Suppressing Free Speech with Market Power - CommonDreams.org - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community:
There’s a problem. It’s called Net Neutrality,” Whitacre told the heirs to AT&T’s telecommunications empire on June 5. “Well, frankly, we say to hell with that. We’re gonna put up some toll booths and start charging admission.” See www.http://savetheinternet.com for Whitacre’s full comments.
As the greatest suppression of free speech ever seen in the US coupled with potential economic costs in the hundreds of billions of dollars, ending net neutrality is equivalent to yanking the soapbox from most ideas that ever percolated from the bottom up since 1990.
Imagine that the whole wheat loaf of bread in your favorite supermarket is no longer $2.00. Now it’s $5.00 if purchased separately or $30.00 when purchased as part of package bundled with other unwanted food products by your grocer. And it’s not available at all if you purchase the $15 base package - white bread only. Now double the effect by applying similar restrictions to producers and sellers of food on the supply side and you have the framework for undermining net neutrality.
Net neutrality, meet your successor, raised prices through forced bundling and limited access, courtesy of facility-based providers everywhere, modeled after Cable TV, not subject to effective competition.
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