I have often thought the government should provide an alternative option for critical service just like they do with the mail and now health insurance (ignoring current politics).
That is I think the net neutrality issue could be mitigated or non issue if there were say a US ISP that operates anywhere where there is a telephones poles and public towers analogous to the United States Postal service (USPS).
Just like the roads (postal service) the government pseudo owns the telephone poles and airways (FTC) so they should be able to force their way in.
I realize this is not as free market as people would like but I would like to see the USPS experiment attempted some more particularly in highly leverage-able industries.
Agree completely. The web is too important in our daily lives to put in the hands of a couple fat cats. We should, quite literally, form an "Internet Constitution".
The problem with that is that the alternative will be a minimal solution, so your choices will be crappy state service or non-neutral ISP service that's good enough for you not to care but still sub-optimal. Here's what I believe is a better regulatory solution that makes the free market work properly without needing the state to build inneficiency by duplicating services that the private sector is willing to supply:
Says who? There are co-ops all across the country that run fiber to the home and provide a far superior service than 99% of the ISPs out there today.
At the end of the day, the only REAL solution is for government to own the last mile. Run single-mode fiber to every household in the US, run that back to a centralized pop and allow ISPs to attach to that pop to provide service. The cost of last-mile is no longer a barrier to entry for new ISPs, people will end up with more choice and better service, and we can stop having ridiculous fights over access to utility poles that never should've had more than one line strung in the first place.
Given that the government could run fiber when building new paved roads and it wouldn't even be a rounding error... it seem ludicrous to me we aren't already doing this.
Your suggestions solves a different problem, the lack of competition giving you crappy (but potentially still net neutral) internet service. It only solves the neutrality problem if enough people care to switch providers because of it. Considering the general apathy towards that problem I wouldn't bet on it. See my proposal for a market solution for that. Personally I think we should do both to solve both problems.
Even with such a vague description there are plenty of regulations involved. If you do your transaction electronically it is subject to several financial regulations. If you do it in cash there are regulations for those as well. The transaction itself only exists because of regulations. The "give it to them" part only exists because copyright is a well defined concept.
There are no free markets without regulation, just chaos.
The regulations you mention ARE NOT NEEDED for the market to work.
(As an aside, I hate copyrights, and I consider them to be the biggest plague ever created in the world, with more wealth destroyed by it than anything else. My main employer KNOWS that I hate copyright, and he still pays me to write software.)
I despair of the intelligence of human beings. I had to change what I wrote several times, because it was too filled with expletives.
>I despair of the intelligence of human beings. I had to change what I wrote several times, because it was too filled with expletives.
That's because you don't have an actual argument. Only strongly worded statements devoid of any data or reasoning from first principles while you call other people stupid.
That is I think the net neutrality issue could be mitigated or non issue if there were say a US ISP that operates anywhere where there is a telephones poles and public towers analogous to the United States Postal service (USPS).
Just like the roads (postal service) the government pseudo owns the telephone poles and airways (FTC) so they should be able to force their way in.
I realize this is not as free market as people would like but I would like to see the USPS experiment attempted some more particularly in highly leverage-able industries.