Michael Powell is a Dolt (Profit Motive Edition)

Because it’s no good if it doesn’t make a buck.‘”It is the Internet’s essential nature that fuels a very heated policy debate that the network cannot be left in private hands and should instead be regulated as a public utility, following the example of the Interstate highway system, the electric grid and drinking water,” Mr. Powell said. “The intuitive appeal of this argument is understandable, but the potholes visible through your windshield, the shiver you feel in a cold house after a snowstorm knocks out the power and the water main breaks along your commute should restrain one from embracing the illusory virtues of public utility regulation.”‘

What an asinine statement.

If there are potholes, it’s because not enough money has been allocated to fill them; that’s as true with private roads (ask anyone who lives along one) as public. Ditto for the preventive maintenance that keeps water mains in good repair. And power outages from snowstorms occur regardless of who owns the lines.

I suppose Powell’s idea is that if you turn more and more of the Internet into a competition to see who can screw the most money out of it by eliminating net neutrality and all that, then those who can pay will get their virtual potholes fixed more quickly. Which is, of course, just the model we want for our roads and water and power lines, right?

Dolt.

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Powell: Reclassify ISPs as Utilities And Everything Breaks | DSLReports, ISP Information
News: Powell: Reclassify ISPs as Utilities And Everything Breaks

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