[governance] Internet as public good

Milton Mueller mueller at syr.edu
Fri Dec 2 17:41:51 EST 2005


>>> Jeanette Hofmann <jeanette at wz-berlin.de> 12/1/2005 1:06 PM >>>
>We seem to have now two definitions of public goods:
>1. the economic definition, which describes public goods as 
>non-exclusive and non-rivalrous; 2. the normative definition, which 
>describes public goods as those that should be available for free for

>everybody. 

All:
The problem is that "the Internet" meets neither definition. Indeed, I
would strongly oppose the use of this language for that reason, and for
another, more important reason. 

The key fact about the Internet is the way it creatively combines a
true public good - open, nonproprietary standards and protocols - with
private goods. The private goods are the physical networks and
applications, services and content. Internet has developed as a
revolutionary medium precisely because it gives both commons and market
their due. The standards and protocols create a common area of exchange
and interconnection, but also permit robust and highly competitive
markets to develop for infrastructure, applications, content, and
services. 

Yes, of course some of the content and applications are free - but one
must understand that most of these free services developed because
competitive market forces operating on the infrastructure drove their
incremental cost down so low that suppliers add them to attract users.

Of course there is an important role for free, open informational
content, supplied by governments via taxation, educational institutions,
civil society, etc. But to claim that the Internet as a whole, - the
Internet itself - is a "public good" is both factually wrong and
represents a wrong turn in terms of policy thinking, and suggests that
civil society need not be taken seriously on economic grounds.

Let's try to be more precise and recognize such key distinctions in our
statement.

Dr. Milton Mueller
Syracuse University School of Information Studies
http://www.digital-convergence.org
http://www.internetgovernance.org

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