“Be more like Europe” is a longstanding US Left battle cry.
When it comes to the exceedingly stupid policy that is Network Neutrality? We the Sane in the US now say: “Yes, please.”
Here in the US, Net Neutrality has for more than a decade been a fever dream of our Left. And, of course, the Big Tech companies.
The Left wants it – so we know it is exceedingly stupid policy. Big Tech wants it – so we know it is massive cronyism for Big Tech.
The European Union (EU) – like California here – is always about a decade ahead of the (rest of the) US in its Leftist dumbness. The EU imposed Net Neutrality in 2015. And is just now finally figuring out that it is exceedingly stupid policy.
And all of the reasons the EU is now giving for Net Neutrality being exceedingly stupid – are all of the reasons We the Sane have all along given for Net Neutrality being exceedingly stupid.
Tech vs Telecoms: EU Ignites Debate on ‘Net Neutrality’:
“Tech and streaming giants suck up vast amounts of bandwidth, so the EU this week revived a long-standing idea to make them pay the telecom firms who maintain the infrastructure.
“But the idea, which sounds simple, has sparked wails of disapproval not just from the tech giants who would be forced to pay, but also from digital rights activists.…
“EU competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager kicked off the controversy at a media briefing on Monday when she promised renewed focus on the idea of ‘fair contribution to telecommunication networks.’
“‘We see that there are players who generate a lot of traffic that then enables their business but who have not been contributing actually to enable that traffic,’ she said.
“Vestager did not name any companies but European telecoms lobby group ETNO published a study on the same day naming the firms they see as the major culprits — Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Google and Netflix.
“ETNO cited a claim that these six accounted for more than 55 percent of online traffic globally last year.”
Get that? Just six Big Tech companies – account for more than half of all global Internet traffic. And Net Neutrality outlaws their paying a single penny for doing so.
The EU is finally finding this to be a bit stupid:
“Vestager’s colleague, interior markets commissioner Thierry Breton, quoted a similar figure in a tweet on Wednesday, writing that restoring fairness was now ‘one of the main projects in our digital space.’
“Media reports suggested legislation would be on the table by the end of the year.”
That is legislation – that will rid the EU of the exceedingly stupid Net Neutrality.
The “digital rights activists” – are Leftist idiots who don’t seem to realize they are doing the bidding of the hugest companies in the history of the planet:
“(T)he fight over internet infrastructure has sparked fears that the EU could end up jeopardizing ‘net neutrality,’ whereby telecoms firms are barred from selling faster internet speeds to particular companies.”
Very things on Planet Earth are more worthy of “jeopardizing” – than exceedingly stupid Net Neutrality.
EU ISPs are yet again pointing out the very obvious math involved:
“Telecom companies have made repeated requests for tech firms to pay up, including a joint appeal last year from the four largest European operators — Deutsche Telekom, Vodafone, Orange and Telefonica….
“The association envisaged that a 20-billion-euro annual contribution would create hundreds of thousands of jobs, boost economic output across the bloc and help reduce energy consumption.”
Now here’s the really fun part. Big Tech ADMITS they are free-loading off of We the Little Guys:
“‘Operators are already being paid by their customers,’ said Christian Borggreen of the CCIA lobby group for tech firms….”
And Big Tech defends its free-loading – with a very stupid and inaccurate analogy:
“‘This would be equivalent to energy companies trying to collect fees from appliance makers for the energy use of washing machines while consumers are already being charged for the actual amount of energy used to do their laundry,’ he said.”
Ummm…no, it’s not like that. At all. In fact, the exact opposite is true.
Right now, the appliance makers pay for the electricity they use to make the appliances. Under Electricity Neutrality, the appliance users would pay for the electricity to use the appliances – and MAKE the appliances. The appliance users would pay the appliance makers’ electric bills.
Which is EXACTLY what happens on the Internet with Net Neutrality.
So we now know that the imposition of this brand of “Neutrality” – is universally stupid.
Well, at least the EU has finally begun to figure it out. The US? Not so much.
Biden’s Call to Restore Net Neutrality
California’s Net Neutrality Law Springs to Life
Can’t we finally learn from the EU’s decade of advanced stupidity? And skip right to the undoing of what the EU does – and what the domestic Left wants US to do?
Most unfortunately, it appears not.