Net Neutrality is in the News Again
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This isn’t the first time we have written about net neutrality here at Coffee Break Liberty. The last time was in July. Back then, we discussed how it was showing up in social media again at the time and how the cost of hosting had risen nearly 40% since net neutrality started in the US. Now the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) might actually end net neutrality next month! Which then leads to more and more posts about it in social media, to which we must respond with a few more facts about the current environment post the passing of net neutrality.
Before net neutrality was passed the ISPs (Internet service providers) warned that this would lead to a drop in capital investment. No surprise, that is what we have seen. An overall drop in capital investment from the 12 largest broadband providers by 5.6% equaling $3.6 billion when comparing 2014 to 2016 numbers. These numbers are not surprising, more regulation on the industry has made it less attractive for firms already in the industry to compete with each other as they all know that the new regulation makes it that much harder for a new firm to enter the market and compete with the those firms already in the market. These artificial barriers decrease competition in the ISP market which then decreases the advantage that the consumer has over the firm in a marketplace. Sure there is no monopoly in the market but in many areas there are only 1 or 2 ISP providers, all thanks to the FCC and it’s other regulations. We can’t ignore those local regulations too that also make it harder for smaller firms to compete with the larger ISPs. The local regulations along with FCC regulations make it more difficult and expensive to enter into the ISP market. What has this decrease in capital spending by the ISPs lead to you might ask. It has lead to the US dropping from the 42nd fastest Internet for the average user to now the 44th in the world. I hope this isn’t the progress progressives were looking for. As stated in the last post, net neutrality is crony capitalism. The FCC is also crony capitalism, and you just don’t fight that with more crony-ism. You fight corruption with freedom, not more corruption.
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Keep that coffee warm for us.
LWS
