A while back Earl Mardle wrote a response to my critique of Doc Searls's piece "Saving the Net". He raises some good points, and I think misinterprets my intentions. In this piece, I will first analyze Earl's response, then go back and flesh some assumptions behind my critique of Doc, and finally try to tie this all together into a consistent package.

Earl:
(His points are out dented, my comments are indented. The bracketed numbers come after a comment by Earl that I then discuss.)

"I finally figured out what it was, he is critiquing Searls from the perspective of an economics that we have applied for a very long time and which never, ever, actually described what was happening." [1.]

1. I don't think so. If forced to be argumentative, I'd say that Doc's utopia is a result of being tethered to the old way -- it is the antithesis of the old way, not a new formulation based on changed conditions. He talks about the Net and Linux flourishing in a free market, but their growth had nothing to do with markets -- they were academic projects! I'm trying to figure out how to finesse the existing and end up with a robust, open access system of both communications and economics.

"This is the same economics that treats the inexhaustible (electromagnetic spectrum) as scarce and in need of licensing while treating the finite and increasingly limited (oil, for example) as infinite [1.], an economics that calls the damage done to the environment, people's health and the long term survivability of the global economy as a plus, and the medical and social costs of treating the effects on people as a plus and the resources expended in fixing the problems when the filth becomes unbearable as a plus. There are no costs incurred in this form of economics, the only criterion is whether money changes hands in the process [2.]. This economics is girt about with special conditions and endless regulation to ensure that the desired outcomes occur, which is also why free, open markets are still an oxymoron." [3.]

1. That puts it in a nutshell, and the politics, if not the economics, of oil is a great example. Further, the economic need to keep consumer demand high leads to short life-cycle production of goods and crappy quality. The dislocation of demand curves leads to it being cheaper these days to buy a new HP inkjet printer rather than buy replacement ink cartridges. I'm not sure, however, I buy the inexhaustibility of the electromagnetic spectrum. A while back there was a minor storm over a piece Joho wrote about the spectrum, and I ended up reading what seemed to be properly grounded opinions on both sides of the argument. So to sidestep the issue a bit, I would argue that even if the spectrum is inexhaustible, the means to access the usefulness of the spectrum have constraints and limits.
2. Very nicely stated. And what this means is that our current economic theory contains no negative feedback control loops -- it's all positive feedback. Back in the day when I took economics courses, pollution was called an economic externality. Government regulation was seen as the only way to internalize it into the system by imposing a negative cost. I don't see there being much difference about it today.
3. I wonder if the term "free, open markets" isn't inherently oxymoronic in and of itself. First, the Adam Smith theory of markets views monopolies as antithetical to a market economy, yet a free and open marketplace has no way of controlling the inevitable concentrations of market power, these days called the network effect or power laws. Second, I keep wondering if Smith, rather than a harbinger of the capitalist future, shouldn't be read as a memorialist of the mercantilist past. Much of what he wrote can be seen as directions on how to make the mercantilist system more efficient, still driven by a notion that the quality of goods underpins the economic system, rather than a manifesto for the creation of a new system where the financial considerations become the underpinning, irrespective of the quality or nature of the goods and services offered. (ok, I'm out on a limb here.)

"Now, when we introduce a technology that absolutely relies for its viability on the an unenclosed, unconstrained flow of traffic [1.] and where a much less constrained market for information operates with some efficiency, the assumptions on which the surrounding economics are based, start to creak as they adapt."

1. Which technology, exactly, is Earl talking about here? None of the digital technologies I know about "absolutely" rely on unenclosed, unconstrained flow of traffic. That the current manifestation of the Internet has a largely unconstrained flow of traffic does not mean that it relies on that type of flow.
   
   This comment of Earl's raises two important points for me. First, I think it is mandatory that we remember that technology is simply a set of tools. It allows certain things to be done. New technologies allow new things to be done. To ascribe motive to a technology, however, ends us up in a very weak position. To say that the Internet, as a technology, relies on unenclosed flow of traffic is like saying a hammer relies on a nail. That it can be argued that both tools function best when their respective conditions are met is very different from arguing that the conditions are a priori. Remember, the internet technologies were initially developed so that machines within a closed universe could communicate effectively and thereby better support the US national security interests.
   
   Second, I think it is both tactically and strategically wrong to use the particular manifestation of a technology as the basis for a socio-political-economic argument. Just because a technology allows certain things to be done doesn't mean that they must be done or should be done. To base an argument for the free and open access to information on a claim that the "technology...absolutely relies for its viability (i.e. life ability) on the unenclosed, unconstrained flow of traffic" means that a repressive entity has only to implement the technology with constraints in order to refute the argument for open access.

"When this new technology turns out to be tremendously valuable to some people, and terribly interesting to many more but to damage the business model of those whose superseded technologies used to confer the ability to take rents rather than simply be paid for services,[1.] we get a battle ground." [2.]

1. (how special, another limb...) It can be argued that the history of economic progress is based on the deconcentration of ownership and therefore the proliferation of the ability to charge rents. Those who don't rent can only survive based on their ability to charge for services. The western feudal economic structure had the few monarchs and high lords owning everything and collecting rents on everything, with the vast mass of vassals owning nothing and scratching subsistence through the replaceable service of their toil. It can be further argued that the real impact of music downloading is that it begins to establish a system whereby the artists gain direct control of the renting of their works without the intermediary of a feudal recording studio. This argument leads to a conclusion that there may be a difference between free and open access to information and the availability information for free. Something like the distinction between free as in freedom and free as in beer?
2. Damn straight. And ain't it great!

"Amos argues that, unless I own something, I can't sell it. And he's right to a point. But ownership is a relatively recent phenomenon that entails a commitment to inanimate objects that didn't exist for most of human history." [1.]

1. Maybe not for most of human existence, but certainly for most of human civilization. As argued above, the spread of ownership rights is probably not a bad thing, with two caveats. First, the ownership of intellectual product must be time limited. Intellectual product exists only because of the work of predecessors. New intellectual product can only be created from what exists now. To put draconian limits on the ownership of intellectual product as a current action to bolster failing economic sectors bankrupts our future. Second, there are things which should never be owned, like a human being or the freedom of expression. And if that's all you've got to sell, i.e. a service, then maybe that's not a Good Thing. (and now I'm so far out I'm not sure whether to try and scramble back or jump for the next tree!)

"What has always mattered is control."

Amen, brother.

Doc

Underneath it all, there are two main thoughts that bothered me about Doc's piece. The first has to do with the end-to-end concept and the second has to do with the means of access to the network.

It is my humble opinion that the concept of end-to-end is being seriously misused in much of the discourse about free and open access. What I read seems to constantly confuse the idea of a design theory with the idea of an engineered implementation.

If you read the seminal papers (here and here) on the end-to-end concept, the authors make very clear that what they are proposing is a design theory and they take pains to point out that the engineered implementation may not, for a variety of reasons, be consistent with the theory. Further, they submit theory not as a be-all-and-end-all, but as another tool in the system architect's toolkit.

Specifically, the theory only deals with the transport of data and not with the performance of the network. This is very important. The authors make very clear that their theory assumes a fast and relatively robust delivery of packets any way possible. They specifically recuse the theory from addressing issues concerning the physical implementation of the network and the associated control software. Therefore, quality of service implementations are perfectly consistent with the theory. If the performance of the network is improved by treating different streams of data in different ways, then that benefits the outcomes of the theory as long as the data handling functions, as opposed to data delivery functions, are pushed as close to the edge as is possible.

To claim that the end-to-end theory promotes a dumb network is pure hooey. If the network were truly dumb, it wouldn't work. To use a theory about the way data is handled to discuss issues about the way data is delivered is counter-productive and nothing short of sophistry.

And finally, end-to-end is an engineering theory, not a political or social theory. To use end-to-end to justify a political or social agenda is a misuse of the theory and, as discussed above, leads to a weakening of the argument. Instead, end-to-end should be used as an example of the principles at stake and should be used to reinforce and inform the formulation of activist theories of political and social justice which promote free and open access, not just to information, but to politics and economics and education and community.

There are plenty of robust theories, such as democracy, freedom of expression, human rights, and individual justice. Let us focus on these, energize these. Let us use the power of the end-to-end tools to bring about transformation. Let us fight so that the tools can be used the way we want them to be used, but let us not confuse the tool for the cause.

And this brings us to the second point -- the means of access, that cold hard slap of reality. The bottom line is that the Internet is nothing without the network infrastructure. The network infrastructure is operated, for a profit, by private corporations. They own the cables, switches, and repeaters. They allow us access to their network.

Many have made the point that the Internet wave has swept away the rigid centralization of the old telecom model. This was not, however, a technical accomplishment. This was a political accomplishment. The US government mandated that phone companies had to allow modem connections to their copper, that the phone companies could not use a different rate structure for data calls, that data traffic was not subject to the same regulations and tariffs as voice traffic and that sales taxes did not apply to Internet purchases. These are the decisions that opened the Internet, and they are and always will be open to tweaking and revision, and there is nothing technical about it. It's about politics and economics. It's about contributions and profits.

So to propose that the Internet economy is a different kind of economy is misleading. The economics of the Internet is not what transpires over the network, the real economics of the Internet is what kind of access is available at what cost. Price and service distinctions have always existed, so to state that free and open access is under threat is the wrong argument to make.

The argument has always been that there should be free and open access by all. The question is how to accomplish this. Somebody's got to keep the infrastructure up and running. There've got to be incentives to continue innovating and expanding services. Somebody's got to pay. Whatever the solution, these issues must be addressed, and I feel that Doc's article sidesteps these issues and takes the cheap route of flogging the profit-hungry boogey men at the telecoms. At the end of the game, where we don't want to be is where we are now with our electrical grid -- aging, flakey, and not proactively maintained.

Me

Well, if I somehow didn't make it clear above, here's where I stand:

• I strongly favor of open access by all to all.
• I strongly favor decentralization of control.
• I strongly favor human and individual rights and reject oppression by majority.
• I make a clean distinction between tools and politics and economics, and I believe that others should, too.
• Ignore the real economic underpinnings and you might as well surrender now.
• Current political economic theory is out of step with reality. There are no control loops.

I have run out of steam. Comments welcome.