Keeping politicians' hands off the Net & everything else related to technology
Three months ago, when the DC Circuit struck down the FCC’s “Cable Cap”—which prevented any one cable company from serving more than 30% of US households out of fear that he larger cable companies would use their “gatekeeper” power to restrict programming—the New York Times bemoaned the decision: The problem with the cap is not [...]
The disabled have much to give thanks for this year—but contrary to common assumptions, it’s not for paternalistic government accessibility mandates, regulations or subsidies (see, for example, the FCC’s November 6 Broadband Accessibility workshop), but for the good ol’ fashioned private sector ingenuity that has made America great. Five broad categories of examples suggest how [...]
Perfect media equality is impossible. There has never been anything close to “equal outcomes” when it comes to the distribution or relative success of old media: books, magazines, music, movies, book, theater tickets, etc. A small handful of titles have always dominated, usually according to a classic “power law” or “80-20? distribution, with roughly 20% [...]
The Internet is massive. That’s the ‘no-duh’ statement of the year, right? But seriously, the sheer volume of transactions (both economic and non-economic) is simply staggering. Consider a few factoids to give you a flavor of just how much is going on out there: In 2006, Internet users in the United States viewed an average [...]
I really enjoyed my Second Life appearance on “Government’s Place in Virtual Worlds and Online Communities,” which was hosted by Metanomics. You can watch the entire segment on the Metanomics site. But the folks at Metanomics have also posted 6 clips from the show at YouTube that highlight some of the topics we discussed. Here’s [...]
Last Wednesday, Holman Jenkins penned a column in The Wall Street Journal about net neutrality (Adam discussed it here). In response, I have a letter to the editor in today’s The Wall Street Journal: To the Editor: Mr. Jenkins suggests that Google would likely “shriek” if a startup were to mount its servers inside the [...]
The Google juggernaut’s revenue growth has slowed steadily in the last five years, causing the Wall Street Journal to caution investors about buying Google stock. While much of the slow-down in Google’s revenue may be attributed to the recession, the WSJ cautions that: Microsoft is offering stiffer competition in search, which will only intensify once [...]
“Liberty upsets patterns.” That was one of the many lessons that the late Harvard philosopher Robert Nozick taught us in his 1974 masterpiece “Anarchy, State, and Utopia.” What Nozick meant was that there is a fundamental tension between liberty and egalitarianism such that when people are left to their own devices, some forms of inequality [...]
According to respected Guatemalan lawyer Rodrigo Rosenberg, Guatemala’s government is infested with corruption. His message is carried very powerfully to fellow Guatemalans and the world in a video he taped before his murder last week. YouTube has a role as a powerful engine of dissent and government transparency. It’s a commercial, profit-making business, and it [...]
The Library of Congress now has a YouTube channel. Among the gems you can find there, the first moving image ever made. It’s a man named Fred Ott, sneezing:
May 24, 2012
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.
