We are attending a symposium on “Internet freedom” at GW Law School in Washington, D.C. today (22 Sept.). My only complaint is that I wish the Federalist Society, which sponsored the conference, had invited Professor Larry Lessig, a champion of Internet regulation and “net neutrality,” to defend the social costs (see below) of Internet regulation. (Note: we will discuss the pros and cons of Internet regulation in future posts.)
One can make an argument that the reason we enjoy the internet service we have today is due to the overbuilding of ifiber-optic and network-switching nfrastructure in the dot-com days of MCI, Global Crossing, etc. Cisco Systems stock was worth almost $80 (without splits, and in the dollars of that time) in 2000 before the crash, now it is in the $30s. Many corporations that no longer exist bankrolled the network we have now, which was then bought up at bargain prices by more mature companies. Boom-bust-boom-bust. Is the lesson here that every opportunity induces a failure that a successor will take advantage of?
Those are good points. Remember AOL Time Warner?