The USFG should reject Net Neutrality.

But with that said, let’s get down to business. In this Final Round, I will provide a final criticism of Pro’s arguments, helping to tie up some loose ends along the way, and also clarify a variety of points that I have made. In addition, I will also use this round to attempt to convince readers that they should vote for Con, rather than Pro. The FCCPro focusses a significant amount of his final round to focus on the FCC, and makes a variety of criticisms, many surrounding on the on the concepts of “principle” and “concept. ” Thus, it is important to clarify what exactly is a principle, or a concept. The Oxford English Dictionary (Kindle Edition) defines principle as:“A general idea of plan, although the details are not yet established. ”Also by the OED, concept is defined as: “An abstract idea”However, Pro argues that we should focus on current net neutrality proposals because “debating any other form of legislation is not of immediate relevance, as it is not being considered for institution. ” But, given the definitions of “principle” and “concept” this is clearly absurd. As per the definition of principle, we are considering net neutrality in general, and considering it as if “the details are not established. ” As per the definition of concept, we are to focus on net neutrality as “an abstract idea”. Therefore, Pro’s rebuttal bears little relevance; by attempting to focus this debate on current net neutrality legislation, regardless of its immediate relevance, he is destroying the whole purpose of debating a principle, or concept. Previously, I gave an example of a scenario where Pro’s arguments that the FCC has no interest in representing freedom of speech are nullified – where the FCC regulates ISPs in a highly transparent and democratic manner. Pro critiques this by questioning the possibility of the FCC acting in a “highly transparent and democratic manner” and argues that this is an “unachieved goal for decades” and that the whole point of government is “built around the concept of being transparent and democratic. ” This rebuttal misses the point of my hypothetical scenario. The feasibility of this scenario bears little relevance because the whole point of this hypothetical scenario is to be far-fetched, because in doing so, it shows that Pro’s freedom of speech argument does not apply in all scenarios, and thus, we can’t reject net neutrality as a principle, or concept – merely recent forms of its legislation. One final argument relevant to the FCC that Pro makes against my argument that TVs and radios can’t be compared with the Internet, because of the way information is transferred in each medium. Pro responds by citing Section 706 and Title II. But this completely misses the point of my argument. My argument was not to do with how the FCC oversees the various mediums, but how they act in regulating information. In addition, Pro has not elaborated at all on how net neutrality fails to take into consideration differences between such mediums, and how I have undermined my own case. ChinaBy the end of the debate, Pro concedes that he was only making a comparison. In contrast, at the beginning of the debate, he was adamant about the possibility of the US’s internet being similar to China’s, even invoking Negri’s statement that “Americans may unwittingly be on the road to ceding power to forces that can use the Internet against them, as is seen in China every day. ” Pro is correct in saying that we should note similarities between the two, and the outcomes of various policies in other countries. But it we only do this, then that leaves Pro with no real argument to enforce, and he does not sufficiently clarify his position on this issue, especially considering his change of view since Round 2. If he is still arguing that net neutrality would lead to Internet with similarities to that seen in China, then it still is a slippery slope. If he is arguing that we merely should be cautious, and take this into consideration, then there is no rationale for rejecting net neutrality; we could still accept it, but just be cautious. ISPsIt is important to note that a essentially of this section (as left by Pro in his final round) is based on the assumption that the FCC is against freedom of speech, and would set limits on what one would do on the Internet. This is an assumption that has been debated throughout this debate, but falls short of establishing that a net benefit would be reached without net neutrality. This is because – as I have argued for many times in this debate - it takes a narrow scope, rather than a broad scope regarding net neutrality – it is focussing on specific forms of net neutrality legislation, rather than net neutrality as a principle, or a concept. Once again, Pro has failed to show how the descriptive statement to the normative statement. He merely complains that my attempts to “philosophically analyse this practice is simply an attempt to distract from the real issue. ” However, firstly, as Pro himself notes, I have conceded that there are differences between the bandwidth needs of various content. However, it is completely false to say that I am “looking for a debate on economics” as Pro claims. It is also untrue that the real issue is “that content is priced differently as a result of product cost differential”. As a matter of fact, I argue that the real issue is to do with moral philosophy. This is because Pro is arguing that ISPs ought to be charging differently based on the type of content. Naturally, this leads into the realm of moral philosophy, because such a realm deals with what is right and what is wrong, what ought to be done, what ought not to be done; the normative aspects. Of course, positive economics is relevant to some extent. However, in this case, it is concerning the descriptive aspect of content, but not what ought to happen; the normative aspect. Pro hasn’t really addressed this problem; instead, he keeps trying to push us back to a debate on the descriptive statement. Pro appeals to the fact that prices should be varying because to make a profit because “it is common business practice”. However, this doesn’t lead logically to the conclusion that the prices should be varying. Simply because something is common business practice does not mean that this is right, or should be allowed in policy. Consequently, we have seen no compelling reason that ISPs should be pricing content differently, as per their bandwidth needs. We have merely seen that different content have different bandwidth needs. InnovationOne thing to note is that Pro has completely dropped his argument that there is empirical evidence showing that regulation of telecommunications companies in Europe leads to less innovation, and has negative effects, such as limiting consumer access to the Internet. Previously, I argued that this conclusion cannot be reached on the basis of the evidence he has provided, because it does not show a causal relationship between the two. Furthermore, I provided a study by Chang et. al which shows that net neutrality has the opposite effect on innovation as Pro claims; it is actually beneficial in regard to innovation (especially infrastructure), rather than detrimental. Pro has not attempted to refute this evidence. Thus, it can be concluded that there are no good reasons to believe that innovation will be negatively affected by net neutrality, only positively affected. HouseholdPro appears to concede that an ISP’s pricing plan as advocated by him is also dependant on the ISP’s actions. However, he still argues that network congestion is more likely to be solved without net neutrality than with net neutrality. His argument relies on the premise that “with net neutrality, ISPs are not required to upgrade their systems. ” Firstly, this is completely unjustified. It is also clearly false. In the previous round, I brought up McKay’s observation that network congestion is also due to the ISP’s method of data transmission between different servers. We can extend this to show that with net neutrality, ISPs have an incentive to upgrade this servers. This stems from the fact that because ISPs are not able to introduce their pricing schemes, they must find different ways to deal with net congestion, such as upgrading their systems. Conversely, if net neutrality was not introduced, and ISPs were to introduce a pricing scheme as advocated by Pro, they would have no incentive in upgrading their systems, because the problem is already solved. Thus, Pro’s logic falls back on him. ConclusionThis debate took an interesting direction (largely because I misread Pro’s Round 1 and thought that he had the sole BOP for a while), but nevertheless, as we are at the end of the debate, I contend that there are good reasons why the audience should vote Con. (1) Pro has not fulfilled his burden of proof, because all of his arguments fail in one way or another. There are no successful arguments against net neutrality offered by Pro. (2) I have shown that by refuting Pro’s arguments against net neutrality, I am implicitly making a case for net neutrality, due to the way Pro presents his case. This remained undisputed by Pro by the end of the debate. (3) Pro has dropped many of his core arguments. For instance, his argument about Europe’s internet, and his argument that a rejection of net neutrality fuels competition (note that he never addressed this, after I called out his bare assertion in Round 2. ) (4) I have made positive arguments that have been unrefuted and untouched by Pro. For instance, net neutrality is beneficial towards innovation (from Cheng et. al) and that net neutrality helps dissipate monopolies and duopolies (Round 2). The resolution has been negated.