Adam Thierer
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In What's Yours Is Mine: Open Access and the Rise of Infrastructure Socialism, authors Adam Thierer and Clyde Wayne Crews Jr. examine the hazards of mandatory "open access" -- a new trend in which hyper-regulatory bureaucrats and central planners are increasingly commanding technology companies and industry sectors to share networks, facilities, or specific technologies with rivals. Telephone and cable companies, wireless carriers, electric utilities, AOL's Instant Messenger service, the Visa/Mastercard network, Microsoft's Windows operating system -- all these and more have been targets of demands for forced access. Forced access policies inevitably mean price and quality controls, stagnation, increased litigation, and a crippling of innovation. In today's world of increasing global communications and digital technologies, What's Yours Is Mine makes an urgently needed pro-consumer case for laissez-faire in the evolution of technology industries. |
