To elaborate on that complication -

Certainly the obvious answer to this question is "what competitors?"

However, even if we had a competitive panacea - say, a commonly held, local government managed last mile over which you could connect to dozens of ISPs, all competing for your dollars - we would still not have a truly competitive environment for one reason: price signals, or, rather, the inability to communicate them. Before we conclude that a market can solve a problem, we have to make sure that the structural prerequisites for a functioning, competitive market are in place. One of them is price signals. And I mean this generally.

So, the way this argument usually proceeds is to say: "don't like a tiered Internet? Well, if Company A doesn't follow common carriage principles, and Company B does, consumers who are sensitive to net neutrality will utilize B over A, putting competitive pressure on A to discard a tiered Internet and embrace net neutrality."

But there is a simple reason that this oversimplified model doesn't work. I don't need to run a traceroute for anyone on Slashdot, but most people (especially people who make the argument above) don't realize that when data moves from point X to point Y on the web it also passes through a half-dozen networks besides. And the experience of the consumer is not only affected by their ISP, or the ISP of their content provider, but also by the intermediary networks.

The problem, from a market solution perspective, is that *there is no way for the consumer to communicate their preferences via price signals to the intermediary networks.* Perhaps the consumer opts for (network neutral) ISP B, and their chosen content provider is on (network neutral) ISP D. But if their data have to pass through non-neutral ISP C, then their access may be degraded, and *they will not have a way to choose a different competitor*.

This is emphatically *unlike*, say, contracting FedEx to pick up the package from your house and deliver it to your friend's house, with all of the intermediary travel handled by FedEx (and thus subject to the competitive pressure of your decision to use FedEx rather than DHL or UPS).

Once you begin to screw with the haphazard egalitarianism of the present architecture of the Net, you begin to run into all sorts of problems like this. So beware the arguments that "the market" will solve everything! The market is a powerful machine, but it is a machine, and when parts of it are broken or out of place, it's just as unusable as a car without an engine.

And I would point out that if you RTFA Zittrain is actually mostly disinterested in government regulation, but rather in community-based solutions to some of these problems, which is why he founded Herdict and is involved in that side of things.

If this is your first exposure to Zittrain's central idea, you should check out his book: http://futureoftheinternet.org/static/ZittrainTheFutureoftheInternet.pdf

Or, if you don't like reading, you can watch his thoroughly engaging book talk here: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/interactive/events/2008/04/zittrain

Zittrain knows his stuff. He was friends with Postel. He's got an AI background from Yale in addition to his Harvard Law degree.

Again, you've missed my point. I was speaking rhetorically in order to disprove his premise that money is not necessary for a good education. I do, of course, agree that money is not everything. Parents are essential as well. But what we cannot do is fall into the easy trap of saying "throwing money at the problem won't fix it." That's true. However, what we should be doing is throwing money AND throwing good parenting at the problem. That's all I'm saying.

You're missing my point. I'm not arguing that we SHOULD redistribute wealth between schools (although I happen to believe that). What I'm arguing is that the premise that money doesn't matter, or that money doesn't mean anything to a good education, is utterly without merit, because it presumes money is merely ornamental and not an essential component of successful education.

It's not the technology, man. The technology isn't the point. The point is, what amount of funding do you need to provide an education commensurate with what is sufficient to produce success. The "money has nothing to do with education" argument rings hollow because no one, as I said, would be willing to have their rich suburban school ransacked in order to pay for a urban school. If money makes no functional difference to education--if it's simply a fungible ornament, like tinsel on a tree--then it shouldn't matter.

This is ridiculous. If you don't need good money, then I have a great idea for educational reform. Take all the money from the rich, suburban, white flight schools, and redistribute it to the poor inner city and rural schools. After all, if money is totally fungible and unnecessary for a good educational experience, than it shouldn't matter whether one school can afford computer labs and the other can't afford coloring books, right?

Or, maybe money is a necessary but not sufficient condition for good schools!

Why would that make you stop reading?

Schools like Bronx Lab, which are primarily funded by the Gates foundation, have been unbelievably successful. The SSI split a massive NYPS apart and chopped the building into sections, including this one, run by Mark Sternberg of Harvard Business.

The first high school class is graduating this year. Their high school graduation rate has gone from less than 10% under the old school to 96% in the new school, with all graduates going to college.

There are a lot of factors here of course. But that's what I'm saying. It's far, far too premature (and simplistic, and utterly reductionist) to say "well, small schools work" and "small schools don't work." Some small schools work well. Some don't. Some are more or less educationally sustainable than others.

But some Gates foundation schools have had dramatic success, and we should keep that in mind before we universally condemn that mode of education. Tagging OP as misleading here.

This doesn't make any sense. Pornography =! obscene content. Obscene content is, in theory, not allowed on the Internet as is.

You know, if this deal were taken up, it would likely have a good effect on Internet porn since the Court is unlikely to apply the Miller standard to the Internet for a variety of reasons. Huuuge risk though.