Mass manipulation (part 3)

From Vice Magazine, Columbia Law Professor Tim Wu about the trade off between having power and giving up power to a "trusted" entity, and how many (most?) would rather give up power than have the responsibility that comes with that power.

It would be foolish to assume that anything is unbiased, that anyone can operate without some conflict of interest. The problem now, as our tools become ever more essential to everyday life, ever more pervasive, and ever more complex, is being able to even detect those biases.

But here’s another conundrum to punch into your question-answering sites: do we even care about this? As long as we’re able to make our cheap phone calls, send our free emails, watch our free videos, and get our free content, why should we bother? Why regulate for “network neutrality” if the system works fine the way it is?

The question is hard to answer because we don’t have a way of calculating how much “free” really costs. And, as Wu argues, as much as we like to talk about freedom, we also really like other things like convenience, speed, and comfort. Our technologies and the companies that make them are really good at providing the latter. It’s not so clear, he says, where the former fits in.