The fact that something seems to have worked pretty well without significant regulation so far could mean that it will continue to do so, or it could mean that it’s been lucky and taking no new precautions will cause it to stop working pretty well. I don’t have any antivirus software on my Mac; if more people start finding it an appealing challenge to infect Macs with viruses, though, it would be stupid for me to assume that this will be safe forever. More companies are starting to show interest in behaviors that will lead to biased net access. Regulation will almost certainly not yield optimal allocation of resources; it will, however, prevent certain kinds of abuses and inequalities.
I guess this comes down to politics ultimately. I have more faith that good solutions will be worked out by negotiation between the competing interests (Google tends to counter-balance the cable companies, consumers have options even though they tend to be limited by government sponsored monopolies for broadband provision) than by congress being captured by whoever has the most powerful lobbyists at the time the laws are passed. I take the fact that things are ok at the moment as reasonable evidence that a good solution is possible without legislation. Certainly bad solutions are possible both with and without legislation, I just tend to think they are much more likely with legislation than without.
The fact that something seems to have worked pretty well without significant regulation so far could mean that it will continue to do so, or it could mean that it’s been lucky and taking no new precautions will cause it to stop working pretty well. I don’t have any antivirus software on my Mac; if more people start finding it an appealing challenge to infect Macs with viruses, though, it would be stupid for me to assume that this will be safe forever. More companies are starting to show interest in behaviors that will lead to biased net access. Regulation will almost certainly not yield optimal allocation of resources; it will, however, prevent certain kinds of abuses and inequalities.
I guess this comes down to politics ultimately. I have more faith that good solutions will be worked out by negotiation between the competing interests (Google tends to counter-balance the cable companies, consumers have options even though they tend to be limited by government sponsored monopolies for broadband provision) than by congress being captured by whoever has the most powerful lobbyists at the time the laws are passed. I take the fact that things are ok at the moment as reasonable evidence that a good solution is possible without legislation. Certainly bad solutions are possible both with and without legislation, I just tend to think they are much more likely with legislation than without.