Quote:
Originally Posted by powerclown
Right, its their call. It may restrict consumer choice but as a private company in business to make a profit, aren't they free to choose what is best for their Bottom Line? If it's *their* hardware aren't they free to do with it as they choose?
So 2 things to consider: 1) the financial interests of the Carriers who own the actual, physical network hardware and allow content to be run on their hardware (it is after all *their* hardware, which they invested decades and billions of their own private capital in R&D and infrastructure creation) and, 2) the rights of the applications that run on that hardware, such as Amazon, Yahoo, Google, TFP, FaceBook, Boeing, AAA, etc. Should Amazon and the like dictate the rules, or should Comcast and the like? Are the Detroit Lions more important than Ford Field? It seems like there is the potential for a nasty conflict of interest here. I agree with those here that the Content is the thing, but from a purely legal and financial viewpoint its going to be hard to tell Comcast how to run its own networks.
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Except that you're forgetting the third party in this. Those networks were built out on the sufferance of the people, with authorization granted by the government elected by the people to use public land (ie, land owned by the people).
Those same people have every right to tell the companies involved 'if you use our land, you play by our rules.' There's no difficulty involved here; if the internet providers want to have common carrier status and all the privileges that go along with it, they have to uphold the responsibilities. Up until now they've been given free reign -- but while I wouldn't go so far as to say the internet is a completely essential service now, it's fast going that way. Taking action to protect the access of the common citizen to a free and open internet is not only sensible, I'd say it's pretty much mandatory.
An ounce of prevention, and all of that.
There are a lot of different factors that go into this discussion. Trying to break it down into a simple free market scenario is vastly oversimplifying.