NET NEUTRALITY IS FAR FROM NECESSARY
GET READY FOR the next stage in the never-ending tussle over “net neutrality.” The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is prepping to craft yet another regime for internet service providers (ISPs)—the seventh in 13 years.
Even by contemporary standards of partisan unpleasantness, the debate about net neutrality is acrimonious. In 2018, a man was convicted of threatening to kill then–FCC Chairman Ajit Pai’s family because he didn’t like Pai’s approach to the issue. The hysteria does not reflect reality. The “open internet” that regulatory rules purportedly preserve emerged from a world without net neutrality rules.
Early commercial internet innovations such as AOL and voice over internet were impeded by “common carriage” and “universal service” rules, which imposed an array of costly requirements (including compliance with licensing and pricing rules,
