Reading this article regarding Net Neutrality in the Economist leaves me incomprehensibly flabbergasted. Who on earth is making these decisions at at&t and others offending telcos, surely they have top notch degrees from the worlds best universities do they not ?
The Internet has organically developed into a single pervasive meritocratic medium facilitating global productivity and transaction on a massive scale, and now the behemoth telcos spit out their dummies like a thrashing toddler.
This is synonymous with constructing a brand new high street packed with shops, banks, niche specialty stores, travel agents and others all touting for business except each person is only allowed a maximum of 60 minutes in the street. How does this restriction change use of this space? Observation of human behavior shows that when faced with limits people create a plan thus maximizing their gain and reward from participating in such an environment. So instead of the myriad of technological advancement such as real-time media streaming, Netflix, on-line gaming and others you have “lets do the basics and then turn off the lights”.
Currently the global economy is in the tank and the very people (the middle class) who make up the users of 99% of these services are going to be forced with limits. Inherently this is bad for growth, innovation, and advancement as a species, no single entity will benefit from this. Maybe limiting the amount we drive combustion engines could be more fitting.
The lack of creativity of these “business leaders” doesn't surprise me. They couldn't possibly dream up a new exciting business model that would prevent draconian data caps yet provide revenue streams for further capital investment; that would be called “innovation”, isn't this French? Like cheating in an exam, if you “really” have to look at the person next to you since you’re clueless for answers take a look at Singapore, hint type “Singapore fiber network” into Google and do some R&D!
Meanwhile I’m off to start building my own satellite, perhaps its the only way to stream my nightly version of the news.
