From democracy to wealth
The “democracy” arguments in the telecom policy world go both ways. You can point to caselaw saying that getting information from diverse sources is “essential to the welfare of the public” and is the bedrock on which democratic government rests. This language seems to support keeping access as neutral and open as feasible.
On the other hand, the access providers themselves want to make sure THEIR speech is respected, and will often co-opt these words for their own purposes — don't regulate us, we want to be heard! It makes sense to them to give the conduit editorial control over the information being sent down the tubes.
On the third hand, the access providers will reasonably say that proponents of the “democracy” theory have to prove that the benefits produced by making the widest possible diversity of sources available exceed the economic costs (to them) of doing so.
And you can't quantify democracy.
Without giving up on democracy, can we come up with an additional principle that would support a decision in favor of openness/diversity of the online experience of real people? One that can lead to quantifiable results?
Well, if you think of all online communications as a system (it's all converging, after all), it's clear that this system is more like the weather or the economy than a railroad network. The future of this system is going to depend on giving it enough information to let it evolve (to have selection and adaptation run their course). That evolution will create longterm value for everyone — not just the access providers.
To have the best possible evolutionary search mechanism that leads to this wealth (which may be nonmonetary wealth, just to warn you), we need to provide the best possible background/substrate/environment. Rather than have the access providers provide the “fitness environment” (picking winners and losers), it will be better to have human attention provide the measure of fitness. More minds are better than one. If we're paying attention, you'll win. We'll back up our attention-paying with money. We'll pick the winners and the losers.
To get this information flow going (users paying attention to other users, users paying attention to applications), some policy suggestions present themselves:
1. Make sure all Americans have access. Fund Universal Service through a common pool of revenue. Eliminate cross-subsidies and hidden sludge — and have the end result be broadband internet connectivity.
2. Don't enact video or audio flags. They're another way of artificially controlling evolution in devices and content.
3. Make spectrum available for competitive access services.
4. Make video franchises available easily.
5. Mandate structural separation of access providers by layers. (If you're a pipe, that's all you should be. We may have to pay you back for your stranded costs.) It's clear that “unbundling” was a disaster, so we have to keep it simple.
6. Don't impose unreasonably high charges for necessary inputs, like spectrum or access to telephone poles or rights of way.
Democracy will certainly be helped by all this. Plus we'll be able to count up our wealth generated by this richer, self-ordered network. Whatever that wealth is, it has to be greater than the returns expected by a few network access providers under a non-neutral regime.
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