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Flushing the Net Down the Tubes
netcetra writes "From a post by on CircleID by Phillip J. Windley: 'Doc Searls has written a brilliant piece framing the battle for the Net at Linux Journal. ... if you take the time to read just one essay on the Net and the politics surround it this year, read this one.' Quote from Doc himself: 'This is a long essay. There is, however, no limit to how long I could have made it. The subjects covered here are no less enormous than the Net and its future. Even optimists agree that the Net's future as a free and open environment for business and culture is facing many threats. We can't begin to cover them all or cover all the ways we can fight them. I believe, however, that there is one sure way to fight all of these threats at once, and without doing it the bad guys will win. That's what this essay is about.' Also see additional background on the piece on Doc Searls blog."
In other media such as television and radio, it takes a great deal of resouces to be able to broadcast your information outward. Anyone can connect to the internet, and unless ISPs suddenly find the motivation and the money to start taking fine tuned control over what every user does, anyone can host their own information and data.
I know all kinds of smart people try really hard to predict things like this, and they give all sorts of explanations that "support" their position. But here is why the Internet won't go away: it is useful, and people like it.
If you look throughout history, in all cultures, if people find something to be useful, no amount of government or corporate intervention or regulation will dissuade those people from doing what they want. Despite most citizens not giving a shit about voting in government elections, very few people will stand by and allow a government or corporation to take away something they want. It just does not happen. This happens all over the world, in all cultures, and when this stand-off becomes a big enough event, it makes the news as a "revolution".
So no, the internet isn't going to be flushed down the tubes by ISPs or whatever, because consumers will not allow it.
Do you honestly think that we are in a 'dark ages'? We are accelerating so quickly technologically and connecting so fast that I don't think the average human comprehends it. Think back just 10 years ago. Most people were not connected to the Internet. Internet usage has sky rocketed up faster then anything in our wildest dreams. Further, it isn't even the Internet. Cell phones are another fine example. I remember being awed by my friends massive clunky cell phone in the mid 90's that got shit for reception. Now, it is easier to count the people I know who don't own a cell phone then it is to count the people that do. I got a jump drive I keep in my pocket the other day for $20 with more hard drive space then the computer I owned back in 95.
Further, it isn't just technology that is interconnecting. The entire world is interconnecting. China, EU, and the US are all so dependent upon each other that any sort of conflict between them is unthinkable to the point that loss of one could lead to a collapsing (or at least crippled) society in the others.
Look, I am not saying that everything is rosy colored and wonderful, but point to a time in history that was better. Do you long for the brutal dictatorships that existed almost exclusively up until the past few centuries? Do you miss the wonderful days of the industrial revolution when it was common place to die early and lose a hand in hazardous machinery? Maybe you miss the days of American expansion westward and European colonialism that chewed up the natives they got in the way. Do you long for the days when a married woman couldn't own property, much less vote? Maybe you miss the good old days of New Deal, complete with withering racism and World War. Maybe your nostalgia only reaches back a couple days and blindly forgets the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the ever present and very real threat of nuclear annihilation, and starvation in the millions that afflicted pretty much everyone on the Asian content. If this is the Dark Ages, what the hell exactly was everything that came before this time?
This is only "The Dark Ages" is you are a jaded liberal who has some how managed to shrink his view of history down to the past 6 years or so. Stop, take a deep breath, and realize that 6 years is a hiccup in the grand scheme of things. Further, even in those 6 years things have gotten better despite Bush's ham fisted blundering. Further still, things are better now then they were at any other time in history.
Honestly, take a deep breath and realize that the world isn't so bad. You can post angry rants on Slashdot, you clearly have an Internet connection, chances are you can vote, and I imagine you probably are not starving. Those four things alone make this time in history better then all the times before it. Relax and don't let today's day to day politics get you all worked up and taint your view of history in the long term.
We'll see about that.
They pay for transport to their local provider. That it isn't SBC does not matter.
What SBC seems to want to do is to require everyone to be their customer in order to carry their traffic on SBC's network.
Look at it as if it were telephone traffic. In that case, it is as if they would not complete any telephone calls unless the calling party and the called party were both customers of theirs.
Or, more accurately, they want to charge long distance tolls. I guess for your $30 per month, you will be able to connect to your local town without paying additional fees. If you want to connect to the next town, you're gong to have to pay more.
I never understood the rationale for franchise fees other than just another way to stick it to the public.
I agree exactly with the thesis of the article. The Internet is being divided and debased by people who care only about avoiding knowledge of their own deficiencies, such as some of the leaders in China.
The control freaks often get control. In the past, their power over the Internet has been limited by their extreme technical ignorance. Now, more and more, they are hiring technically knowledgeable people to corrupt and diminish the freedom.
If the healthy people don't assert their authority, the corrupters will debase the Internet as they debase everything else they touch.
The ceaseless activity of those whose only life is money and who want to make one more dollar has already caused limits to VOIP, for example. The communications companies want to protect their easy profits. They use VOIP, but they don't want us to do it without their permission or without their profit.
I would like to point out that it was the liberals who fought for womens rights, civil rights, clean air, and unions. They are still fighting for more and are still being resisted by the same forces.
Don't take my comment that liberals think the world is coming to an end as a statement against liberals. My point was more that liberals are more inclined to look for the doom and gloom over the past few years and declare that the world is about to come to an end. Pick a broad liberal ideal; civil rights, health care quality/coverage, infant mortality/life expectancy, hunger, tolerance, wages / hours, whatever, it is better today then it was 50 years ago. We are even more well off if you look a 100 years back. Look 200 years back and the difference is so stark that it isn't even a meaningful comparison. The liberals are winning.
If anyone has reason to cry doom and gloom it is actually the right wing folks. All of their 'morality' issues are being hacked to pieces. There is more sex for non reproductive purposes, greater acceptance of homosexuals, proportionally fewer marriages, more broken homes, and all of the bread and butter of a conservative platform. Hell, the fact that we are at the point where we can even have a gay marriage debate is rocking conservatives to the core. Just 15 years back, talking about gay marriage would illicit roughly the response of talking about bestiality.
I suppose it all depends on whether you look at the glass as being half full or half empty. In this day and age we have the power and the technology to ensure that nobody is starving, that nobody has to die from poverty or war or famine. All it takes is a little money and little will.
There certainly is more that could be done, but the relics of the past do not easily die. There is no amount of money, technology, and will that could make North Korea a happy place unless by 'happy place' you mean 'war zone'. War and famine are political problems. No one in this world should starve. Not only do we have more then enough food for everyone, but we are trying to get that food to the people. Somalia is a perfect example of this. Somalians are not starving because the rest of the world is unwilling to feed them. Somalians are starving because short of going in guns blazing, we can't we can't keep our aid out of the hands of warlords. In fact, this very dilemma is what resulted in the US invading Somalia. We wanted to give them food. We had the food and the means to get it there; we just needed to keep warlords from taking it. If you recall, things didn't go so well when we tried to intervene (IE see Black Hawk Down).
So sure, we could certainly do more, it just boils down to disagreement as to how to do more (does globalism hurt or help?), and the problems with humans some times sucking no matter how much power and technology you have. The larger point is that even though we certainly screw up, fail politically, and in general act like the imperfect humans that we are, we are still steam rolling forward. Things are getting better. A political charged look at the best 6 years might make you think differently, but the second you look at this era from a historical point of view, it quickly becomes clear which direction things are headed. Now is a great time to be alive.
...but it is obvious that even the large readership of the slashdot community is either ill informed, indifferent, or uncertain about this issue. Even the article posted at 230am has more activity! This should frighten you!
Make no mistake...the governance of the Internet and the fight for its control is the most important issue currently at stake. Period. Wars will subside, politicians will be replaced, the world will keep turning. However, if the core principles driving the Internet are not preserved, we as diverse citizens of all nations will forever have lost something magnificent.
I have been on the Internet for a long, long time. I remember BBSes at pathetic baudrates, when emails didn't travel between ISPs, when there weren't any advertisements online whatsoever. Those of you that remember these changes and are able to see the Internet --- not as it is nor for what it has become, but for what it must be --- please educate the masses. It must exist as a free, uninhibited enity and REMAIN independent of the infrastructure through which it is accessed. Should the day come when borders and binding structure is imposed upon the Internet, we will all have truly lost the most important medium for communcation, commerce, and culture ever created.