Net Neutrality
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Christopher Duncan wrote:
does it really have the right to tell a given company what it can do with the wires that it owns?
Absofreakinglutely. And here is the simple reason why. Monopolistic practices. I have no choice of my "wired" ISP. Nor will I get a choice anytime soon (this in itself is an issue as the ISP's have gone to various communities ensuring it is difficult for new ISP to come in. I have even seen cases where an ISP sued a city for attempting to provide WiFi to the city paid for by taxes, and yes the ISP won). So I am stuck with my ISP which also happens to make most of their money off of inflated cable packages. I do not want a cable package. I want internet. I want to use it for whatever my hearts content. I am given an advertized rate of XXMb/s and I want what I pay for. Why does it matter if I am consuming my paid bandwidth on something that competes with their crappy cable packages (e.g. Netflix and Youtube)? It shouldn't unless they are using their Monopoly on ISP to maintain their dominant video content distribution (i.e. Cable TV). IT IS UTTER BS! This is the year 2014 and we still are force fed crappy content because they package it that way. I said no more. I cut the wire. I want nothing to do with cable TV. These knitwitts don't get it. Every other month I get a call about giving me a great deal and saving money. "Oh is that right? You are going to save me money? Well I do not use cable TV nor do I have any reason to so I am not sure how you are going to save me money unless you are calling to inform me you are lowering my rate on your unrealiable sub-par internet connection that you are expoiting because you are the only game in town". Yeah, they give up then and move on to the next sucker. Anyway, your damn right the government has the right to force them to not throttle or block sites. I am not paying for XXMb/s on sites listed on pages 1-100 and xx/3MbX on all other sites. There was no list saying I can not view these sites. Them doing so IMO means they are false advertising. I am paying for a rate regardless of the site. If they start throttling and I can prove it I am suing for false advertisement.
Computers have been intelligent for a long time now. It just so happens that the program writers are about as effective as a room full of monkeys trying to crank out a copy of Hamlet. The interesting thing about software is it can not reproduce, until it can.
I think you said the magic word with "monopoly." Certainly an extenuating circumstance.
Christopher Duncan Author of Unite the Tribes: Leadership Skills for Technology Managers Have Fun, Get Paid: How to Make a Living with Your Creativity The Career Programmer
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There would not be confidentiality in writing if you take the position that mail is owned by whomever owns the mailbox.
Christopher Duncan wrote:
from a more pragmatic perspective it seems to me that the wires I get to use in order to interact with the Internet, at least in America, belong to companies.
They're not owned by the companies, regardless of those claims. If each company had to run it's own wire into your house, you could claim that it's "theirs".
Bastard Programmer from Hell :suss: If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
I have DSL so the wire actually does run right up to my house. Unless, you know, the deer have chewed it up again. :)
Christopher Duncan Author of Unite the Tribes: Leadership Skills for Technology Managers Have Fun, Get Paid: How to Make a Living with Your Creativity The Career Programmer
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As far as I can tell, the ruling is not a ruling on net neutrality per se but whether or not the net neutrality rules recently imposed are applicable to a company who is in the business of providing a computer tranmission network is not classified as common carrier according to the Telecommunications Act of 1996. The problem was that the lawmakers of 1996 regarded the transmission of voice data to be deemed worthy of common carrier status and that the transmission of computer data as not worthy of common carrier status. This was incredibly shortsighted corrupt. Seems like the solution would be to classify the companies that provide internet services as common carriers. AmIright?
In a lot of cases the companies are, e.g. service provided by telcos, but I'm sure their lawyers have found sufficient wiggle room.
Christopher Duncan Author of Unite the Tribes: Leadership Skills for Technology Managers Have Fun, Get Paid: How to Make a Living with Your Creativity The Career Programmer
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Christopher Duncan wrote:
how sovereign the property of a company is, as well as its business practices (providing it doesn't break any laws).
Christopher Duncan wrote:
telling a company how to run its business strikes me as unfair to the company.
And therein lies the paradox. The government (supposedly) enacts laws to protect the general population. Let's say you and I were the only makers of corn flakes (and let's assume the public needs to eat corn flakes in order to survive). Assuming a box of cereal cost $1.50 to manufacture and ship, we could privately agree to sell a box of cereal for no less than $5.50. This would ensure we rake in a very healthy profit, without incurring the wrath of the public who has no idea it really costs only $1.50 to make a box of the stuff. The FTC has laws against price fixing and collusion by manufacturers of products to prevent exactly this kind of thing from happening, ostensibly to protect the average Joe. For this reason, even though you and I may feel the government shouldn't interfere with the way we do business, we would be breaking the law. This is obviously an extremely simplistic example.
- Deregulation of services in the 80s was intended to give more freedom (and therefore theoretically increase healthy competition) between providers of services, by reducing the influence of government in overseeing pricing.
- On the flip side (and more recently), Apple has balked at the feds for appointing Mike Bromwich to investigate allegations of the company's alleged violation of anti-trust laws. Apple's management feels Bromwich is interfering with the company's day-to-day operations by requiring that he be permitted to conduct lengthy meetings with their top brass on an ongoing basis.
/ravi
My new year resolution: 2048 x 1536 Home | Articles | My .NET bits | Freeware ravib(at)ravib(dot)com
It's the Golden Rule, man. Whoever has the gold gets to make the rules.
Christopher Duncan Author of Unite the Tribes: Leadership Skills for Technology Managers Have Fun, Get Paid: How to Make a Living with Your Creativity The Career Programmer
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Your thinking makes sense, but the basic problem here is that wires to your house and the right-of-way granted to lay those wires are severely limited resources, and of those two things the latter belongs to the government, not the companies. It is impossible to have true competition between Internet access providers for the same reason it is impossible to have true competition between telephone, electricity, water, or natural gas providers: such competition requires the absurd and impossible scenario where dozens or hundreds of different companies have, say, their own networks of pipes running natural gas through the city, each one with 100% coverage so that you as a homeowner have the option to turn on whichever one you want to buy from. Can't work. The channels are thereby limited to an extremely low number, making delivery of these things a natural monopoly. Economic and political theory in practice has for quite some time recognized not only a right, but a need to regulate naturally monopolistic markets and the companies in them, partly because otherwise the lack of a free market would put consumers at the mercy of the providers, and partly because in such cases the resources that are limited here are considered to belong to the people and their government anyway. The government was the one who granted (for instance) Comcast the right to put their wires on poles or underground across everybody's private and public property (including property of people who aren't even subscribers) in order to get their services to their customers. There's no reason to expect that a license to exclusively use a public right-of-way for profit ought to be free from interference or regulation. In other words, the wires may belong to the provider, but not the property they sit on, or the poles they are attached to, or the roads that get dug up when repairs are needed. Those things are being conditionally given to them, with the implicit recognition that this excludes other companies from using them for the same thing. There is no reasonable expectation that you can use up limited public resources without the public having any say in how you do so. The ideal solution to this would, in theory, be that the so-called "information superhighway" is maintained just like actual superhighways, that is, treated as public infrastructure, built and paid for by the public just like roads are. It's actually even occurred to me that this would, in the United States, be a potentially good fit for the future of the mission of the U.S. Postal
Public infrastructure probably makes sense in this case, but there's waaaay too much money for these corporations to give up without a fight.
Christopher Duncan Author of Unite the Tribes: Leadership Skills for Technology Managers Have Fun, Get Paid: How to Make a Living with Your Creativity The Career Programmer
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I don't agree and the reason is that if not regulated in some way there's a lot of greed involved and the big companies get together and decide how much they want to fix the price at no matter how fair it is to the consumer. You will probably say if you don't want to pay the price don't order the service but if all the companies set the price who are you going to go to for internet service? To me it's just like the Internet Sales Tax fiasco, it's not about being fair for the "Brick and Mortar" stores it's about more taxes for an already bloated government that instead of balancing the budget has to find a way to bilk more money out of the public. Another example is, remember when antifreeze used to be ~$1/gal? Someone bought up all the antifreeze which drove the price up and they made a killing and the price has never come down since. Sorry this turned into a rant didn't it?
VS2010/Atmel Studio 6.1 ToDo Manager Extension Relax...We're all crazy it's not a competition!
Mike Hankey wrote:
Sorry this turned into a rant didn't it?
Sounds like a reality check to me. :)
Christopher Duncan Author of Unite the Tribes: Leadership Skills for Technology Managers Have Fun, Get Paid: How to Make a Living with Your Creativity The Career Programmer
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I think one of the main points is that only the big companies will be able to afford the expected exorbitant fees they are going to charge for a 'fast' connection, so small companies and start ups are basically going to get squeezed out.
I have always wished for my computer to be as easy to use as my telephone; my wish has come true because I can no longer figure out how to use my telephone - Bjarne Stroustrup The world is going to laugh at you anyway, might as well crack the 1st joke! My code has no bugs, it runs exactly as it was written.
Squeezed out? How? If I drive at 90 mph on the motorway, does that mean you are being squeezed out when you (continue) to drive at 60? Is anybody honestly claiming that if I burn the fuel to drive at 90, I should also pay for everybody else to go that fast too? The internet is not a zero-sum game. Extra speed leads to extra routes/roads/lanes, paid for by the money these 'privileged' customers pay. Look, my boss has a Lamborghini and a £30 million house, because he built the company from nothing. Does anybody think I should automatically get a Lamborghini upgrade at zero cost, plus a mansion, simply because I drive on the same roads and live in the same county?
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One of the stories clogging my RSS feeds this morning was the court overturning the FCC's net neutrality stance. Let me first say that I have not studied this matter and don't know what the facts are on either side of the street. What I do know is that it caused the Internet to gnaw on its own ankle for the better part of the morning. So here's my question. Although I'm in favor of net neutrality conceptually, from a more pragmatic perspective it seems to me that the wires I get to use in order to interact with the Internet, at least in America, belong to companies. I get to use them because I pay them for the service, but it's their choice what service to provide and how much to charge. They bought the materials and paid to have them installed. Unless the government decides to take over an industry and seize the companies' assets, does it really have the right to tell a given company what it can do with the wires that it owns? Sure, it would be nice if we lived in a world where everyone played fair, and I'm in favor of such an idealized landscape. That said, telling a company how to run its business strikes me as unfair to the company. It's a complex issue with many points of view (and I have no interest in discussing partisan politics of any kind), but I was thinking about that this morning. The Internet howls that this is a travesty, but it seems to me that it's not really that simple. Was just wondering if I'm alone in considering how sovereign the property of a company is, as well as its business practices (providing it doesn't break any laws).
Christopher Duncan Author of Unite the Tribes: Leadership Skills for Technology Managers Have Fun, Get Paid: How to Make a Living with Your Creativity The Career Programmer
I believe the issue goes even deeper than what the headlines can tell. For me it's not only a matter of hardware ownership, the neutrality of the Net should also include the liberty of speech and thought that every citizen of the world should enjoy. As an example, think about China, the hardware belongs to state owned companies, so do the censors that sometimes wipe out entire discussion threads or remove certain keywords deemed "sensible" for the government (tian an men as an example won't be found on the chinese version of google and they can't access the more freer world, except if they use something like TOR). There need to be some monitoring as in real life however, I d'ont think that should be the taks of the ISP to collect data and give them to any investigating bureau without any court order.
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I believe the issue goes even deeper than what the headlines can tell. For me it's not only a matter of hardware ownership, the neutrality of the Net should also include the liberty of speech and thought that every citizen of the world should enjoy. As an example, think about China, the hardware belongs to state owned companies, so do the censors that sometimes wipe out entire discussion threads or remove certain keywords deemed "sensible" for the government (tian an men as an example won't be found on the chinese version of google and they can't access the more freer world, except if they use something like TOR). There need to be some monitoring as in real life however, I d'ont think that should be the taks of the ISP to collect data and give them to any investigating bureau without any court order.
Fred Flams wrote:
the neutrality of the Net should also include the liberty of speech and thought that every citizen of the world should enjoy
I admire the thinking, but this is a common mistake that a lot of folks in my country also make (your profile says you live in France). I often hear and read things talking about how some local, regional or national issue should be handled in some part of the world outside of America, based on freedom of speech, life, liberty, etc. I have to remind them that while our country was built on a constitution that codified ideals such as personal freedoms and rights, it was at the time a novel concept and certainly not a globally held set of principles. Even today, when many countries consider human rights and democratic representation to be the right way of doing things, it's most certainly not a globally held set of ideals. Not only do governments vary wildly, this is often a reflection of the fact that cultures and thier views on religion, ethics, individuality versus personal freedom, etc. are very different in other parts of the world. In other words, when people talk about the fact that someone in, say, China, is having their rights abused, I have to gently remind them that they don't have the same rights that we enjoy. They don't live in America. Or, in your case, France. The Internet is global. Liberty of speech and thought is not. You can try to make it that way if you like, but I can assure you that you'll need a lot of guns and tanks in order to do so.
Christopher Duncan Author of Unite the Tribes: Leadership Skills for Technology Managers Have Fun, Get Paid: How to Make a Living with Your Creativity The Career Programmer
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One of the stories clogging my RSS feeds this morning was the court overturning the FCC's net neutrality stance. Let me first say that I have not studied this matter and don't know what the facts are on either side of the street. What I do know is that it caused the Internet to gnaw on its own ankle for the better part of the morning. So here's my question. Although I'm in favor of net neutrality conceptually, from a more pragmatic perspective it seems to me that the wires I get to use in order to interact with the Internet, at least in America, belong to companies. I get to use them because I pay them for the service, but it's their choice what service to provide and how much to charge. They bought the materials and paid to have them installed. Unless the government decides to take over an industry and seize the companies' assets, does it really have the right to tell a given company what it can do with the wires that it owns? Sure, it would be nice if we lived in a world where everyone played fair, and I'm in favor of such an idealized landscape. That said, telling a company how to run its business strikes me as unfair to the company. It's a complex issue with many points of view (and I have no interest in discussing partisan politics of any kind), but I was thinking about that this morning. The Internet howls that this is a travesty, but it seems to me that it's not really that simple. Was just wondering if I'm alone in considering how sovereign the property of a company is, as well as its business practices (providing it doesn't break any laws).
Christopher Duncan Author of Unite the Tribes: Leadership Skills for Technology Managers Have Fun, Get Paid: How to Make a Living with Your Creativity The Career Programmer
The situation is complex, mainly because so many broadband providers have special privileges under the law. The most obvious such privilege is "monopoly provider" status, which still holds in a large number of localities. However, there are others -- and some of them even affect "dish-based" services that require no hard-link connection to the service provider.
Were all such privileges to be withdrawn, the market in Internet service would be truly free, and I'd be utterly against net neutrality. It would be a "camel's nose under the tent" which would endanger the freedom of this way to communicate. As matters stand, it's harder to argue against net neutrality, though there are still strong arguments against it as an innovation-suppressant.
As a rule, when a government decrees that it will provide, compel, regulate, restrict, or prohibit something "for the common good," I'm automatically against it. At least, that's been my immediate reaction, most of my life. I've been trying to think these things through at greater length in these latter years, because...well, just because.
(This message is programming you in ways you cannot detect. Be afraid.)
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Squeezed out? How? If I drive at 90 mph on the motorway, does that mean you are being squeezed out when you (continue) to drive at 60? Is anybody honestly claiming that if I burn the fuel to drive at 90, I should also pay for everybody else to go that fast too? The internet is not a zero-sum game. Extra speed leads to extra routes/roads/lanes, paid for by the money these 'privileged' customers pay. Look, my boss has a Lamborghini and a £30 million house, because he built the company from nothing. Does anybody think I should automatically get a Lamborghini upgrade at zero cost, plus a mansion, simply because I drive on the same roads and live in the same county?
The analogy doesn't quite work because, since the beginning, everyone has been given a 'Lamborghini', as you say. And now it's being taken away.
I have always wished for my computer to be as easy to use as my telephone; my wish has come true because I can no longer figure out how to use my telephone - Bjarne Stroustrup The world is going to laugh at you anyway, might as well crack the 1st joke! My code has no bugs, it runs exactly as it was written.
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Squeezed out? How? If I drive at 90 mph on the motorway, does that mean you are being squeezed out when you (continue) to drive at 60? Is anybody honestly claiming that if I burn the fuel to drive at 90, I should also pay for everybody else to go that fast too? The internet is not a zero-sum game. Extra speed leads to extra routes/roads/lanes, paid for by the money these 'privileged' customers pay. Look, my boss has a Lamborghini and a £30 million house, because he built the company from nothing. Does anybody think I should automatically get a Lamborghini upgrade at zero cost, plus a mansion, simply because I drive on the same roads and live in the same county?
the difference is that you, going fast, and me, wanting to go fast, all have the same access to the roadway. Your simile falls apart unless you put a tollbooth at every on-ramp, leaving only the two-lane country roads 'free' to use. It doesn't sound so bad, until you add in the HOV lanes, with an additional tollbooth to get in to them (as opposed to the multiple rider rule, now), and then start charging lots and lots of money - which only the transport companies can afford, for access to either. If I truly had a choice of provider for internet (other than whether to use DSL, Cable, or Satellite), then free market can be allowed, because the competition should keep things under control. The way it is now, if I need a Cable connection - my only option (in my neighborhood) is Time Warner. There is no way that I can sign up with Charter... and because we have all been divided up, just like I cannot select my own electric company.. that is why 'free market' doesn't work. On the bright side, perhaps it will knock the spammers out.. because we know one of the first things they'll do is start a per-email charge...
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The analogy doesn't quite work because, since the beginning, everyone has been given a 'Lamborghini', as you say. And now it's being taken away.
I have always wished for my computer to be as easy to use as my telephone; my wish has come true because I can no longer figure out how to use my telephone - Bjarne Stroustrup The world is going to laugh at you anyway, might as well crack the 1st joke! My code has no bugs, it runs exactly as it was written.
Well now; it's true, we were. Assuming our servers were all equal. But selling somebody a Veyron does not take our Lambos away.
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the difference is that you, going fast, and me, wanting to go fast, all have the same access to the roadway. Your simile falls apart unless you put a tollbooth at every on-ramp, leaving only the two-lane country roads 'free' to use. It doesn't sound so bad, until you add in the HOV lanes, with an additional tollbooth to get in to them (as opposed to the multiple rider rule, now), and then start charging lots and lots of money - which only the transport companies can afford, for access to either. If I truly had a choice of provider for internet (other than whether to use DSL, Cable, or Satellite), then free market can be allowed, because the competition should keep things under control. The way it is now, if I need a Cable connection - my only option (in my neighborhood) is Time Warner. There is no way that I can sign up with Charter... and because we have all been divided up, just like I cannot select my own electric company.. that is why 'free market' doesn't work. On the bright side, perhaps it will knock the spammers out.. because we know one of the first things they'll do is start a per-email charge...
Sounds like your market isn't free. Here in the UK it's somewhat different; up until the 1980's the landline network was guberment owned, but when they privatised it, they enforced a policy of allowing other companies to use the hardware. A better example would be mobile. Mobile started in the 80's without legacy regulation pretty much. We ended up with at least 5 independent hardware bases, offering actual competition everywhere. Things slowed up a little after the 3G band auction, due to the large amounts bid, but now they're racing each other to provide 4G. Locally, I only get 2G or Edge, but I don't have to pay anything towards 4G unless it reaches me and I upgrade. How is this harming me? It isn't. I 'have' a 3G contract, but by mixing and matching rural land-based hotspots, I can get around 3G scarcity by factoring in no-cost WiFi links. This is for all mobile devices. Fixed internet is going to become very much a supporting technology in the next few years, as conventional ISP's who attempt to control the flow will be totally outflanked by mobile.
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I think one of the main points is that only the big companies will be able to afford the expected exorbitant fees they are going to charge for a 'fast' connection, so small companies and start ups are basically going to get squeezed out.
I have always wished for my computer to be as easy to use as my telephone; my wish has come true because I can no longer figure out how to use my telephone - Bjarne Stroustrup The world is going to laugh at you anyway, might as well crack the 1st joke! My code has no bugs, it runs exactly as it was written.
I was under the impression that while speed is a factor of net neutrality, the overall idea was that all the data is treated equally and no types of data should be limited. This could in theory be done for any type of internet connection by the ISP, throttling back gaming packets in lieu of allowing people to view streaming content, etc. I don't like the idea of my ISP dictating to me how I can/should use a service that I purchase from them. When I pay for my cell phone service, they don't tell me that between the hours of 12 AM and 6 AM is the only time I can send a text message to a user on another carrier's network, but during peek time I can only send messages that are on the same network because they don't want to waste that bandwidth allowing me to converse with someone who refuses to use their network.... If the majority of my online activity is updating my Linux boxes, and that update process happens to use a protocol that is being throttled by my ISP, then what service is the ISP really providing me? Also, what happens if the ISPs deem that a type of data is not acceptable on their network and block it off? Isn't that a type of censorship? I think this will very quickly turn in to a slippery slope of where does the ISP power stop...
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One of the stories clogging my RSS feeds this morning was the court overturning the FCC's net neutrality stance. Let me first say that I have not studied this matter and don't know what the facts are on either side of the street. What I do know is that it caused the Internet to gnaw on its own ankle for the better part of the morning. So here's my question. Although I'm in favor of net neutrality conceptually, from a more pragmatic perspective it seems to me that the wires I get to use in order to interact with the Internet, at least in America, belong to companies. I get to use them because I pay them for the service, but it's their choice what service to provide and how much to charge. They bought the materials and paid to have them installed. Unless the government decides to take over an industry and seize the companies' assets, does it really have the right to tell a given company what it can do with the wires that it owns? Sure, it would be nice if we lived in a world where everyone played fair, and I'm in favor of such an idealized landscape. That said, telling a company how to run its business strikes me as unfair to the company. It's a complex issue with many points of view (and I have no interest in discussing partisan politics of any kind), but I was thinking about that this morning. The Internet howls that this is a travesty, but it seems to me that it's not really that simple. Was just wondering if I'm alone in considering how sovereign the property of a company is, as well as its business practices (providing it doesn't break any laws).
Christopher Duncan Author of Unite the Tribes: Leadership Skills for Technology Managers Have Fun, Get Paid: How to Make a Living with Your Creativity The Career Programmer
Smells a lot like the political argument from the (US) 2012 election where the republicans were whining about Obama's "build it" comment. Taken completely out of context, yes, it would be fair to hand the net over to the big players. Kept within context, no, it's not. Is your plumbing system owned/controlled by the big players? No, because society can't function that way. We have a shared system and we all get equal access to the supply and return (waste) water ... provided ya chip in a fair share of the costs. If you aren't familiar with the "build it" thing, here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/an-unoriginal-obama-quote-taken-out-of-context/2012/07/20/gJQAdG7hyW_blog.html[^]
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One of the stories clogging my RSS feeds this morning was the court overturning the FCC's net neutrality stance. Let me first say that I have not studied this matter and don't know what the facts are on either side of the street. What I do know is that it caused the Internet to gnaw on its own ankle for the better part of the morning. So here's my question. Although I'm in favor of net neutrality conceptually, from a more pragmatic perspective it seems to me that the wires I get to use in order to interact with the Internet, at least in America, belong to companies. I get to use them because I pay them for the service, but it's their choice what service to provide and how much to charge. They bought the materials and paid to have them installed. Unless the government decides to take over an industry and seize the companies' assets, does it really have the right to tell a given company what it can do with the wires that it owns? Sure, it would be nice if we lived in a world where everyone played fair, and I'm in favor of such an idealized landscape. That said, telling a company how to run its business strikes me as unfair to the company. It's a complex issue with many points of view (and I have no interest in discussing partisan politics of any kind), but I was thinking about that this morning. The Internet howls that this is a travesty, but it seems to me that it's not really that simple. Was just wondering if I'm alone in considering how sovereign the property of a company is, as well as its business practices (providing it doesn't break any laws).
Christopher Duncan Author of Unite the Tribes: Leadership Skills for Technology Managers Have Fun, Get Paid: How to Make a Living with Your Creativity The Career Programmer
I'm not sure how this wont work itself out in the end. If someone is having trouble getting health insurance, doing their taxes, running their business, or paying their bills online, a lack of neutrality won't look so good even if it's not truly to blame. There is a complexity in managing favoritism and lists and lists of who's who. What happens when a critical internet benefit lands on the wrong list? What if you can't get on the list you want? What if a natural disaster occurs and a website pops up to help victims. Will it be nonfunctional, slow as Christmas, or streamlined onto the fast track? If you are visiting the site, how will you know if it's a badly designed site or a non-neutral site? Will it be fixable? Which ISP would you need to contact? All of them? It seems to me that any company offering Net Neutrality as a foundational feature would win out over those that don't in the long run. (Can't use the internet, find what you want, it costs too much, or it's taking to long = ISP's fault)
-Mikhael
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I have DSL so the wire actually does run right up to my house. Unless, you know, the deer have chewed it up again. :)
Christopher Duncan Author of Unite the Tribes: Leadership Skills for Technology Managers Have Fun, Get Paid: How to Make a Living with Your Creativity The Career Programmer
Yes, it runs to your door but you don't have a cable per ISP. If you can change ISP freely, without them having having to add new wiring, then the cable does not really belong to whatever ISP you are currently with. So they can't have 100% claim over it, and because of that, they should not be allowed to do just what they want with it. If we have to start changing ISP to access some websites, that is going to be hell for us, even though we are already paying for the access. And in any case, totally free market tend to go wrong in most cases, because of greed or whatever other human defects… So a certain level of regulation seems necessary. We just have to find how much regulation is reasonble, and how much starts to be too much like communism (or whatever opposite of free market you may think of)…
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You're probably right, but that's the way a free market works.
Christopher Duncan Author of Unite the Tribes: Leadership Skills for Technology Managers Have Fun, Get Paid: How to Make a Living with Your Creativity The Career Programmer
The problem is that Internet carriers are very close to a monopoly in most places. In large cities, there may be two or even three carriers, but they are so large and so much in control of so many types of communications in so many places, that they will inevitably establish similar restrictive rules that gives the consumer or the start-up no real choice at all. The free market is not always free. And that is why regulations are needed.
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Yes, that's a free market and capitalism. But it's not always that simple. We (in the U.S.) have state laws that prevent gasoline from being sold too cheaply so other mom-and-pop stations can compete with the big boys. In many states it's illegal to sell items below cost in stores. This effectively prevents Wal-Mart from undercutting everyone in town until they are the only ones left. We see lawsuits against price fixing in books taken against Apple. There are dozens of examples like this. My point is that state and federal governments have many rules in place on what type of services can be provided, what must be included in those services, and also the price those services can cost. I see no reason they should not do the same to the Internet providers. That's just my $0.02.
Ah yes.. maybe so. but do you use google? The way the net neutrality was written would prevent your browser from EVER GOING TO GOOGLE or probably bing or any other site that has a reference to a copyrighted image that could be downloaded and used in a school project by your kids - who didn't pay the copyright fee. The bill is SCARY. It should not be allowed. The copyright laws are enough. Net Neutrality will put us all in an Orwellian society (assuming you dont think that the governmnet's little project in Utah that captures EVERYTHING YOU DO ON THE ITERNET into a GIANT DATAWARHOUSE for analysis and datamining has not already done so. The thought police are living with us today and this just gives them more power than ever. Net Neutrailty is a VERY VERY SCARY thing. KILL THE BILL!