[Chapter-delegates] The consequences of big

[Richard Hill]

I found this article from Geoff Huston to be well worth reading carefully:

  https://blog.apnic.net/2021/06/07/opinion-is-big-necessarily-bad/  

As Geoff says: “
 today’s Internet appears to be reliving the telco
nightmare where a small clique of massive incumbent operators imposes
overarching control on the entire service domain, repressing any form of
competition, and innovation, and extracting large profits from their central
role. The only difference between today and the world of the 1970s is that
in the telco era these industry giants had a national footprint, but now
their dominance is expressed globally.”

Geoff’s article is a great complement to the two books reviewed here:

http://www.boundary2.org/2018/10/richard-hill-too-big-to-be-review-of-wu-the
-curse-of-bigness-antitrust-in-the-new-gilded-age/  

 
http://www.boundary2.org/2021/04/richard-hill-free-isnt-free-review-of-micha
el-kende-the-flip-side-of-free/  

Geoff goes into more detail on the reasons behind the current concentration
(lack of competition) in the Internet (probably the economic model based on
targeted advertising) and its consequences: “The result appears to be that
this Internet we’ve built looks like a mixed blessing that can be both
incredibly personally empowering and menacingly threatening at the same
time!”

I think that the presentation referenced in Geoff’s article is also worth
reading:

  https://www.potaroo.net/presentations/2021-06-03-dinrg.pdf  

It seems to me that Geoff’s considerations reinforce the urgent and
imperative need to fight against the drive to use trade agreements (in
particular in WTO) to enshrine in binding international law the
laissez-faire framework that has resulted in the situation so well described
by Geoff.

Best,
Richard