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Online Free Markets Must Be Defended
From TechRepublican.com, March 13, 2008
By Dan Zarrella
In modern America, truly free markets can be hard to find, and like endangered national resources they must be protected from the regulation-happy enemies of capitalism. Especially in emerging industries we must act to preserve competition and the invisible hand.
It may seem counter-intuitive then that I support the defense of internet content, commerce and service providers from the anti-competitive broadband providers, but bear with me for a moment as I explain my position.
In most markets (particularly non-urban areas) there exists a duopoly of broadband internet service providers, most folks have to choose only from either the phone company or the cable company and the offerings are generally not very different.
In the old days of dial-up everyone had a plethora of options to pick from, the market was healthy and the competition benefited the consumer. If one company was providing sub par service the market would correct it. But we must remember the current state of high speed internet access is that real competition does not exist and the free market cannot correct itself.
Because of this anti-competitive environment ISPs are able to endanger consumer choice (and the self-correcting nature of capitalism) by degrading their customer’s access to services they offer competing version of. If your ISP offers VOIP or video they are able to coercively remove competition by slowing down or even entirely blocking access to other providers, like Skype or YouTube.
There is already evidence that Comcast has blocked access to certain high-quality video providers, possibly in an effort to eliminate consumer choice in that industry, and we can be sure that more market-squashing like this is in the works from the telecom giant.
As if to drive their anti-populust message home even further Comcast interfered with the democratic process recently when they paid uninterested people to “fill up seats” in an open FCC hearing in Massachusetts on these issues, preventing their critics from even attending the meeting. When questioned on the tactic they admitted to using “seat warmers” to stifle debate.
These sorts of anti-democratic and anti-competitive actions must be stopped before they can endanger emerging free markets and the free speech of citizens.
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