Some may say that I am becoming like an self-obsessed character from a David Sedaris story or one of those Ask a advice columns from The Onion. A few more thoughts on eBays acquisition of Skype have come to my mind.
First a bit more on why its a bad idea for eBay. Ive heard on NPR and read in a few places that eBay intend to make voice calling from bidders to sellers a feature of their service. This is actually a very good idea. It could be a very good idea that brings in billions of dollars in additional revenue for eBay in the form of higher sales volumes and higher selling prices. That remains to be seen. But what eBay did NOT need to do was spend at least $2.6 billion to make that happen. With all of the low-cost PC voice over Internet clients they could have purchased or licensed this was some serious low hanging fruit they could have implemented in the cheap. Considering eBays installed user base they didnt need Skypes user base to make this a reality. What we have here is a good idea motivating a bad decision.
Theres a potential silver lining in the deal for those of us concerned about network neutrality. This piece in the Washington Post even considers what steps incumbent telecommunications companies might take to thwart PC-to-PC voice over Internet calling. The article doesnt bring up anything that hasnt already been considered, such as applying universal service fees to VoIP calling or applying E911 or surveillance requirements to these connections. These lobby efforts at the FCC are to be expected. Ive also written a few entries about the possibility of incumbent telcos and cable companies could employ technical means to limit the quality of competitive VoIP calling or block those calls altogether. This is something Madison River Communications already tried to do, and they got their hand slapped by the FCC. Some have speculated that in a post-Brand X world the FCC would be less willing to go to bat in the name of network neutrality.
I think the eBay acquisition of Skype actually creates a ray of hope for proponents of network neutrality. With eBays large customer base, any attempt by a cable or telecommunications company to throttle or block VoIP performance would be noticed by a wide audience. While eBay may not be able to match the lobbying clout the Bell companies carry in Washington and the state capitals, what it can do is mobilize a genuine grass roots campaign should it come to it, and the Bell companies cant hope to match eBays folksy, grass-roots appeal. An educational benefit is that by aligning a VoIP provider conceptually with a web service provider a broader audience can begin to conceive of voice as an application rather than a network. No longer just the opinion of libertarian telecom nerds like myself, voice could come to be regarded as independent of the underlying network infrastructure just like web sites, e-mail or instant messenger.
