Chapter 14

Alt.Commons

There are changes that could be made. This march backward is neither
necessary nor complete. We still have the time to point policy in a differ-
ent direction. The question is whether we have the will. Are we willing to
set principles that will guide the next stage of the Internet's evolution, or
will we allow those who have interests inconsistent with those principles to
exercise their control?

My aim in this chapter is to outline some of these changes. My list is nei-
ther complete nor certain. But it should be a start of a conversation about
returning the Net to the conditions that let innovation flourish.

I divide these proposals into the frame of Benkler's three layers. Changes
in some might make changes elsewhere unnecessary, but changes in all of
them would make the situation much better.

/tab\/tab\THE PHYSICAL LAYER/tab\/tab\

The physical layer would seem the least likely for reform, since this layer
lives within real space only, and as I've argued, the constraints of real space
are, well, real.

But there are a number of places where a change might do some good.
And the most important follows from the argument considered in Chap-
ter 12.

[[240]]

p239 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p240w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p241

v?