Re: [Latest draft of Internet regulation bill]

["Christopher L. Morrow" <christopher.morrow () mci com>]

On Sun, 13 Nov 2005, Sean Donelan wrote:

> On Sat, 12 Nov 2005, Christopher L. Morrow wrote:
>
> Yep.  The evil empires have a hundred years of experience dealing with
> regulation.  If the regulators define what the Internet is or isn't,
> instead of the marketplace, I don't know if people would recognize it
> anymore.  Common carriers can have lots of regulations, but most of the
> regulations just end up shielding the carrier from liability.  They can
> just say the government makes us do it, even though the tariff was
> written by the company itself, and pass along the extra costs to
> the consumer.  AT&T was very dull, but profitable essentially the entire
> time it was heavily regulated.  What color should Princess telephones be
> this year?
>
> Don't throw me in the briar patch :-)

I won't but blaine might :) Seriously though, phew! we were agreeing all
this time! :)

> The marketplace is messy.  Regulation is seductive because it appears to
> be cleaner.

Cleaner... for who exactly? The miles of code required to figure out the
mess created by the regulations? the consumers? ugh :( That's the
deception we need to dispell.