It’s the Community, Stupid!

Last week's guest on Press:Here was Tim Wu, author of the new book Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires . Wu also wrote this guest post for us about why we should all fear Steve Jobs. In general Wu -- who gets credit for coming up with the term "Net Neutrality" -- has a really important mission whether you agree with him or not: Raising alarm bells that the Internet, like every mass communication medium that has come before, could one day become strangled and controlled by a handful of companies. From what I've read and from our conversation on and off camera last Thursday, Wu seems to stop short of saying what has happened before on radio, telegram and television will happen with the Internet, saying it could happen. The question, he says, is whether there is something inherently different about the Internet from a technology standpoint that keeps it inevitably open. I think what keeps it from happening is something else: The community around the Internet and the age of modern entrepreneurship in which we live. Unless the FCC totally screws up on Net Neutrality, big Internet companies just don't have the luxury of shutting upstart rivals out. You want to be cynical and say money drives policy in Washington? Fine. There is more money on the side of the Internet being open than the Internet being closed.