Public Policy and Net Neutrality (w/ Ambassador Daniel Sepulveda)

Episode 49

This week we dive deep into the public policy that reflects the challenging relationship between commerce, the internet, tech giants, domestic and international policy, fair treatment of employees, and the future of our economy. With the help of Daniel Sepulveda, Phillip and Brian tease out the threads and agree that “we’re going to have to make a communal decision to involve everyone in the modern digital economy or we’ll have a bifurcated society” that falls prey to the wolves of populism.

Daniel Sepulveda, "ambassador of the internet":

Involved in commercial technology and policy for 20 years.
Politically appointed ambassador on issues of technology and telecommunications.
Appointed by President Obama and John Kerry.
There is no differentiator between the internet economy and the regular economy.
"if you're business doesn't understand that, then you're not long for this world."

On what we take for granted when using the internet:

The internet is an amazing act of voluntary human engagement.
There is no law that says communications firms have to accept internet protocol.
It's a handshake agreement among technologists, engineers and developers who use voluntarily agreed upon rules for the operation of the internet.

A brief summary of ICANN: what it is and how it functions

Before there was ICANN there was Jon Postel, and he personally managed IPAs.
ICANN is a huge nonprofit multinational organization acting as an internet yellow pages.

Changing US net neutrality policy:

Tim Wu was the original thinker around network neutrality.
The point of net neutrality is to keep networks from having a gatekeeper function.
Ajit Pai, and as an extension, republicans do not believe net neutrality should be a legal mandate.
They think companies should manage access as they see fit as a function of commerce.
Compromise: Republicans agree that companies cannot block you from access content, attaching a legal device to that content, or charge you on discriminatory terms.

Daniel's Take on net neutrality:

The point is to have democratic access for users. No one should come between the creator and participant's interaction online.
Ajit Pai's view: letting companies manage their networks as they want could create revenue and regulatory flexibility to build networks out to underserved areas.
Consider a compromise for a non-neutral behavior with a large public welfare benefit.
Concern: last mile service is still a concentrated market that needs regulation to protect against consumer abuse.

Avoiding internet policy pitfalls:

Promote public policies and incentives to maximize public good of tech innovation.
Construct public policies to discourage any technology out of fear is a bad idea.
Find solutions from tech outcomes rather than create regulatory structures to deny tech innovation.
Otherwise we'll have a real political populist problem.

On universal basic income:

A primarily gig economy is a challenge: the law and public benefit systems are built for a society in which employers have a responsibility to workers, we have responsibility to each other, and entities have consumer protection responsibilities.
We'd need a wholesale revisiting of everything from labor law to education and back to public welfare law if we have a society that is mostly self-employed.

How to develop a modern workforce:

Skill development is the cop-out answer.

Published on 8 years, 1 month ago

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