What we should avoid

When the RIAA sues companies that have done some actual innovation (Pandora) out of legally operating anywhere but the United States, allowing other companies from Singapore (Soundpedia) who have invested substantially less to move into their market unhindered our legal system has failed.

I fear we are doing the same thing with our failed internet policy. Sure, right now most of the innovation still happens in the US, most of the “web 2.0″ startups are here, but certainly not all. How long will it be until some startup’s model requires you to have a solid 5MB synchronous connection? It won’t happen in the United States anytime soon, and once it does happen how are we to know that networks effects won’t keep the core of innovation there? Will we be content with knowing that we sacrificed all that so that AT&T could sit fat with their cutting edge DSL from 1995?

We need to be supporting innovation, not obsolete economic models. Our goal should not be supporting the RIAA and telecom in their efforts to sell goods and services like it is 1995. We need to be able to move our economy faster, or we won’t be able to keep up.