A better alternative to picking winners and losers

One of our aims at the MIC Center in organizing the Democratizing the Internet symposium was to bring together visionaries whose critique runs deeper and whose political imaginary for the internet’s future is more expansive than the tinkerers. This cohort of thinkers relate the manifold maladies that plague the contemporary internet to its underlying political economy. In this view, there is a structural antagonism between the owners of the internet and its users, between the profit interests of digital monopolists and the public’s interest in an open, empowering internet. In other words: we can have an internet that works for Silicon Valley and telecom companies, or we can have an internet that works for the people. But we cannot have both.

https://techpolicy.press/another-internet-is-possible-if-you-believe-it-is/

Why do public policymakers insist on picking winners and losers when it comes to modernizing the nation’s outdated metallic advanced telecommunications infrastructure to fiber reaching most every American doorstep as copper telephone lines did in the 20th century? They typically declare the shareholders of investor owned companies the winners and the public the losers.

The usual explanation is lobbying power of the investor owned players. It’s not that simple. Policymakers know who those lobbyists represent. They are intentionally favoring that much smaller cohort of shareholders over the much larger general public interest in accessible and affordable fiber delivered advanced telecommunications. Good for the shareholders seeking rents in a natural monopoly utility market but poor public policy.

There is an alternative where both groups can win. The public sector owns the infrastructure and the private sector can make money and create jobs designing, building, operating, and offering services over it and compete via competitive public bids.