The uncertainty over how to ensure an open Web is the latest example of how technology is moving so quickly that our regulatory institutions can't keep up. A new book, "The Laws of Disruption" by technology consultant Larry Downes, explains this gap with a powerful idea: "Technology changes exponentially, but social, economic and legal systems change incrementally." We're used to ever-increasing computing power and endless innovation online, but politicians and regulators are left trying to manage technologies beyond their control or understanding.
"The mistake regulators and those who enable them continue to make is trying to micromanage individual technologies or applications," Mr. Downes writes. "The bottom line is simple. Encouraging infrastructure is good; micromanaging it is bad."
Why do emotions run so high on what is in essence a technical debate about how to run a network? Mr. Downes told me last week that "consumers have been done a great disservice by corporate interests on both sides of this fight, who have reduced a complicated business and technical problem into a sound bite. They've been told that net neutrality is nothing more and nothing less than a fight for the soul of the Internet."
His view is that "U.S. consumers have plenty of reasons to be suspicious of both the FCC and the communications industry." His advice: "Consumers should ask themselves which of these powerful interests is more likely in the end to abuse its power. Who, in other words, has the greater potential to make things worse for everyone?"
His answer seems sensible: "Absent any evidence of serious market failure yet, I'd much rather deal with the devil I know than a resurgent FCC."
The best defense against access providers' acting unreasonably is more competition. The alternative would treat the modern network of the Web as if it were the 19th-century network of railroads, with the FCC as a modern-day version of the Interstate Commerce Commission, which set rail rules and tariffs, slowing innovation in transportation until the agency was abolished in 1995 as a bureaucratic anachronism.
In highly regulated industries, regulations become barriers to entry. It's costly for new competitors to comply with the rules, which are designed for incumbents. As the U.S. falls further behind in broadband, we need more innovation and more competition, not a cozy, regulated cartel.
via online.wsj.com
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