I would hardly call the Washington Post a bastion of libertarian thinking, however they do agree with my position that net neutrality is not what it appears to be. People who don’t agree with my position seem to have a penchant for categorizing it as a “libertarian” position, as if that is somehow a bad thing. The characterization is not an inaccurate one, but the position is embraced by many people, not just libertarians. I think my position would be more accurately defined as being based on common sense and historical evidence on the workings of the market.

The Berkeley Economic Press, a very liberal groups if there ever was one, has a great paper on the realities of net neutrality available here. Here is the abstract from the paper -

Robert Hahn and Scott Wallsten argue that mandating net neutrality, like most other forms of price regulation, is poor policy; instead, the government should focus on creating competition in the broadband market by liberalizing more spectrum and reducing entry barriers created by certain local regulations.

Following is my response to Derek’s post on my views.

Derek, while I respect your opinion and do realize you are fighting for something that you perceive as being right, I am also in the same position. I would hope that you have taken the time to thoroughly study this issue. The net neutrality campaign is very slickly designed to garner support without inspiring people to study the issue from all sides. I did a prior post with much more information than what is contained in the video. It can be viewed here.That post also contains 3 links to very good articles here, here and here. Among those articles is a warning from the head of the FRC -

Deborah Platt Majoras, the FTC’s Republican chairman, said extensive net neutrality legislation currently pending in the US Senate is unnecessary because there has been no demonstrated harm to consumers, that normal market forces would be likely to prevent any problems, and that new laws would cause more problems than they solve.

A quote from the Washington Post, opposing net neutrality and dealing with economic realities, not scare tactics and wild-eyed scenarios -

Meanwhile, there are powerful arguments on the other side. If you want innovation on the Internet, you need better pipes: ones that are faster, less susceptible to hackers and spammers, or smarter in ways that nobody has yet thought of. The lack of incentives for pipe innovation is more pressing than the lack of incentives to create new Web services.

You can see this imbalance in Wall Street’s low valuation of Internet infrastructure firms such as Verizon (price-to-earnings ratio: 12) and its infatuation with Internet service firms such as Google (price-to-earnings ratio: 69). You can see it, too, in the fact that U.S. broadband infrastructure lags behind that of East Asia and Europe. Allowing builders of Internet infrastructure to recoup their investment by charging the Googles and Amazons for use of their network would balance the incentives for innovation more closely. Ironically, a non-neutral net would accelerate the spread of zippy broadband that can deliver movies, allowing hobbyists with camcorders to take on Hollywood studios. The neutrality advocates who criticize corporatized cable TV should welcome that.

Capitalism is not the enemy, it is what brought us the level of internet service we have today. Government regulations inhibiting capitalism always result in a decline of service, reduce innovation and ultimately results in higher prices to consumers. Stating that costs always get passed on to the consumer is a very misleading statement. Under net neutrality, that is a more appropriate statement because costs will be passed on to all consumers. Under a deregulated internet, costs are allocated fairly to reflect the beneficiaries of certain services. Overall costs to consumers will be less. If Verizon doesn’t have the option to charge bandwidth eating companies for FIOS, who do you think is going to end up paying??? If you and I go to the grocery store and you jam your cart full and I only get 10 items, should I pay the same price as you? I don’t think so!