Thursday, July 6, 2006
Verizon's absent Corozon
Mitch Ratcliffe has a piece that properly pounds Verizon for its Xtremely non-neutral orientation toward customers of its EV-DO service. And for its Machiavellian heart. If it had one.
Ones and Zeros: The Ultimate Comodity
Don Marti says "Information wants to be $6.95." Dana Blankenhorn's unintentional (though quite useful) corollary is, "Bits want to be free".
He explains this in Dump the Silo Model: Free the Bits.
By the way, the main point of The Intention Economy, and of what I've been saying about Saving the Net since I first started ranting about the subject, is that we need to shed the notion that a free market is "your choice of silo".
We also need to quit maintaining antique silos inside the Regulatorium.
Which speaks to my concerns about Net Neutrality as well, and why I kinda hope the whole telco "reform" effort in Congress crashes and burns. I think Net Neutrality is a terrific rallying cry and a fine sentiment to carry around in the marketplace. Meaning it's a fire to which we should hold the carriers' feet. But I worry about making it into law.
As Michael Powell warned F2C several months ago, be careful about getting what you wish for. Unintended consequences are a certainty, and it takes a generation or more to unscrew screwy legislation, if it ever gets unscrewed at all.