More disruption, please

[Commentary] While there’s been a lot of talk about uncertainty hurting the economy, in fact, there’s been too little uncertainty in the economy.

One of the worst anti-innovation efforts is being fought out at the Federal Communications Commission, where extremist proponents of net neutrality are pushing the agency to apply the old “Title II” monopoly telephone regulations to the digital world.

The US invests more than anyone in broadband networks, cell towers, and data centers, and it generates and consumes twice as much Internet traffic per Internet user as Japan and three times that of Western Europe. Most of the world’s biggest Internet firms are American, and we’ve got most of the new upstarts, too, precisely because we’ve encouraged disruption in this sector.

One could hardly devise a more devastating blow to innovation than allowing Washington to wrap its regulatory arms around the Net.

[Swanson is president of Entropy Economics]