CNET has just run the guest column, "Just say no to Ma Bell-era Net neutrality regulation," Adam Thierer and I wrote in response to "Just say no to fake Net neutrality" by Derek Turner (of Free Press), which decried the win-win-win compromise suggested by Amazon's Paul Misener, just as Free Press has more recently denounced the compromise proposed by Google and Verizon.
We make a few key points:
- History demonstrates the dangers of regulatory capture, and the costs to consumers of regulation from lost investment and innovation.
- These dangers and costs far outweigh the purported benefits of regulation (in addressing a non-existent harm).
- Broadband markets are competitive enough to prevent the kinds of abuses advocates of net neutrality regulation fret about.
- Government could foster more broadband competition by deregulating spectrum and local wireline franchising.
I've been having a lively debate with the commenters on the piece, so feel free to join in! Unfortunately, we don't seem to be getting much substantive engagement with our argument--just the usual mix of "These guys are just corporate whores!" and "Can't you see the sky is falling?"