Online innovation

In his Monday letter to the Review-journal, “Internet control,” Richard W. Monk tells us, “Most people have no idea what net neutrality means.” He then states, “Whoever controls the information you receive over the internet decides what information you get and don’t get and how fast or slow you get it. A few examples of places where the information you get over the internet is highly controlled would be North Korea, China, Russia, Iran and a few of the Arab countries.”

In the 1950s, the internet was initially funded by the U.S. Defense Department (Arpanet). From then until 2015, it was classified as an information service and the government took a light-handed government approach. It achieved staggering growth. This growth came from risk-taking entrepreneurs willing to commit capital for the opportunity of profit.

In 2015, when President Barack Obama started government Title II regulation of the internet in the name of “net neutrality,” he stated that would “protect innovation and create a level playing field for the next generation of entrepreneurs.”

But like most government regulations — especially those championed by college professors not business professionals — the opposite has happened. Who thinks that innovation would flourish by making the internet a government-regulated utility?

Comparing the competition for our business between service providers such as AT&T, Cox and Verizon in a free, open, capitalist country such as ours to North Korea, Iran, et al., suggests the author might be the one who has “no idea what net neutrality means.”

Scrap net neutrality and return internet innovation.