By Marc Jampole
Remember when the growth of the Internet was supposed to
level the playing field between large and small companies and between rich and
poor individuals and organizations. Sure, the wealthy and large could buy more
ads, but the cost to set up a web page or blog—and later to build a network
through social media—made it easier for the little guy to compete. It seemed as if the world could really
operate according to Ralph Waldo Emerson’s idealistic notion that “if you build
a better mousetrap the world will beat a path to your door,” without the
investment of millions into marketing communications.
Inherent in the promise of the web was the principle of a
free market for good, services and ideas, undistorted by size, clout or
spending.
But no market is ever absolutely free. The biggest players
seem always to make sure of that. Without the constraint of government
regulations, over time the large and connected will always crowd everyone else
out of the marketplace, whether we are talking about widgets or political
views. Large companies once hired children to work in factories until child
labor laws. They sold adulterated food until the Pure Food & Drug Act of
1906 and other laws. They got together to fix prices until the government
stepped in. They opposed minimum mileage and seat belts in cars until the
federal government stepped in.
But when it comes to the Internet and other media of mass
communications, it seems that the government only steps in to help the big
players.
We currently face three controversies which together could
rip to shreds any hope of obtaining the state of grace predicted by Internet
utopians. In fact, if the federal government makes the wrong decision in all
three of these areas, we may end up living in a de facto state of censorship in
which we can exercise freedom of speech but only the largest corporations and
the richest people will actually be able to get through to significant numbers of
people:
·
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) proposal
to end net neutrality
·
The merger of Comcast and Time Warner
·
The unfair monopolistic actions taken by
Amazon.com against Hachette Book Group
Let’s look at what’s at stake when it comes to each of these
issues:
Net neutrality
is the idea that Internet service providers (ISP) and governments should treat
all data on the Internet equally, not discriminating or charging differently according
to user, content, site, platform, application or type of equipment. Earlier this year, the news media reported
that the FCC is considering a new rule that will permit ISPs to offer content
providers a faster track to send content for a higher fee. It means that
Netflix will be able to pay more to ISPs like Verizon, Time Warner, Comcast,
Cox, Frontier, Windstream and others for the right to have its programming delivered
faster than other online streamers. The ISPs will be able to charge the
Republican and Democratic parties more than smaller political groups to deliver
their messages over the Internet. No longer will you wonder why a website is
slow to download—it likely won’t be because of a bandwidth problem; no, in all
probability the owner of the slow-to-load website couldn’t afford to pay the
extra freight for faster delivery of the information.
Gone will be the days of an Internet level playing field.
Gone, too, will be any possibility of diversity in
television programming, if the FCC allows the merger of Comcast and Time Warner
into a cable TV leviathan that will control one third of all cable viewing. As
it is, there is little difference in the offerings of the various cable
networks around the country. Wherever you go across the country, you see pretty
much the same menu of network offerings, “Law & Order” reruns, reality
shows, religious shows, right-wing cant masquerading as news, centrists
masquerading as progressives and sports, sports, sports. But it will only get worse as one company will
make the decision for what networks to buy for one third of all cable TV
viewers. BTW, the merged Comcast Time Warner will also control 40% of the wired
broadband Internet market.
Instead of merging, both Time Warner and Comcast should be
forced to split themselves so that no company controls more than two or three
percent of cable TV screens. We should return to the days when no company could
own more than a very small number of TV and radio stations—five at the most—and
no company could own both a TV station and newspaper in the same region. There
are now six or seven companies that control most of the mass media, which is
why we see a sad lack of diversity of opinion; why most of every daily
newspaper looks like the daily newspaper in every other town; why you find Rush
Limbaugh and Sean Hannity on so many radio stations.
The Amazon-Hachette situation presents another aspect of the
consolidation of the news media. Amazon
controls two-thirds of the market for digital books and about 30% of all books.
Amazon and Hachette have been in some tough negotiations: Amazon wants the
behemoth French publisher to accept concessions on their revenues from e-book
sales, so Amazon can make more and charge the public less. Because Hachette is
resisting, Amazon had removed the link on its website that enables customers to
preorder Hachette books, slowed down delivery of Hachette books and not
restocked popular Hachette titles. I
would think that this kind of pressure from such a large player with no
pre-existing editorial policy definitely fits the description for an unfair
monopolistic practice, which is illegal. (Now if Amazon claimed to be a
Christian bookseller could justify not selling a Hachette book that promoted
atheism, but Amazon declares itself to a marketplace for everything).
Hachette is another media behemoth, but if Amazon gets it
way it way, it will make it much harder for both the large and small publishing
houses to turn a profit. And think of this: today Amazon is messing with a
publisher for financial reasons. In the future, it might decide to mess with a
someone for political reasons, much as Wal-Mart used to make record companies
provide special censored versions of CDs with lyrics that did not fit Wal-Mart’s
conservative moral stance.
And yet we have heard nothing from the Justice Department on
this issue. Maybe they’re too busy rousting immigrants. It doesn’t seem as if
any of our Senators or Congresspersons with a special interest in freedom of
speech has heard that Amazon is trying to unfairly and illegally push its
weight around. I know that some of them
are very busy defending the right of a Duck Dynasty star to make rancid sexist
and racist statements. Other publishers and writers are wringing their hands,
but there have been few if any calls for a boycott of Amazon. Although Amazon is easy to use—and you can
also order your dish soap and sox at the same time—it is not the only place to
buy books or anything else on the Internet.
Imagine the worst case scenario occurring: the merger goes through, net neutrality ends
and Hachette knuckles under. The Internet will become the province of large corporations
and moneyed individuals. The chances of
a book from a little publisher becoming a best seller through the Internet
grapevine will be negligible. The possibility of an article in a small magazine
not backed by big money getting onto the Google News or Yahoo! homepage will
shrink to almost nothing. A small record label might not be able to download
music directly to customers and be forced to give a cut of its profit to Amazon
or some other large Internet merchant. Whether it’s a book or a TV show, the
little guy will need more resources to compete and so will be unable to do so.
A handful of large corporations will control our public discourse even more
than they do now.
