The FCC has a place to regulate and tax. After all, the infrastructure of broadcast is the spectrum of radio waves, that must be regulated for interferance with sensitive equipment. Moralisticly, the FCC should not be allowed to make content decisions, but that's my opinion.
Taxing the internet would be much like taxing parking spaces. Sure the government helps build some infrastructure, but much of the actual investment in the internet is from the private domain. There's already state sales tax on this equipment, and on things sold via the web in the US. Now, the government could say "We built the roads that brought you to this parking space!" but we already paid for the roads. There's no bounds to gain revenue from the servers owned by companies and corporations.
Speaking of which, some corporations want preferential treatment with regards to bandwidth and subsidies. I say, in the most serious way possible, hold on. The pace of information sharing is still growing exponentially. Yes this puts more strain on these large corporations, but they also will benefit from people using their hubs and the new developments to reduce network strain.
The Internet is a democratic relm, with some companies having a larger, louder voice. But the brilliant thing is, the internet is flexible, can be rebuilt anew, and can circumvent any efforts to tie it to a government. (Except in China's case where the government is willing to kill over media control)
The FCC has a place to regulate and tax. After all, the infrastructure of broadcast is the spectrum of radio waves, that must be regulated for interferance with sensitive equipment. Moralisticly, the FCC should not be allowed to make content decisions, but that's my opinion.
Taxing the internet would be much like taxing parking spaces. Sure the government helps build some infrastructure, but much of the actual investment in the internet is from the private domain. There's already state sales tax on this equipment, and on things sold via the web in the US. Now, the government could say "We built the roads that brought you to this parking space!" but we already paid for the roads. There's no bounds to gain revenue from the servers owned by companies and corporations.
Speaking of which, some corporations want preferential treatment with regards to bandwidth and subsidies. I say, in the most serious way possible, hold on. The pace of information sharing is still growing exponentially. Yes this puts more strain on these large corporations, but they also will benefit from people using their hubs and the new developments to reduce network strain.
The Internet is a democratic relm, with some companies having a larger, louder voice. But the brilliant thing is, the internet is flexible, can be rebuilt anew, and can circumvent any efforts to tie it to a government. (Except in China's case where the government is willing to kill over media control)