June 9, 2004
More Need for Creative Destruction
If you thought my concerns about the current major content providors expressed a couple posts back were unwarranted then consider this from Dan Gilmour:
For a few minutes this morning at the D conference, Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg sounded like a new age telecommunications executive, bragging about his expanding data network and plans to extend fiber optics to homes in his service territory. But he reverted to form, pretty much insisting that Verizon would reserve the right to discriminate on what gets delivered, and at what speed, on the lines and networks it controls.These folks do not have our best interests at heart. Posted by Steve on June 9, 2004Consolidation is going to create a broadband world where only a couple of companies, at most, control the pipes into our homes. If we allow companies like the Verizons and Comcasts to discriminate in favor of their own "content" products and services, today's brand of media consolidation will look tame.
Where are the antitrust people on this? Where's the FCC? Sleeping, or deliberately encouraging a dangerous lockdown of our future in the hands of companies that have a dismal track record when it comes to honest competition. Not a good situation...
