Mark Cuban is Wrong: The “People” Don’t Want Net Neutrality, Elites Do

When we
last checked in with Dallas Mavericks owner and Internet
entrepreneur Mark Cuban, he was tweeting about Net Neutrality and
worried that “the
government will fuck the Internet up.”

Yesterdy, Cuban sent out these five tweets on the subject:

1. the speed/quality of our home/phone broadband has improved
dramatically. We have new tech/apps/clouds/IOT every day. Its
working.

— Mark Cuban (@mcuban) November 13,
2014

2. In my adult life i have never seen a situation that
paralleled what I read in Ayn Rands books until now with Net
Neutrality

— Mark Cuban (@mcuban) November 13,
2014

3. The “People” want more gov to protect them so
they cant be stopped from getting movies/tv shows OTT.That is
straight out of Ayn Rand

— Mark Cuban (@mcuban) November 13,
2014

4. If Ayn Rand were an up and coming author
today, she wouldnt write about steel or railroads, it would be net
neutrality

— Mark Cuban (@mcuban) November 13,
2014

5. Who is John Galt

— Mark Cuban (@mcuban) November 13,
2014

While I agree with Cuban’s general take on Net
Neutrality—increasing government oversight and regulation of the
Internet will make it less innovative and responsive to user
desires—he’s flat-out wrong about the “People” in this case. They
are on his side in the Net Neutrality debate.

Rasmussen Reports recently
polled Americans about regulating the Internet in the context of
Net Neutrality. 

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds
that just 26% of American Adults agree the Federal Communications
Commission should regulate the Internet like it does radio and
television. Sixty-one percent (61%) disagree and think the Internet
should remain open without regulation and censorship. Thirteen
percent (13%) are not sure….

Seventy-six percent (76%) of Americans who regularly go online
rate the quality of their Internet service as good or excellent.
Only five percent (5%) consider their service poor.

The “People,” it turns out, maintain a healthy skepticism toward
increasing the role of the government here, and they also show a
sort of native understanding of public-choice economics as
well:

Americans remain suspicious of the motives of those who want
government regulation of the Internet. Sixty-eight percent (68%)
are concerned that if the FCC does gain regulatory control over the
Internet, it will lead to government efforts to control online
content or promote a political agenda, with 44% who are Very
Concerned. Twenty-seven percent (27%) don’t share this concern
about possible government abuse, but that includes only eight
percent (8%) who are Not At All Concerned.

Fifty-six percent (56%) of voters said in December 2010 that if
the FCC was given the authority to regulate the Internet, it would
use that power to promote a political agenda.

Read more here.

(Just to make it clear that there are real limits to the
wisdom of crowds, in 2012,
64 percent told Rasmussen that they favor continued FCC
regulation of TV and radio.)

Net Neutrality has definitely captured the imagination of
the elites, who take for granted that the Internet can only survive
and flourish with increased governmental oversight and enforcement
of acceptable business practices. Yet even as customers dislike
ISPs in general (and industry giants Comcast
and Time Warner in particular), they fear the government’s
involvement even more. There’s a lesson there that should be
obvious in an age when just
2 percent of us trust the government “just about always do the
right thing.”

However rotten Comcast and Time Warner can be as service
providers, they remain more responsive than the government, if only
because they don’t wield the same sort of monopoly power.