Came across something a little disturbing yesterday. I don’t remember where exactly. It took me awhile to track it down via Google.

According to the Center for Digital Democracy, phone and cable companies are moving to make every action we make on the internet billable. There is also the possibility that competitors and people espousing views they don’t agree with might be marginalized. Apparently all the money I am paying for my connection isn’t enough for them.

My first thought was that this will probably backfire on them the same way trying to restrict file trading hasn’t really been beneficial for record companies. Yes, they control the methods of communication and that is a lot of leverage. But if there is one thing you can depend on American ingenuity for, it is finding away to circumvent the Man. Some college kid or a municipality or a competitor will see a need to be filled by an alternative.

And if people are faced with the choice of spending a Friday night running the meter on their cable modem or spending some of the same money on a live performance, maybe they choose the live performance, eh?

But assuming that the companies are sneaky and gradually introduce fees so that people will come to accept them, this could also represent a threat to arts organizations. It could become more difficult and expensive to promote your shows via email and digital media than it is now. And what happens if the president of the local cable company is on your competitor’s board and decides to curtail your bandwidth and exposure on the internet ever so slightly?

This isn’t something you want to think about, but probably should keep your eyes on.