Slashdot Mirror
Lessig On Net Neutrality
nanojath writes "Lessig delivers the final word on net neutrality. Read it 5 times to absorb the densest, most content-rich pronouncement that Wired will deliver in 2007." From the article: "Those who oppose network-neutrality regulation should also oppose... regulation of [municipal broadband,] last-mile broadband's most important competitor. Municipal competition won't kill commercial broadband any more than Linux has killed Windows. Yet it could change the business model of last-mile broadband, just as Linux has changed the business model of Microsoft. If there's going to be a Linux-like miracle to counteract innovation-threatening broadband business models, then, at a minimum, miracles must not be a crime."
I'll give up on regulation banning network neutrality when the telcos and cablecos would give up on their regulations and contracts that ban other people from competing against their monopoly.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
This is a dupe, right? I know I've seen it before and can't imagine where else I might have seen it linked. I was going to make a sneering "Well, I'm reading it now for the 2nd time..." but I can't find the first one and figured I'd ask instead.
Read it 5 times to absorb the densest, most content-rich pronouncement that Wired will deliver
I'm pretty sure that if it's as dense as you say it is, it's going to clog the tubes on the way over here. Kind of like when I eat too much fiber, if you know what I mean.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
Lessig sounds like the typical poster here. When looking for an example, bash MS.
For telecom companies acting like predators you don't have to go that far. AT&T was the original giant monopoly that had to be broken up by the feds for stifling competition. They owned the network, the equipment, all services, support, even the phone books.
Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
You must be new to slashdot.
Even dupes of dead horses are beaten around here.
It's a nice article, but does his opinion matter? It's the big cheeses that decide what goes, and so long as they are raking in the funds the little guy does not matter.
Municipal and government networks do not have the advantage of competition, and therefore disparage innovation, not vice versa. Businesses compete and in order to gain an advantage, one business must innovate. I don't know why this article is claiming the opposite. Yes, I see the advantage of having standards, disparaging monopoly, and the like, but net-neutrality will only lead to a network that never gets better (think power lines). Yes, it is difficult for a business to get enough clout to own a network and there are problems with certain networks working together (problems between different cell networks). However if true innovation is encouraged, we will see a system that uses very few wires and increasingly uses wireless broadband. The integration of the cell phone and cell networks with broadband has already happened. Putting further restraints on the system will only cause unforeseeable problems in the future. Fairness and neutrality is not necessarily the best thing for the country.
Lessig claims that municipal networks will be able to compete with the Telcos to prevent abuse of their control over the network. I'm no expert but don't these municipal networks still plug into backbones owned by the Telcos? What is there to stop the Telcos from exercising their control at that level rather than at the end user level? I understand his point about not being too hasty with regulation, but there seem to be some holes in his logic.
Who? Why? Or are you talking just about all the unsuspecting people who set up unsecured wireless networks in their homes?
I would rather see the government force the carriers towards network neutrality. They were awarded a monopoly by the government, and can't complain about regulation. I am usually a free market person, but in this case, I would like to see the government enforce the status quo. Once Wi-Max is mature enough to give people options, then maybe the carriers can have some freedom.
http://bgcommonsense.blogspot.com
Standard Oil was the reason for the introduction of Antitrust laws in the USA, not AT&T (Bell, whatever). Yes they got hammered by them, but they were not the first, nor the ones that prompted their creation in the first place. What, you thought "Esso" was just a funny-sounding name? Ess-O. SO. Standard Oil.
...Net Neutrality and Munuciple Networks?...Because I resoundingly do. If I honestly thought legislation could be created to protect them that really wouldn't just be a smoke screen for increasing the megacorps' stranglehold over everyone I would support that too. We now have copyrights for works that will outlive their author by 70 years, patents on how information is manipulated, and Telcos entering the television market with federal assistance to help them drive cable-based ISPs out of business all made possible by legislation cosponsored by members of both major polical parties. While I heartily support both ideas and would love to see them protected I can't see any legislation being passed that wouldn't pervert both beyond recognition.
"Never limit what you know to what you do", Me
No, he's talking about groups like Seattle Wireless who are building free metropolitan area networks.
Linux was able to succeed as a collaborative effort because of cheap, commodity PCs (whose performance increased constantly), the Internet, a common desire for a freely available operating system, and remarkably good project management. None of this required capital beyond what was readily available to any one player.
With broadband, the network neutrality issue comes back to the idea of common carrier status. This is important, because the companies delivering this traffic have been granted a monopoly on service explicitly. What the large ISPs are trying to do is to eliminate common carrier status while retaining the monopoly. Allowing that would be a disastrous mistake for the public.
Dog is my co-pilot.
I'm not talking about the comments, they always were opinions (duh) but I'm talking about the articles. There's about 10 articles on net neutrality, and then another ten on some database that someone thinks is another sign of "big brother" which people attack like crazy, and of course let's not forget articles on politics which tend to attack anyone trying to regulate... well anything, toss in a few articles on people expecting people visiting america to be documented (heaven forbid we try to actually stop undocumented aliens, or even criminals from entering our country) and stir for 12 minutes and serve over the course of 2 monthes.
I don't know whether it's all the mods or just specific ones but it seems I'm seeing more and more agenda pieces and most of them are agendas I really don't give a fuck about. Net Neutrality I really can't care about, I've decided what I want to do with it, but that's it. Govermental Databases I'm actually for some of the times because the stories on here just reeks of people who read 1984 a few to many times and think goverment is bad. Anti-MPAA stuff I'm for most of the time (though there's some nut jobs out there) but at the same time acting like it's our right to pirate movies seems odd, personally I just boycott their asses and enjoy the free TV I get at home (the 50 inch tv really makes it easy). Even the stuff against the people against the violence in video games seems to be promoting them as it villifies them. If we ignored Jack Thompson we'd probably never have to deal with his jackassery now.
Even at the same time I don't remember too many storys about Mr. Nifong and how easy it was for him to ruin 3 student's lives, a college's reputation and a sports history. Is it just that I'm changing my opinion and interests or is it slashdot that is becoming so leftist/rightist/socialist/capitalist/centralist that it's become something I don't even recognize any more?
most content-rich pronouncement that Wired will deliver in 2007.
seriously where do you people get these time machines?
Lessig wrote: "Can last-mile broadband be developed in a way that doesn't rely on the incentives that drive current providers toward innovation-stifling business models?" Diminishing marginal returns apply to expenditures for R&D as well. Nobody would disagree that societies are becoming more advanced as time goes on, however, the rate at which companies are able to realize returns on that increase in "innovation" is not able to keep up -- learning curves apply as well, especially ESPECIALLY when companies must pay competent people to answer questions asked by incompetent people. This is why people whining about outsourcing irk me to no end. I've worked at a company where I had to take technical support calls, and the utter idiocy of so many people is mind-boggling. If you can't figure something out, look it up in a book or online or in the manual that came with the product you purchased that you can't figure out how to get to work. People do have hobby interests on which they spend massive amounts of time or and/or money. Last time I checked, time wasn't powered by money. Automation of tasks -- like Lessing wrote about automated Tax Returns! -- gives people more time to spend doing things they enjoy doing, more "free time" as an economic reward. A longer piece written a big ago defending net neutrality: here.
I might be misguided but frankly I don't trust the telcos. Verizon's CEO has said many times that the pipes belong to him and has indicated he's pissed off because everyone's making money off the Internet except him. I can see his point. Afer all, he's the one that owns the pipes.
I wouldn't be so opposed to a non-net-neut world if I could be convinced the telcos weren't running a gnarly scheme to make my ISP bill look like my cell phone bill.
The net has been so succesful perhaps because it was designed and developed in large part, not by private companies, but by scientists and engineers in an academic environment who were mostly employed by the government. Profit was not their goal.
But if my cell phone company had developed the net, my ISP bill would probably list every site I went to that month and I'd be charged extra for things like email, SMS, MMS, streaming audio, etc., These would all be separately billable services. Voice would be charged per minute, data would be per megabyte, and I'd be nickel and dimmed for everything.
DARPA was not a business. They were not out to make money. The designed a system for maximum efficiency and easy growth.
Look at how the telcos have handled communications. For example, phone systems don't even have, nor have they ever had any intention of having, something as simple as DNS. If the telcos had had control over how the Internet evolved you'd be typing in Internet IP addresses simply so they could sell you access to a white pages directory.
Maybe I have it all wrong but when I look at their history I really don't have much faith in telcos. What worries me the most is that we're giving these companies a large hand in determining, not how the Internet will look in a few years, but ultimately we're going to be giving them a lot of power in influencing how it's developed later on down the road. I say we tread carefully.
When corporations provide essential services, the possiblity for great evil exists. If government doesn't step in to protect the public interest, those corporations will take every opportunity to collect an ever increasing fee from their captive customers.
This is why things like the Sherman Act exist - to provide a counter-balance against unrestrained corporate greed. Unfortunately, our government seems to be unable or unwilling to exercise these tools to promote the public interest.
In the meantime, if you simply assume that every corporation is out to make every possible dollar in any way they can - you'll be right.
This is the canonical link to the issue: http://isen.com/stupid.html
In short, your communication line is no more than infrastructure -- and no less. The argument that competition can somehow spring forth out of the last mile is based upon the fallacy that someone will string a whole new set of lines to homes. Verizon would argue that they alone own the telephone poles (they do not) and tie up the whole mess in the court system. Or that someone could blanket the nation with fixed wireless (Project Angel of AT&T); of course, the only entity that could it effectively is a local gov't and Verizon blocked that as well.
Someone mentioned corporations act in their best interests, and that is true. As citizens -- because after all corporations are considered entities somewhat like people -- corporations would be psychotic sociopaths who in all honesty would be sentenced to life in a mental institution.
Expecting these entities to act fairly is itself stupid. The only way to deal with them is harshly and unfairly, on the side of people and not the corporate interest. We know how that goes, too.
Net neutrality is something we absolutely must have, not just as Americans but as free people. No corporate interest should take precedence, ever, for any reason. If they cry poverty, so be it. Let them find another way to make money. Really, if we pushed them hard enough, what could they really do?
-BA
Freedom of speech is great as long as nobody's listening.
/Steps off soap box.
--Luthor ruling the USA via holographic president in The Dark Knight Strikes Again.--
The point being made is people hear what is said but noone really does anything about it. The machine just rolls along while we here on slashdot and digg and various blogs talk about all this and do nothing about it. The awareness factor is limited only to the tech savvy crowd (many on here) who on allot of levels control information. I have seen very few instances where people are actually posting petitions or doing anything to show the dissatisfaction. Blogs go up but there really is no one united effort to focus the voice of the people toward the Govt to address our grievances. Just a bunch of divided voices and individuals voicing opinions who will often get outed as crazy. Larger numbers make a larger difference.
If we take our voice into one central place and focus it at the Government they WILL listen. We out number them. They want our vote. As long as the 2 of the 3 branches of Govt are reminded that they have the axe of constituency voters hanging over their head they will listen. At this point they are paying lip service and doing under the table deals. We just need show that they have more to fear from us in terms of our voice and the resulting action that just posting on social sites. I am working on a number of petitions that deal with Government issues and laws important to constituencies all over the nation. Once they are finalized and written I will post links up. But I am hoping we can all rally behind that and show the Government we are serious about changes in the things we are seeing now. Corporate influence on Govt in general is no different than what religion was in the dark ages to the Govts of the time. The only difference is the lack of brutality.
To offer tiered service is just an excuse for the corporations to limit what we can see on the premise that the content provider must pay for bandwidth. We just need to fight that tooth and nail with our voice. Make sure the public in general (non techies) are very aware of what that is and HOW it affects them. If they are aware of how bad it will be for them then more people will start to react. Preaching to the choir never gets it done. Preaching to the people who have no clue or don't see the danger has a much better chance of getting the message across and will spread. This is one method of creating a united front.
Sounds like more government regulation.
"Money is the barometer of a society's virtue." - Ayn Rand Atlas Shrugged
I feel like a broken record. But...
Broadband may be new; indeed that isn't even relevant. The only effective means of getting "broadband" to my hourse, or neighbourhood is via buried cables (copper, or fiber -- pick one). Right now, "wireless" isn't a choice. (Although it could be, and we will revisit that point).
To provide a reliable service, easements are needed. Neither the phone company OR the cable company came to me to negotiate a right of way, or usage on my land. Instead, they went to the local government, which negotiated for the tax-payers. Part of the negotiation was for -- hold it -- network neutrality. AT&T argued it, and lost. Now it comes up again.
As to "wireless": we want RELIABLE access. This means that use of "open" 802.11a/b frequencies are out. At best "patchwork" best effort service can be offered. Plus, if a licensed operator complains, the 802.11a/b user will have to shut off. For limited use, yes, this may work. But for more general use? I like cables here, because I am running my office phone on VOIP.
Just another "Cubible(sic) Joe" 2 17 3061
Carpenter's glue? Fiber helps it flow, it doesn't clog your tube.
Or people who remember Nixon's enemies list, or Herbert Hoover's blackmail, or people who emmigrated from the Soviet Union, or any of the *vast* number of examples governments abusing their citizens through the overuse of police powers. And now you have a government that openly defies FISA and it doesn't seem relevant.
So yeah, it's just you.
Yay, Nay, or Neigh.
Quite right. Linus Torvalds would have needed gigadollars to compete with the telcos.
See above. That is to say, he never really addresses the principle problems with his flawed analogy, but handwaves it away. Volunteers cannot make capital appear by magic.Further, his idea that governments are going to fill the void and provide competition doesn't hold water, either. How do we ensure local governments don't get snookered by tech bamboozlers with visions of creating monopoly markets of their own? This is how we ended up with the disaster that is cable television now, by hundreds of municipalities handing out local monopolies with millions of captive customers.
Dog is my co-pilot.
It will not be municipalities that push out the telco's, it will be new wireless technology that will allow people all the ease of 802.11b, but with a 30 mile radius.
It seems like that would encourage ISPs to be *more* restrictive. If you have more traffic coming over your lines from these last-mile ISPs but no more revenue because they're not paying you, the ISPs would have to get revenue from somewhere else - most likely Google, Skype, and other big companies that send lots of data.
One reason I support net neutrality is that both I and Google (or whoever) have paid an ISP for access the Internet. Why should there be a third charge if the people on either end have already paid? But if the user isn't paying (directly) for his/her connection, then charging Google (or whoever) would be the only way to stay afloat.
Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't think this is such a great idea. More competition from broadband ISPs or regulation are the only options that I think would really work.
I produce electronic music and write little games. Have a look.
parent was the troll, but parent was right, slashdot does suck. This guy made a good point in response to a troll.
Only briefly looked at what Lessig write, for sure Henry Rollins is more "direct"... (= http://throwawayyourtv.com/2007/01/rollins-opinion -on-net-neutrality.html
Did this guy just claim that he now thinks it was a bad idea to try to reduce Microsoft's monopoly power? He thinks because Linux is kicking ass in the server space, it's ok that consumers have suffered through all the sh*t Microsoft has foisted on them through the power of their monopoly? All of the virii, the worms, the trojans, the spam, adware, etc.? Has this guy ever used Windows?
I don't see that this guy deserves an audience. Reluctant regulator? More like reluctant cogitator. I hate to call anyone a moron, but come on.
That's a poor analogy. Linux may well kill windows, it just hasn't happended yet because Linux has deficiencies that have slowed its adoption. But broadband is broadband: unless the municiplities offer a severely substandard service, and even if they do, the motivation to pay will be severely underminded.
Lessig's assertion, which really should be couched with "in my opinion", is a typical non-fact that those with ideologies employ. He believes something, and he's willing to use sleight of hand to prove it.
And Standard Oil fiasco was a farce anyway. It only maintained a monopoly because it could bring customer what they wanted, cheapest. It was actually slowly loosing market share by the time the law was past. The Truth About the "Robber Barons"
It seems utterly stupid to trust government to regulate something when it is actively giving corporations monopoly rights!! I guess this is because a previous special privilege deal has affected another group of people negatively so they lobby for government polices that help them. And the cycle continues.
You forgot about the articles on how great Apple's is or how much Microsoft's sucks... sometimes both in the same article.
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
If the ISP isn't getting enough money either
1) They up the charges to the city
2) They stop the service at the end of the contract
If the city cannot get an ISP or backbone provider to accept the pay then they will have to increase the ammount they pay. At some point someone will provide.
No, that's not what lack of net neutrality would get you. The reason you wouldn't be able to get Slashdot is because of Slashdot's limited subscription, which only gives it 10% as much bandwidth as sites of a similar size that paid through the nose for premium access to the pipes of 5 different middlemen, who have nothing directly to do with either you or Slashdot.
Dan Aris
Fun. Free. Online. RPG. BattleMaster.
overmental Databases I'm actually for some of the times because the stories on here just reeks of people who read 1984 a few to many times and think goverment is bad.
Or Atlas Shrugged, but the point being that if you haven't gotten the point of 1984 then you need to read it a few more times.
It isn't that government is bad per se, but that the potential for what it can do should be in our minds at all given times least we be the next victims.
Mostly, that 1984 is an allegory directly to Stalin and the purges of 1937. The telescreens are actually metaphors for citizens that report on each other during this time frame.
The point was not that technology would do this, but that society was already like that in Stalinist Russia in the late 30s. He was trying to affirm that in a society like Stalin's is possible and this is how it works and the warning signs were clearly pointed out.
This is a bit off topic, but that is the message that Orwell was trying to really put across.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
> I'm talking about the articles
Slashdot is biased - heavily against large corporate structures which make scads of money, and heavily for small grassroots rebels which produce free products and services. They pick and choose the articles that best illustrate the worldview they think is important.
However, EVERY media source does this. If you go to MSNBC, you find pretty much the opposite; the small grassroots rebels are either ignored or painted as dangerous, and the large corporate structures are hailed as models of success and stability.
So what you need isn't one place that has no bias, but a collection of places that accurately balance out one another's bias. Slashdot is a great balancer for corporate-friendly media sources, but if you throw out the corporate-friendly sources you just end up unbalanced in the other direction.
Microsoft cheerleader, blue flag waving, you got a problem with that?