Net Neutrality joke
I thought of a variant to the “screw in the lightbulb” joke.
Question: How many net neutrality advocates does it take to build a fast, reliable internet?
Answer: It’s a trick question, they can’t do it.
The internet wasn’t built by people clicking “I Agree” on petitions or government decrees. It was built by private companies. Now that the internet has grown into something that we all enjoy and even depend on, some people feel that it has become “community” property. The property rights of individuals and organizations now have to be given up because people want control over their property.
To those that think they have a say in the way ISPs run their business, I have some questions: What have you done to make the internet what it is? And I don’t mean websites you’ve built or great blog posts you’ve written, but the actual architecture of the internet. Did you buy the computers that store your email and favorite websites? Did you lay the wires that connect all the computers in this vast network? Did you even lay the wire that connects this network to your house? The answer to these questions for the majority of people is “nothing.” Other organizations did all the work to build the internet, using their own money and resources. Everything they built is their property, regardless of the fact that it is part of the internet.
I felt the need to write this after reading the following quote from Senator Byron Dorgan (emphasis mine):
Sen. Dorgan said, “The Internet became a robust engine of economic development by enabling anyone with a good idea to connect to consumers and compete on a level playing field. The marketplace picked winners and losers, not some central gatekeeper. That freedom - the very core of what makes the Internet what it is today - must be preserved.”
Companies that provide us with internet access are not “gatekeepers,” they are bridge-builders. They built the connections we use to access the internet, and if they hadn’t built them we wouldn’t have them. I don’t understand the “ISPs are the problem” attitude that seems to pervade the net neutrality movement. Companies like Comcast deserve our appreciation for their role in giving us access to the internet. If they didn’t provide you access to the internet, who else would have? Senator Dorgan? SaveTheInternet.com? Net neutrality advocates?
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3 Responses to “Net Neutrality joke”
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As for your claim that private companies built the Internet, well, not really.
Arapnet was the precursor to today’s internet, and it was NOT a private-venture venture. It was academic (the first two compputers to talk to each other were UCLA-Standard), and the original goal of an “internet” had military implications, not commercial ones.
From Angelfire.com: “In 1969, work began on the ARPAnet, grandfather to the Internet. Designed as a computer version of the nuclear bomb shelter, ARPAnet protected the flow of information between military installations by creating a network of geographically separated computers that could exchange information. The first data exchange over this new network occurred between computers at UCLA and Stanford University….”
Granted, private companies expanded it to commercial uses, but the Internet’s roots are deeply anchored in the free exchange of information and access to information, not making money.
So there…
The internet that we know today was built by private enterprise. You are correct that the internet did not start out that way, but it’s grown considerably since then.
Even if I were to accept that private industry didn’t build the internet, I don’t see how it changes any of my points. Whatever parts of the internet that are private property (whether those parts make up the majority of the internet or not) should still remain in full control of those who own the property. To put it another way: An individual does not give up his rights to property that he hooks up to the internet. This applies the same for someone who hooks up his laptop to the internet as it does for a large company who hooks up their equipment to the internet in order to sell their access to others for a fee. People can claim that the internet is this or that, but their claims do not give them the right to tell others what to do with their property.
It’s frustrating to me how net neutrality advocates won’t even acknowledge the issue of property rights, let alone debate it. Rather than talk about what the internet “should” be, I’d like to hear them answer some basic questions related to the issue:
1.) Do people and organizations have the right to own property? If so, under what circumstances can that right be taken away?
2.) What role should the government play in our lives? Should it be to protect individual rights, or should it be to make others sacrifice themselves or their property for the needs of others?
You’re both wrong. Al Gore invented the internet.