The Most Anti-Tech Organizations in America
History is replete with examples of products, companies, and industries that fail to adapt and adopt to new technology. An article @PCWorld by Mark Sullivan on the 5 most anti-tech organizations in America.
Their names keep coming up over and over again in courtrooms and corridors of power across the country–those groups whose interests always seem to run counter to those of technology companies and consumers. They come in many forms: associations, think tanks, money-raising organizations, PACs, and even other tech-oriented industries like telecommunications.
The tech issues that they’re concerned with are what you might expect: digital rights management and fair use, patent law, broadband speed and reach, wireless spectrum and network neutrality. I talked to a good number of tech and media policy insiders in Washington, D.C.–mostly off the record–to find out who these groups are, how they operate, and who pays their bills. We’ll start with the biggest offenders first and work our way down.
- RIAA
- The Pharmaceutical/Biotech Industry
- Big Telco Companies, Industry Group USTelecom
- Verizon, AT&T, Progress and Freedom Foundation
- Large Wireless Carriers and the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association (CTIA); TV Broadcasters and the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB)
Ok, I buy the RIAA argument. I can even see how one can make an argument about big telcos and their industry organizations are slow to adopt new technologies. But the RIAA’s biggest crime, as it were, was not being anti-tech, but being out of touch with consumers–it’s customers.
Opposition to “net neutrality” is not by definition anti-tech. Case in point broadband. Take the MSOs and the introduction of cable modems. The cable industry moved at “broadband speed” to develop, test and deploy cable modem technology to the market. Why? They understood upcoming technology and bandwidth requirements and they anticipated customers demand. The cable industry took a risk and made investments assuming returns on those investments.
I’m not sure where net neutrality got off track. The initial mantra was equal access to information flowing over the Internet. Sounds great. Unfortunately proponents call for government to enforce equality. If you follow the major tech press you’ve undoubtedly heard the pro net neutrality arguments. For a look at an opposing viewpoint, The Cato Institute has prepared a policy analysis document which can be found athttp://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-507es.html.
Such rhetoric and calls for preemptive regulation are unjustified. There is no evidence that broadband operators are unfairly blocking access to websites or online services today, and there is no reason to expect them to do so in the future. No firm or industry has any sort of “bottleneck control” over or market power in the broadband marketplace; it is very much a competitive free-for-all, and no one has any idea what the future market will look like with so many new technologies and operators entering the picture. In the absence of clear harm, government typically doesn’t regulate in a preemptive, prophylactic fashion as CBUI members are requesting.
Moreover, far from being something regulators should forbid, vertical integration of new features and services by broadband network operators is an essential part of the innovation strategy companies will need to use to compete and offer customers the services they demand. Network operators also have property rights in their systems that need to be acknowledged and honored. Net neutrality mandates would flout those property rights and reject freedom of contract in this marketplace.
The regulatory regime envisioned by Net neutrality mandates would also open the door to a great deal of potential “gaming” of the regulatory system and allow firms to use the regulatory system to hobble competitors. Worse yet, it would encourage more FCC regulation of the Internet and broadband markets in general.
Government regulation of the Internet or broadband providers is a proverbial slippery slope–or in this case maybe better described as a slippery water slide.
The rest of the original article can be found at PCWorld
