities. In fact, considering that there is no surcharge for
"long-distance" on the Internet, it is vastly cheaper than phone service.
So what is all this nonsense about subsidizing access to it?
Certainly many of the organizations that make up the Net are goverment
funded. But they provide packet relay services to others as a direct
quid-pro-quo for having others relay their own users' packets, so it is not
the case that they are subsidizing the net.
IMHO, the Net is a new kind of marketplace, and it will work out its own
rules and mechanisms for financing capital investment and pricing various
services. There is no justification for assuming ab initio that regulation
and government mandated transfer payments are needed for the Net in the US
in 1994 just because they were (arguably) needed for the phone system 60
years ago. Doing so may lead to government intrusion and control where it
is neither needed nor wanted.
Draper
--
Draper Kauffman, Ed.D. draperk@io.com
Illuminati Online 512/447-7866
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