Charles Platt on FCC

I got this via the Politech list and it absolutely made my day. From Charles Platt.

The FCC ruling pleases me in a way. Any shortsighted policy that discourages consumers from watching broadcast TV or raises the price of equipment for receiving broadcast TV is a step in the right direction from my point of view. Broadcast TV is an entrenched politically sanctioned zone of zero effective competition, with all the usual consequences. In addition I think it helps to make people stupid. Ideally it should be taxed into oblivion, but crippling it with DMCA measures is better than nothing I guess.

Of course even more ideally the FCC should be abolished and the airwaves should be auctioned, but that isn’t going to happen. Since government appears to be unavoidable at this time, it should behave as self-destructively as possible.

A good summary of the FCC ruling is available at the Washington Post.

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