I left my (hopefully) last straight gig (ever) in June 2010. I did so to officially launch Less Government and begin focusing fully on things I felt were of the utmost import.
To wit: I knew then the distant storm clouds of what-grew-to-be Big Tech were going to become an all-encompassing problem. That would swallow DC, the country, and the planet.
Way back then, Big Tech was just beginning to reassess its strategy of total conquest. In DC, that meant massively increasing its lobbying budgets.
And this was key: Flooding BOTH sides with cash. That meant pouring large sums of money all over the conservative side of things, which Big Tech had previously ignored.
And it worked - like a charm. Allegedly conservative people and organizations started falling like dominoes - and vociferously advocating for the biggest, most anti-free-market businesses in the history of business.
And it worked - like a charm. To wit: We are now three decades into the Internet. On which is generated trillions of dollars per annum - chiefly by the mass collection of our digital data.
And DC has yet to pass ANY privacy legislation. At all. Because that would limit Big Tech’s take. And DC - “conservatives” included - won’t be having any of that.
When did the Showtime network launch “Shameless” in 2011? I hoped it was a documentary about DC. Then I remembered DC’s denizens are incapable of that particular emotion.
But no matter how many alleged conservatives folded like beach chairs after Labor Day? There was one policy Big Tech wanted that was so nakedly stupid even the lawn furniture couldn’t support it.
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Behold: Network Neutrality (NN).
NN had already been a thing for a few years when I went solo in 2010. That’s how long this idiocy has lingered.
Let’s first lay out what Big Tech and the Left pretend it is:
“We need to prevent the Internet Service Providers (ISPs) from blocking content on their networks.”
Which is omnidirectional dumb.
NN is anti-First Amendment. Big Tech defends its constant censorship of conservatives - as First Amendment-protected (censorship of) speech on its platforms. Well, goose - meet gander. Can Big Tech do it? So too can the ISPs.
Except no ISP ever has blocked content - or ever will. Because they are in the customer service business. If they don’t service their customers? They’ll very soon be out of business.
And the irony was/is? NN advocates alleged that the big, bad ISPs were neo-monopolies that possessed the market domination power to block content. Except for the very beginning, there were always at least a couple of ISP options available.
Meanwhile, Big Tech companies have grown into the biggest neo-monopolies in the history of humanity. And they even occasionally work in tandem to murder a company not playing Big Tech ball (sorry, Parler).
It’s why Elon Musk's buying Twitter was such a huge deal. It was a shaft of free speech light from behind the Big Tech blackout curtain.
Here’s what Big Tech won’t tell you about NN: It’s a HUGE Big Gov crony gift to…Big Tech.
NN outlaws Big Tech being charged for the HUGE bandwidth it uses, even though Big Tech uses about half of all global bandwidth.
The ISPs still have to pay for that bandwidth. So they still have to charge someone for that bandwidth. That means you and me. We pay WAY more to MASSIVELY augment Big Tech’s profits.
That’s how DUMB NN is. Too dumb even for the Big Tech-bought “conservatives” in DC. So the NN debate quickly became a hyper-partisan one.
We conservatives - bought and un-bought - are a distinct minority in DC. So despite NN’s supreme dumbness? Our efforts to end NN - didn’t end NN.
Despite an abysmally failed attempt at NN legislation. Despite multiple court rulings against NN.
It’s Fear the Walking Reg. Big Tech REALLY wants it. So DC wouldn’t let it die.
The aforementioned zombie TV show died in 2023. Is 2025 the year NN FINALLY died? In DC - and I am knocking the heck out of some wood as I type this - it appears so.
I’ve watched closely this policy discussion for FIFTEEN FRIGGING YEARS now. And it no longer seems to be much of a discussion in DC.
Because I think facts have FINALLY surpassed the narrative.
There are now so many ISPs providing so much hyper-fast bandwidth? Cable, cellular, satellite, etc? Pushing for NN looks even stupider now than it did just a few years ago.
And the very many ISPs are so infinitesimally small in comparison to the Big Tech neo-monopolies? Making the ISP market domination argument only embarrassingly highlights the reversal of the NN fairytale fantasies.
Now, perhaps DC’s psyche is currently dominated by too many other things. Perhaps NN will at some point in the future make a triumphant return to the fore.
But I don’t think so.
Because, I think, facts have FINALLY surpassed the narrative.
It’s a win of attrition. But it’s still a win.
And of course: Particularly idiotic corners of the country - like California - still have NN. Which, while pernicious and annoying, is not nearly as devastating as a nationwide imposition of the idiocy.
And various areas of idiocy around the planet still have NN (Hello, European Union).
Perhaps facts will FINALLY surpass the narrative in those places as well.
Though I gave up hope for Lent. In 1986.
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