FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr says Big Tech benefits massively from internet infrastructure and proposes that it should pay its fair share in maintaining it
This 2021 Newsweek argument was Carr laying down a marker while still a commissioner: a profile published months earlier had already cast him as the Republican FCC's designated antagonist of Big Tech, and this piece converts that posture into a concrete policy claim — edge giants ride on networks they don't fund. It echoes the frame his former boss Ajit Pai used in 2017, when Pai argued Twitter and Facebook were the real threats to online speech rather than ISPs using regulation to entrench dominance, inverting the usual net-neutrality blame map.
First-order effects
Big Tech platforms become explicit targets of FCC cost-recovery rhetoric: if Carr's proposal gains traction, hyperscale edge providers would face direct charges or levies tied to their traffic load on broadband networks.
Broadband ISPs gain a fresh regulatory argument for shifting network costs upstream — the proposal hands them a talking point that the heaviest users of their pipes are also the most profitable companies riding them.
Second-order effects
Any fee regime would force Big Tech into a defensive coalition with consumer groups, since pass-through to subscribers is the obvious counter-argument, putting Carr's own party's pro-consumer positioning under strain.
Competing regulators and foreign counterparts watch closely: if the FCC moves first on edge-provider contributions, it creates a template other telecom authorities could copy for their own 'fair share' debates.
Third-order effects
If the pattern holds through Carr's later ascent — Trump naming him chair in late 2024 and him taking office in January 2025 with an explicitly anti-Big-Tech, infrastructure-focused agenda (as his stated priorities confirm) — the structural shift is toward treating content and application providers as co-funders of connectivity rather than free riders, redrawing who pays for the internet's physical layer.
It also signals a durable realignment in US telecom politics: the ISP-versus-platform fault line replacing net neutrality as the central regulatory fight over the network stack.
The trend: US telecom policy is migrating from regulating how ISPs treat edge traffic to charging edge providers directly for the network they consume — with Carr as its most persistent advocate across both eras.
Big Tech has enjoyed a free ride on our Internet infrastructure while sticking everyday Americans with billions of dollars in costs. It's time to end this sweetheart deal and force Big Tech to pay its fair share. My proposal ⤵️ https://www.newsweek.com/...
It's refreshing to see a Republican eschew the anti-tax dogma and recognize the pressing need to fund infrastructure projects, such as bringing broadband to the unserved. Dominant platforms, whose valuations have swelled during the pandemic, are an obvious source of tax revenue. …
Wonderful idea Brendan! One small problem tho... Big Tech bribes congress to get their way. So this won't be happening. Gotta stop the bribes first. https://twitter.com/...
Oh look... the FCC wants “big tech” to be the new generic bad guy for the masses, and “pay their fair share”. When does small tech suddenly become big tech, and who decides what is “fair”? Maybe gov't should spend that $9B on Starlink and not increase taxes *at all*. https://twit…
Regulatory capture is a helluva drug. Regardless of whether Democrats or Republicans are in office, the FCC is always on the side of the telcos. Telcos shouldn't pay to upgrade networks instead YouTube & Netflix should is a curious argument. https://www.newsweek.com/...
Big Tech has been enjoying a free ride on the Internet while skipping out on the billions of dollars in costs needed to maintain and build that network. Ordinary Americans, not Big Tech, have been footing the bill for those costs. It's time to end this sweetheart deal.
The bandwidth hogs should pay more, and would (like machine tools paying more than coal for rail transport) if the market hadn't been distorted by 20 years of net neutrality regulatory predation. But the corrective should be deregulation, not new taxes. https://twitter.com/...
It is time to fundamentally rethink how we fund our high-speed networks. That is why I am proposing a third way. We should start requiring Big Tech to pay its fair share.
@BrendanCarrFCC Brendan, I thought our monthly bills paid for the ISP's to maintain their infrastructure. So if Big Tech starts paying up, does that mean we get our bills lowered? BTW, its clear you're just shilling for ISPs here.
“big tech should throw billions in additional dollars at big telecom for no coherent reason” has been an AT&T talking point for literally as long as I've been covering the telecom beat. https://twitter.com/...