But, the early versions of any technology are often clumsy.  Books, after all, have long been less accessible to the visually handicapped.  This is not unusual; many visual projects - movies, TVs, plays, operas - all remain inaccessible.  But, the goal of civilization is not the utopian goal of making everything available for everyone but rather to make the world more accessible to more people and Kindle certainly advances that goal.  With some skill or with the assistance of a sighted individual, Kindle allows the blind the opportunity to “read” vastly more books than ever before.  While, readers have always been available and audio books are increasingly common, these are generally more expensive.  Moreover future Kindle products will almost certainly embody audio instructions to guide the blind through the various menu functions.

Utopian passions are dangerous.  The search for the perfect can too easily make it impossible to attain the good.

A few things the FCC should consider:

-Subsidies don’t make broadband access any less expensive. They just change who pays for it. In this case, that would be anybody with a phone. Which probably includes you. The great economist Ludwig von Mises observed that “A government can no more determine prices than a goose can lay hen’s eggs.”*

-The tax would make owning a phone more expensive. And when something becomes more expensive, people consume less of it. With tax-exempt technologies like Skype and Google Voice now available, people can switch away from a taxed phone to something cheaper more easily than ever. The more people who do that, the less revenue the phone tax would generate, defeating its very purpose.

-If a company has to share its network infrastructure with its competitors, it loses the incentive to maintain and improve that network. Why invest millions of dollars if it will help your competition just as much as yourself? Quality suffers. So does innovation. In the long run, it is innovation, not FCC intervention, that will make broadband affordable and accessible for everyone. The long-run view is just as important as the short-run view here.

-Land-based networks are expensive to build in rural areas. The cost per customer is huge compared to denser urban areas. Fortunately, that isn’t as much of a problem for wireless technologies. The FCC seems hellbent on the land-based networks since wireless networks aren’t yet advanced enough for mass-market broadband service. But they will be soon enough. And every dollar spent on old-fashioned wired networks is a dollar unavailable for improving wireless service. An unintended consequence of FCC intervention would be slower innovation.

*Ludwig von Mises, Human Action, 4th ed., (Irvington-on-Hudson New York: Foundation for Economic Education, 1996 [1949], p. 397.

Neither the cellphone companies nor their customers, as it turns out, always act in the rational way that economists might predict. Consumers often put immediate gratification and the avoidance of unpleasant surprises above their long-term interests. The companies, meanwhile, are trying to meet the sometimes irrational expectations of investors, who want growth without too much nasty volatility, even if their profits suffer.

The article cites several unintuitive examples of customers and wireless carriers acting “irrationally”:  consumers switching to costlier plans when given the choice of a discounted or variable-priced plan; carriers charging a flat fee for data services even though they are expensive to provide; and consumers’ unwillingness to shop for lowest cost-per-minute deals.

It would seem that consumers dislike having variable monthly cell phones bills. Hansell cites the example of Sprint’s 2004 “Fair and Flexible Plan” offering. Fair and Flexible was a two-tiered pricing plan in which customers would pay a flat $35 for the first 300 minutes per month, and then $2.50 per each additional block of 50 minutes. While this plan makes sense economically, customers didn’t warm up to it, and instead signed on to plans that are more typical of today’s offerings among the Big Four: a flat-but-higher monthly fee for a bigger basket of anytime minutes, plus overage charges. Compared to a more variably-priced contract, this pricing plan doesn’t result in the lowest possible per-minute charges, but consumers have revealed a preference for consistent monthly bills over variable, usage-based pricing.

On the sellers’ side of the equation, cell phone service providers have difficulty determining their per-unit costs. Customers vary in their average monthly usage, and what’s more, usage among individuals isn’t static from month to month either. Thus, it’s hard for the companies to accurately estimate their costs-per-minute. As a result, the business strategy employed is to try to get a consistent amount of money from subscribers every month, and to have enough subscribers to cover total costs. For example, it costs very little for a wireless carrier to transmit a text message, yet the big four carriers each charge $0.20 per message. At the same time, they each offer an “unlimited texting” plan for $10-$20 per month. Again, consumers have shown a preference for consistent billing, and have signed up almost en masse for unlimited texting plans.

For whatever reason, consumers have shied away from lower-cost mobile plan options in favor of higher flat fees and plans with perks when given the choice. Whether it’s because we’re all just risk-averse and hate wildly-varying bills, or we’re drawn towards extra goodies like unlimited texting or in-network calling, the best way to discern what consumers want is to look at what they’ve chosen in the past. While critics of the cell phone industry complain that the wireless industry isn’t competitive or that wireless providers don’t compete on price, this article explores that American consumers’ preferences have guided those companies to the pricing system we have today.

Calling Intel’s business practices “bribery” and “coercion” is little more than argument by assertion. Rebates and exclusivity deals are normal competitive behavior. Not only is Intel facing increasing competition in its home turf, that small segment is hardly the extent of the relevant competitive market. Intel faces an uncertain future as consumer tastes shift to smaller products powered by non-Intel chips. Cuomo’s antitrust lawsuit does not stand up to scrutiny. It deserves to be dropped.

Antitrust policies thwart the competitive process whenever and wherever they are applied.

Hopefully, this agreement between private companies will send a signal to the Federal Trade Commission, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, and European Union regulators. Each has targeted Intel in the past, with the EU’s case against the company resulting in a fine of $1.5 billion. If two companies can agree that no unfair business practices are going on, it’s difficult to see where that leaves a federal case against them, especially considering that consumers don’t appear to have been negatively affected by the increasingly fast (and ever-cheaper) processors that have been coming to market in the past decade.

While it remains unclear what impact this agreement will have on Intel’s other legal troubles with both the federal government and European Union regulators, consumers can take heart knowing that this truce has the effect of freeing up vast resources for both companies that would have otherwise been wrapped up in legal costs. Intel and AMD can quit taking jabs at each other and get back to building newer, faster, cheaper processors.

Matt Lasar at Ars Technica outlines some of the overly-ambitious - and unbelievably expensive - grant requests that can be found on the BroadbandUSA Applications Database. Among the bank-breaking proposals include a $240 million request to build an under-the-sea fiber network to connect the most remote parts of Alaska, and a request for $35 million to provide gigabit-speed (yes, gigabit!) connectivity in Hawaii.

I’ve perused the BroadbandUSA database myself, and I found plenty more requests for astronomical amounts of taxpayer money. Some of the more excessive proposals:

• $70 million to bring last-mile Fiber-to-the-home connections to residents of southeast Iowa.
• $56 million for “world-class” fiber gigabit service plus wireless for Vermont residents.
• $125 million for “state-of-the-art” access for rural Mississippi counties.
• $60 million to increase the speeds of available internet in the dense urban landscape known as “western Texas” (the same desert that served as the setting for No Country for Old Men, a region with a population density of about 10 people per square mile).
• $500 million for Echostar and ViaSat to bring satellite internet to 20 targeted states. It seems that if your next business venture requires a $500 million government handout in order to become profitable, the project probably wasn’t going to create much value in the first place.
• $275,000 to create several youth-oriented public internet radio stations for public housing communities in Pennsylvania.

While the dollar amount of the last one on this list is dwarfed by most of the other proposals, the request illustrates the wishful thinking of public broadcasting aficionados. Youth-oriented children’s radio programming may have a positive impact on youngsters growing up in public housing, I don’t know. But public radio only serves the public interest insofar as there are people who actually tune in. If National Public Radio and their frequent pleas for money pledge drives are any indication, the demand for public radio is pretty weak. Unless the government wants to sit children down and force them to listen, this sounds like $275k will be going straight down the drain.

Just as there are trade-offs involved in all policy decisions, there are also trade-offs to consider when determining where to live. High-speed internet access is best-suited for communities with large enough populations such that high demand makes the large capital investments of building new networks an attractive investment. Smaller, outstate communities generally have to wait for the price of technology to come down before next-generation connections arrive in their locale. This is neither some kind of strange phenomenon, nor ploy by capitalists to keep the good life away from rural populations; it’s just the economics of the high-tech sector. Government cannot turn Mason City, Iowa into San Jose, California without causing a huge dead-weight loss to the taxpayers.

“Electromagnetic radiation” is a fancy way of saying light waves.

Herberman has been on his cell phone crusade for a while now; I diagnosed him with a severe case of The Certainty last year.

Still, let’s assume he’s right that cell phones cause tumors. What actions should be taken? I present the following CDC data on leading causes of death as a way to guide our priorities:

Heart disease: 631,636
Cancer: 559,888
Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 137,119
Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 124,583
Accidents (unintentional injuries): 121,599
Diabetes: 72,449
Alzheimer’s disease: 72,432
Influenza and Pneumonia: 56,326
Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: 45,344
Septicemia: 34,234

Deaths from cancer attributable to cell phone use? Zero. There is an important lesson to be learned here.

Think of it like this: every dollar and every hour of researchers’ time spent investigating cancer risks from cell phones is money and time not spent curing heart disease. Or cancer itself. Or stroke. These “big three” combine to end more than a million lives each and every year.

Which is a better use of limited research resources? Herberman, by bringing funding and attention to a non-issue, is quite possibly costing lives that could otherwise be saved.

The Certainty has very high costs. In Herberman’s case, measurable in lives.

I remain concerned that ETFs – especially at these high prices – unfairly penalize consumers, bear little to no relationship to the cost of the handset device, and are anti-consumer and anti-competitive.  In fact, Verizon Wireless’ decision underscores the need for Congress to act and to pass the Cell Phone Consumer Empowerment Act.

Sen. Klobuchar - a vocal critic of the wireless industry - obviously doesn’t understand that wireless carriers subsidize the cost of handsets for customers in exchange for a fixed-duration service contract. $500 upfront for an internet-capable handset is prohibitively expensive for most consumers, and so the popular business model has been below-cost phones + two-year (give-or-take) contracts. No wireless company could stay in business offering subsidized phones without requiring customers to sign service contracts. Moreover, having a brand new shiny gadget - near or below cost - is neither a right nor an entitlement for any consumer. Verizon’s response stated that if a customer absolutely cannot wait two years to get a new high-tech cell phone, then they have the option of going contract-free and upgrading - at full retail price - whenever they desire.

The government should not be in the business of regulating service charges and contract fees. A clever commenter in the Star Tribune article (cited above) exemplifies the madness of Sen. Klobuchar’s complaint best: “I got charged four bucks for a movie late fee the other day. I believe that fee unfairly penalized me and bears little relationship to the price of the movie.”

But as Matt Asay at Cnet.com pointed out this week, competition is alive in well in the database market. Amazon recently announced that it will launch its own version of the MySQL software, proving that the EC’s probe is a dead-end. By gaining MySQL, Oracle would gain a foothold in a new market of database users (web-based and small businesses). Asay’s conclusion:

Oracle’s bid for Sun/MySQL, in other words, isn’t about squelching competition, but rather about enhancing it. Amazon’s RDS proves that strong, viable competitors to MySQL can arise from within the MySQL community, which disproves the EC’s argument that Oracle’s control of MySQL will somehow crush competition.

Clearly, the case against the Sun-Oracle deal is without merit. The EC needs to quit targeting American’s most innovative companies.

Intel gives them money and rebates to use Intel chips. Think about that; they don’t have to pay as much, and get paid themselves, to use Intel chips rather than AMD ones.

I like it when I get rebates and cash, myself, but I’m just crazy.

Let’s remember what abusive monopoly power is supposed to mean: reduced quantity sold, higher prices, suffering consumers. They’re “suffering” all right, with a plethora of wildly popular sub-$400 netbooks, thanks to a complex and efficient marketplace in which Intel plays an important role, along with all its business partners.

Intel does not enjoy government protection of its market share, nor does it operate in a vacuum, immune from discipline if if its rebates and “bribes” (note the language used by enforcers!) are somehow bad deals for consumers or computer makers. Intel has upstream suppliers, and downstream business customers that can revolt against and thereby discipline any monopolistic behavior, or exclusive arrangements that are unsatisfactory. If the downstream partner doesn’t make a sale, neither does Intel. If the downstream partner’s hardward sales suffer because of Intel, it can retaliate. Thus as far as abusive behavior is concerned, the market is self policing. The only thing that could prevent computer makers themselves from ganging up against Intel abuses would be the antitrust laws themselves.

Antitrust, more often than a consumer-protection phenomenon, is often protectionism. In this case, government bodies are deciding we have to buy from AMD and not Intel, and AMD gets protected from the ravages of competition. Consumers lose.

As far as competing chipmakers are concerned, they of course have no fundamental right to Intel’s customers. However they do have a right to make their own deals with computer makers more satisfactory than Intel’s. Opportunities abound in PCs, laptops, and netbooks; and moreso in handhelds that are gaining appeal and yet don’t rely on Intel.

Furthermore, why should AMD be the beneficiary of antitrust interference? Most chips are not found in PCs at all, but in vehicles and in appliances and handheld devices and gadgets of all sorts. You’ll find chips in new automobiles, coffeemakers, rice cookers, cell phones, watches, calculators, the pump at the gas station. They flush the toilet for you at the airport and turn on the sink; you don’t have to touch a thing thanks to the microchip. These might want a piece of the PC action; it’s a rhetorical and nonsense question, but why not forbid AMD from getting the market share and give it to these guys?

As particle physicist Michio Kaku noted in his remarkable book Visions, “By 2020, microprocessors will likely be as cheap and plentiful as scrap paper, scattered by the millions into the environment, allowing us to place intelligent systems everywhere.” Chips in “Wintel” desktop computers increasingly constitute just one subset of a vast semiconductor market. And guess what; fewer and fewer of the chips in non-PC devices are Intel’s. The trajectory of the marketplace is hyper-competitive, and there is no need for this antitrust action to warp things.

Some of us might be more impressed if Cuomo presented a thoughtful critique of governmental licensing and protection in his own legal industry, so that paralegals and other professionals could compete with monopoly lawyers. Now there is a realm of genuine monopoly power.

Now, if the antitrust lawyers are correct, and the CPU market is uncompetitive and needs government intervention, then there must be some barriers to entry that are keeping other competitors out of the market, allowing Intel to reap outrageous profits. However, if Nvidia can and does enter the processor market and supply an alternative processor product line, where would that leave the antitrust argument?

It would seem fair to speculate that file sharing, contrary to the both the MPAA’s and the RIAA’s earlier claim, has actually helped to drive the growth of the internet, although that’s beside the point. While it’s great to see a big content industry on our side of the Net Neut debate, the MPAA’s stand is little more than a thinly-veiled attempt at regulatory capture. The MPAA’s history of rallying against new technology (”the VCR will destroy the industry!”) is evidence enough of their insincerity. Unfortunately, there are real arguments to be made against government regulation of the pipes and the airwaves, and the phony arguments put forth by the film and music studios will only cause Neutrality supporters to conflate economic reasoning with sheer nonsense.

The new client also has a feature that will enable users to stop all downloads if they approach a certain gigabyte limit (allowing users whose ISPs impose monthly bandwidth caps to avoid expensive overage charges). BitTorrent creator Bram Cohen made the following statement in a 2007 interview with TorrentFreak:

“ISPs have to invest in making their networks better and faster rather than stifling applications which consumers use and love. That’s just bad marketing and customer service, especially given the competition which exists in the broadband industry and consumer focus on network neutrality.”

Mr. Cohen’s statement, taken along with his actions, serves as a clarion voice of reason in a debate full of utter insanity. The Net Neutrality Debate of 2009 has thus far been rife with doublespeak, corporate giants taking potshots at each other, and über-elite technophiles and their sanctimonious ideas of what Americans ought to want, (as well as a few tangentially relevant arguments on behalf of women and minorities). BitTorrent has instead chosen to take the proactive path and work with the ISPs to solve the problem of congested networks and provide a better experience for its users. Net Neutrality advocates should note that no government bureaucrat forced them to make any changes. Instead, BitTorrent is leading by example, doing what the other content and network companies ought to be doing. A system that promotes voluntary cooperation between companies is vastly preferable to an inflexible government regulatory regime.

Two weeks later, the SSA sent a letter to CMS saying that Studnitz had in fact passed the background check, and that an “unspecified” computer error caused the false report. Unfortunately, CMS is under no legal obligation to re-hire her. In this tight labor market, she’s been having a rough time finding employment and has fallen behind on her mortgage payment.

A spokesperson for the FBI said that they have no idea how often such mistakes are made, because they don’t keep track of their error rate. Is it so unreasonable to expect that a government agency charged with collecting and maintaining data about its citizens keeps track of metrics like accuracy and error rate? Any responsible private company or nonprofit outfit would want to know these sort of performance statistics.

Government failure is nothing new; it’s been well-documented on OpenMarket before. Instances of public sector incompetence like this should have everyone worried as the government gets ready to take over the health care sector. If the government can’t accurately keep track of its own criminal data, why on earth would we want to trust them with private health data? When dealing with matters of life and death, or aggressive treatment vs. palliative care, this kind of “unspecified” error could have serious consequences. How will we hold governmental data-keepers accountable?

Economists have known for a long time that when you tax something, you get less of it. Apparently some state legislators want less commerce in their states.

“The internet is the last truly open public marketplace. Its openness is the key to its efficiency and success. Not all public spaces need to be regulated spaces. Indeed, federal regulation has a long history of making the market less efficient.”

Rep. Blackburn’s choice to use word “open” is a little confusing, given the meaning of the term in the net neut debate. In this context, “open” should probably be taken to mean “unregulated” or “free of government.” But other than that, I couldn’t have said it better myself. An open (non-discriminating) internet architecture may or may not be the best model. Either way, it should be consumers and the network providers making that decision, not unelected government officials. The FCC needs to back off and let the internet continue to evolve free of regulatory constraints.

With Google joining the ranks of Nokia, Research-in-Motion, Apple, and Microsoft developing in mobile phone operating systems, the big four wireless carriers signing on to offer Android phones within the coming year, the deployment of 4G networks slated to take place in 2010, mounting consumer anticipation for Motorola’s soon-to-be-released Droid, and reported rumors that Apple is about to end its exclusive distribution deal with AT&T, it’s difficult to take seriously critics’ claims that a lack of competition and carrier-device exclusivity contracts are restricting consumer choice and keeping prices prohibitively high.

Today I’m pleased to introduce ‘The Internet Freedom Act of 2009’ that will keep the Internet free from government control and regulation. It will allow for continued innovation that will in turn create more high-paying jobs for the millions of Americans who are out of work or seeking new employment. Keeping businesses free from oppressive regulations is the best stimulus for the current economy.

Sen. McCain’s efforts to keep the government’s hands off the ‘net are a breath of fresh air in this period of massive government expansion. Yet I can’t help but wish that such a bill might carry more weight if the its sponsor this didn’t already have a reputation for being technologically illiterate.

For further reading, check out CEI’s take on the FCC’s proposed Net Neutrality rules.

OK seriously, read our critique of yesterday’s FCC vote to impose what is “not neutrality” by any stretch of the imagination.

The guidelines require people to disclose online if they have what the FTC vaguely defines as “material connections” with the sellers of a product or service. This could include getting free samples on which they base comments or reviews. Bloggerl objected to the double standard that exempts traditional media from the rules - many newspapers, magazines and broadcasters accept free books and other products for their reviewers.

The FTC’s aim is to go after advertisers, but its vague definitions don’t offer much clarity. Further complicating the issue is the FTC’s intention to handle violations on a selective, case-by-case basis. Laws ought to be clear and enforcable, not ambiguous and imposed at the whim of some unelected government regulator. Either all bloggers who break the rules are criminals, or none of them are.

Netizens should recognize how unnecessary these regulations are. Bloggers who care about their reputations already practice honesty and transparency. Bloggers who don’t disclose their commercial ties risk alienating their readers and losing traffic. This relationship between content creators and users is what makes social media self-regulating. Citizens don’t need the government to clean up the Internet’s garbage.