At least Ted is philosophically consistent. By advocating jailbreaking, he presumably does not think that Apple should be entrusted to make decisions about what should run on its platform. I can’t say the same for most commenters here.

Yet I see things differently. I am not a fan of net neutrality. The scenarios offered would never be allowed by consumers. Sure, some dumb companies may try to do what is surmised, but you can well imagine that such policies could not last long. It’s a scenario that nobody really wants on either side. In fact, as soon as the government _does_ get involved in “net neutrality” just like Ted said, it will turn out to be anything _but_ neutral. Look at health care. Look at anything else the government “regulates.” See my thoughts on the anti-trust thread, or maybe I’ll summarize it here. Regulation allows one company to use government like a blunt weapon to force others to do their bidding. It is ugly, and better left between private enterprise to battle it out in the market place. Because, in the end, the customer has the final say, not (even) the stockholders.

-Jon

Let me state right up front that our government over regulates. The reason they do so is usually tied to some agency’s need to justify not only its’ existence but also more money to operate. Having said that the idea of business entities being able to run free of all regulation is a frightening proposition. Just think for a minute about your food supply or eating at a restaurant. Try driving without any regulations. May be fun if you are alone on a highway; but will get deadly in a hurry otherwise.

I am with Ted on this one. It is better not the let this kind of deal get done without at least a public hearing. Why should Verizon be trusted to be ethical any more than some other bandwidth provider? Why should Google be trusted to be ethical any more than another content provider? Is it not at least possible that these two giants will structure the details of this deal in such a way as to give themselves an advantage over their competitors?

Our government has as much responsibility in this issue as any other. Someone says that we can correct any abuse by taking our business elsewhere. That is fine when there is fair competition. What would happen if all the major bandwidth providers decided to be a part of or duplicate a potential abusive charge? There are such things as price fixing among competitors.

I didn’t see the word jailbreak or Apple anywhere in this piece. I’m pretty sure this article is about Verizon and Google and the state of net neutrality.

There must be a good mix of government rules and private enterprise interplay in order to make it work for the consumer. Leaving it wide open (i.e. laissez-faire) doesn’t work as we’ve clearly seen in history with companies taking advantage of workers or becoming monopolies. Full and hard regulation doesn’t work, especially when there are so many ideas of how to regulate and none of them seem to do great. (I’m looking at you, regulated electricity and cable industries where one choice for a whole region isn’t necessarily giving consumers what they want nor keeping prices down.) The extremes at either end are not working. Unfortunately, we’ll probably see-saw between them for a long time before anything—if ever—is done that works out for the regular folks.

I completely agree with Ted Landau. The internet is a pub;lic utility. As such it does not belong to Verizon or Google or whomever’s wires it goes over any more than the electricity belongs to Northern States Power, or BCHydro. It is a public service that must be provided equally to all for uploading or downloading. I would no more tolerate Shaw, our local provider, throttling, than I would tolerate BCHydro telling me it would only supply 85VAC to non Sony TVs. A PUBLIC utility is for the PUBLIC good.

I am glad to be in full accord with Mr. Landau’s comments here.  However, I would direct him to some additional shenanigans that Google and Verizon are attempting.  In their Fifth proposal, they, Google and Verizon, establish the category of online services as distinct from Internet access, and in online services, the FCC wouldn’t have any authority to regulate online services, but could only monitor them.  Well, Julius Genachowski, Chairman of the FCC, is a bright boy, so I doubt that neither he or his lawyers will fall for that one.  Because taking away the FCC’s authority to regulate services opens the door to the very kind of discrimination against disfavored types of content and/or services on the wired and wireless Internet that the FCC’s proposed rules on Net Neutrality are designed to prohibit. 

For example, the Verizon and its ilk could discriminate on both the wired and wireless Internet against disfavored services using both price and/or restrictions on service, and thus, do an end-run around the very openness that they claim to support.  Stopping this will be up to the FCC and the people, who are overmatched by the telecoms and our bought-and-paid-for Congress.  As much as I want Ted and the people to win, I’d be a fool to not put my money on Google and Verizon.