Doctorow Tears Up ISP Contract Over Net Neutrality

Burz writes "As a reaction to Virgin Media CEO's promise to violate the concept of net neutrality, Cory Doctorow is declaring his ISP contract void, canceling the service, and calling on other Virgin customers to do the same. He isn't alone. Charlie Stross counts the ways the gang that became Virgin Media is trashing Sir Richard's brand. Myself, I am thinking of stopping my Virgin Mobile service in protest."

Comments

Losing your Virginity...

[Anonymous Coward]

feels great!

Re:Stuff that matters

[CallFinalClass]

Meh. Can't hold a job. Can't get a degree. I may or may not be kidding about this.

Re:Options

[Spad]

This being the UK, you've got a choice of tens, if not hundreds of different ADSL providers available to you, some using BT, some with LLU setups.

Though to make use of them you would have to cancel all of your Virgin Media services (Internet, TV, Phone) and get a BT line instead.

Re:Options

[Naughty Bob]

In the UK, I don't think there's anywhere with only 1 (ADSL broadband, cable's a different deal)option, by virtue of the way in which BT is required to open its network. However, you still have to pay BT a line rental charge in addition to your Virgin (or whomever) account.

Re:What a joke.

[maxume]

I doubt you have a contract with Boing Boing agreeing that they will not censor reader comments, and I doubt that you are paying them all that much.

Re:Stuff that matters

[Otter]

Doctorow's daughter with Alice Taylor, Poesy Emmeline Fibonacci Nautilus Taylor Doctorow, was born on 3 February 2008.

Is this a case of Wikipedia vandalism, or does his insatiable attention-whoring extend to ruining his poor daughter's life?

Re:Ouch

[Goldberg's Pants]

Any financial issues Blockbuster have are most likely down to an evolving marketplace, and not getting rid of worthless customers.

Doctrow is a hack. A pretentious windbag who a certain element of people seem to think represents their beliefs.

I'm sure Virgin are quaking in their boots at this "threat" from someone who if there name was said to 99.999999% of people would say "Who?"

Re:Stuff that matters

[Saberwind]

Unfortunately, it's not vandalism. (sorry, posted this under the wrong comment earlier...then Slashdot wouldn't let me post a reply to your comment because the comment ID wasn't found...)

Re:Do we just become numb?

[Bieeanda]

This is precisely right. It's also what gives them a huge kick in the ass when they go just a little too far, like Rogers Cable did over here about ten years ago. As what was usual, they added a pile of new channels that nobody really wanted and raised subscription prices accordingly. They also moved a number of popular channels further up the dial, where a vast number of older cable boxes couldn't functionally reach. Their only suggestion was to rent a new cable box, which was just adding insult to injury.

Now, there was an alternative: We could go to the cable company and ask to have the new channels removed. There was no way to do it over the phone, you had to find out where your local cable shop was, drive down there, and hassle the girl behind the counter. Rogers clearly assumed that since we'd swallowed their shit for so long, another mouthful would go down just as smoothly.

Hundreds of thousands of subscribers descended on their outlets, fuming mad, demanding their service be return to its previous state, or canceling cable outright. Rogers got the message, the CRTC got the message, and for once shit actually changed.

Re:But what is he _really_ doing?

[eldorel]

Allow me to continue with your storefront analogy.
You pay rent on your storefront, and I have to ride the bus to get there. We both pay depending on what we want.
You want more people in your store at a time, you pay more rent.
I want to be able to get there faster, I hire a taxi instead.

Where the problem lies is that now the bus/taxi companies want to charge you, the store owner, for the bus/taxi to stop at your shop.
If you don't pay, your customers will have to walk the last 1/2 mile, despite the fact that your shop is on the main road, and all traffic goes right past you.

In fact, it's not a far stretch to imagine the taxi driver suggesting alternate destinations.

Me: Take me to the local grocery store.
Driver: You're going shopping? Why don't I drop you at Walmart, It's 20 minutes faster.
Me: No it isn't, walmart is in the next town.
Driver: Yeah, But we have a contract with them, we drive everyone there first.


This isn't capitalism anymore, it's extortion.

Why is Cory Doctorow so famous among geeks?

[spun]

Look, I don't want to piss you off or anything, and I'm sure Cory is smart, but... what exactly has he done to prove it? I'm really not trying to be facetious.

He dropped out of four universities. He's a blogger. He writes science fiction about as well as Alan Dean Foster. Which is to say, mediocre science fiction. He started Boing Boing. He occasionally writes non fiction articles.

Am I missing something? Cure for cancer, grand unified theory, anything?

I'm sure Cory is both nice and smart, but his importance to a certain set of geeks seems blown way out of proportion to his actual accomplishments.