And glad to see the regulatory capture passage. It’s hard to tell because of time zone weirdness, but it appears that was added after I wrote my post. It’ll be fascinating to see how the article evolves over time.

You’ve persuasively argued (as in yesterday’s NYT op-ed) that the legal status quo matters; many people, headlined by Vint Cerf, think the practical status quo matters.

Now ISPs threaten to change the status quo of practice, and some interest groups and interested companies want Congress to change the legal status quo—precisely (goes the standard story, anyway) to stop the ISPs from changing the practical status quo.

That’s what this passage is saying, only more awkwardly and without acknowledging the Internet’s near-freedom from regulation as itself an aspect of the status quo.

But the larger point is that this Wikipedia entry is enormous—over 8000 words, and about fifteen pages—and this passage is less representative of the whole in the thoughts it expresses than in the miserable meandering clumsiness with which it expresses them.
(How does that happen? Well, it doesn’t help that it’s easier to add a word or a paragraph and disrupt the flow of the prose than it is to see the badly flowing prose and fix it.)

After all, there are certainly other passages in the article whose substance you’ll find more congenial:

There is also the issue of regulatory capture, where the supposedly regulated entities manipulate the system to their advantage (through political power gained by campaign contributions or independant expenditures), either over competitors, or in collusion with them, largely to increase profits and/or exclude market entrants (partcularly those employing new technologies). This exclusion and control by various means has been shown historically to be to the ultimate detriment of consumers, both from higher cost and from slowed innovation.

The status quo of the Internet has two relevant aspects:

• the status quo of law is that it’s (nearly) regulation-free;
• the status quo of practice is that ISPs carry traffic without (much) regard to what’s inside it—or who the parties to it are.

You’ve persuasively argued (as in yesterday’s NYT op-ed) that the legal status quo matters; many people, headlined by Vint Cerf, think the practical status quo matters.

Now ISPs threaten to change the status quo of practice, and some interest groups and interested companies want Congress to change the legal status quo—precisely (goes the standard story, anyway) to stop the ISPs from changing the practical status quo.

That’s what this passage is saying, only more awkwardly and without acknowledging the Internet’s near-freedom from regulation as itself an aspect of the status quo.

But the larger point is that this Wikipedia entry is enormous—over 8000 words, and about fifteen pages—and this passage is less representative of the whole in the thoughts it expresses than in the miserable meandering clumsiness with which it expresses them. (How does that happen? Well, it doesn’t help that it’s easier to add a word or a paragraph and disrupt the flow of the prose than it is to see the badly flowing prose and fix it.)

After all, there are certainly other passages in the article whose substance you’ll find more congenial:

There is also the issue of regulatory capture, where the supposedly regulated entities manipulate the system to their advantage (through political power gained by campaign contributions or independant expenditures), either over competitors, or in collusion with them, largely to increase profits and/or exclude market entrants (partcularly those employing new technologies). This exclusion and control by various means has been shown historically to be to the ultimate detriment of consumers, both from higher cost and from slowed innovation.

Ah, I can’t decide. I’ll go read the wikipedia article on Network Neutrality now.