Should radio frequencies be auctioned off as property? Or, since technology has improved and “smart” radios can pick up stations more efficiently, should the whole licensing approach be rethought? “Technology may thus help to create markets; but it also makes some of them obsolete. In this case it has turned land into sea, metaphorically speaking. To draw a historical parallel: the development of better ships did not lead to parcelling up the world’s oceans but to something called free trade.”