Even if we ignore the cultural, social, and democratic aspects of the Net, even if we consider the Net to be nothing but a way to move content to “consumers” (his word), McCain still gets it wrong. There’s nothing in his policy about encouraging the free flow of ideas. Instead, when McCain thinks about ideas, he thinks about how to increase the walls around them by cracking down on “pirates” and ensuring ” fair rewards to intellectual property” (which, technically speaking, I think isn’t even English). Ideas and culture are, to John McCain, business commodities. He totally misses the dramatic and startling success of the Web in generating new value via open access to ideas and cultural products.
The two candidates’ visions of the Internet could not be clearer. We can have a national LAN designed first and foremost to benefit business, and delivered to passive consumers for whom the Net is a type of cable TV. Or, we can have an Internet that is of the people, by the people, for the people.
Is it going to be our Internet or theirs?