Opposing usage-based pricing means opposing all commerce

[Commentary] In a recent blog, I described the increasing reliance by regulatory agencies on narratives, instead of careful analysis, to make policy. Such a narrative was the key driver of the Federal Communication Commission's 2015 imposition of telephone-era rules on the Internet in the name of network neutrality. “Paid prioritization” of data packets was made to sound scary but was in fact a phantom menace. Nevertheless, the FCC used the fictional specter of future bad behavior to fundamentally transform Internet law. Not content with their historic bureaucratic conquest of the Internet, however, activists are pushing new narratives to extend Washington’s reach even further into the digital economy. In their words, the latest threat to the Internet is so powerful it will “defeat the spirit...of net neutrality,” rendering the FCC’s historic action meaningless. It will “beat down economic growth.” It “sounds so innocent!” but in fact is “evil.”

[Bret Swanson is president of Entropy Economics LLC]