Industries want to be regulated. Regulation favors the big players and keeps out any newcomers.

The internet is now at the maturity level where it's ready to be locked down so Facebook, Google and maybe 1-2 other players can be cemented as the dominant players for decades to come through regulations ostensible there to stop them from becoming too powerful.

It's called "Regulatory Capture", and it's one of the most important concepts to understand to grasp how the modern world works.

Whoever was subject to EPA regulations clearly didn't want to be regulated, because the agency has been gutted during this administration.

Regulation is not as black and white as you are painting. Plenty of regulations do good things, because people can't be trusted to act with a social conscience when profit is their motive.

> Regulation is not as black and white as you are painting. Plenty of regulations do good things, because people can't be trusted to act with a social conscience when profit is their motive.

Indeed. I think the argument ventured is that it is burdensome to the point that only the big established players can bear

> Plenty of regulations do good things, because people can't be trusted to act with a social conscience when profit is their motive.

This is one of those sentences that sound logical, until you start thinking about it.

The fact that people sometimes do bad things in no way proves that regulations do good things. If anything, it's an indication that regulations might also be bad, since they are made by people.

Often the same people who are being regulated, believe it or not...

The alternative is no regulation, which I can't see ending up as anything other than a chaotic profit and power-seeking free-for all that does no favours for the average citizen that isn't part of the capitalist class.

Who do you think has the most influence on the regulations?

The powerful or the powerless?

This is such nonsense.

Some regulation can form regulatory capture, but other regulation can enforce an open, accessible marketplace.

Let's see how Facebook likes antitrust regulation.

I mentioned that other industries are successfully regulated (and many are unsuccessful, preventing inclusion by outsiders). I find the internet however so open a medium, regulating that data is like regulating what you can write, say on the phone, etc. We accept that there are downsides to openness on those fronts because we have chosen that tradeoff. I think the error is comparing it to something like air travel instead of comparing it to what you can write in a book. The more we use these analogies the more we strain to choose ones we like, and I personally liken internet data to writing something down due to ease and the sheer amount of people that can do it. Sure there are differences in reach, which is why it's incomparable.

I think regulating the internet, as you put it, is a different case than regulating these companies.

Facebook etc are more akin to broadcasters in terms of sharing ideas than they are akin to a telecom company offering communications infrastructure.

It’s not difficult to create a website to share the same ideas. In fact, it’s already done.

Openness is already there. Otherwise I agree.