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Cory Doctorow Draws the Line On Net Neutrality
Nerdposeur points out that Cory Doctorow has a compelling piece in The Guardian today, arguing that network neutrality is not only crucial for the future of the Internet, but is what the ISPs owe to the public. He asks, "Does anybody else feel like waving a flag after reading this?" "If the phone companies had to negotiate for every pole, every sewer, every punch-down, every junction box, every road they get to tear up, they'd go broke. All the money in the world couldn't pay for the access they get for free every day... If they don't like it, let them get into another line of work — give them 60 days to get their wires out of our dirt and then sell the franchise to provide network services to a competitor who will promise to give us a solid digital future in exchange for our generosity."
No. I feel like marching in protest. That didn't make me feel more patriotic. It made me feel more willing to express my frustration with the telcos.
Unless he meant a white flag. In which case I have to say, definitely no. That did not make me want to surrender. Of course, I'm not a telco -- maybe reading that would make them want to surrender -- price-gouging surrender monkeys that they are.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Not sure what kind of flag he's talking about, but I'm thinking a red one?
Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.
Cory Doctorow is working his ass off to come out of obscurity.
http://www.boingboing.net/2006/02/14/why-publishing-shoul.html
It's a shame that he's turning into a loudmouthed pundit rather than an author I'd care to read.
I drove down the highway today and was stuck in traffic for a long while. There were lots of cars zipping in and out, but the main problem was a group of long-haul trucks taking up a mile of roadway. The amount of road we have is finite, so the addition of these large trucks is fine for a few, but once you start getting more than a handful of trucks on the road, all traffic is affect.
But Net Neutrality is a tough issue. Yes, clearly, as users we want as unfettered a line as possible. However, the ISP also needs to balance the needs of all the users against the needs of certain special users.
If it weren't for some users flooding the network with massive filesharing packets, this would all be a non-issue. Actually, for most users it still is since most users are not affected at all by bandwidth strangling.
Right...because the Democrats aren't sold out to the telcos.
What competitive free market? In my neighborhood, there are two options for consumer broadband, just like everyone's, across the nation. Those options increase if you're willing to pay $300.00 for a T1, but the cable/telco duopolies throughout the US prohibit a truly competitive environment.
The CB App. What's your 20?
The only sucker around here is the one that thinks that either one is better than other.
The both have sold out. Blasting one and supporting the other is height of foolishness.
You're half right. If you had said "Fuck the Republicans AND Democrats" I could agree with you 100 percent.
If you treat brit74 like he's relevant, then he will believe he is. Just saying...
"I don't think I've ever heard an argument that was serious for the other side of this issue."
Over here in the states, the counter arguments generally run something like, "Good day, Senator So-and-so. Here's a pile of cash the size of Rhode Island. We would encourage you to let ISPs run roughshod over consumers. Sound good?"
"give them 60 days to get their wires out of our dirt and then sell the franchise to provide network services to a competitor who will promise to give us a solid digital future in exchange for our generosity."
What generosity? The city owns the land they're using, not you.
In exchange for the huge capital outlay of installing the infrastructure, the city gives them certain rights. It's a win-win.
Let's see if I can summarize the gist of most Slashdot articles recently:
- Screw any internet provider that wants to cap any users or charge a lot more for heavy users.
- Screw any internet provider that wants to give more weight to some traffic over others.
- Give me my P2P
Sorry, something has to give. It's basic economics.
Cheap internet. Open internet. No usage caps.
Pick 2.
Ironically, the word ironically is often used incorrectly.
Thats a nice idea in principle, but it won't happen. Currently few people are buying houses and property because of the media-led housing scare. Because of this scare, some people have simply stopped making house payments leading to foreclosure of many homes, this leads to banks being tight with money, this leads to few people buying houses.
Making places even more expensive is not the answer. Even with many homes and properties being sold at a loss there are still relatively few buyers. By mandating trivial things, it only hurts the free market.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Parent was referring to the somewhat recent Google April Fool's joke, not actually trolling. See: http://www.google.com/tisp/
My God Slashdot, have we gotten to the point where people just mod as "Troll" anything they don't understand?
--bornagainpenguin
Have a Virgin Mobile USA smartphone? Give VMRoms.com a try!
Does anyone know of an ISP that is actually blocking a competitor's site?
Careful! Some QoS is good! I *want* my ISP to QoS VoIP traffic. If they QoS their internal VoIP traffic, but not traffic that goes outside their network, it that their fault? Will stupid laws prevent them from providing quality VoIP services within their network? What if the ISP routes VoIP traffic to special links? Is this a form of QoS that violates the spirit of the Internet?
I think it is unfair for me to have to pay more for my bursty usage just because some guy wants to torrent 24/7. If you want more expensive Internet service, then by all means, pass a law that prevents capping. The funny thing is that a law like that will just help the big telcoms that have plenty of peering. The smaller, local ISP's will die because they won't be able to support the costs of their transit links.
And the monopoly the utilities have was in every case granted by the state. The free market doesn't enter into it. Arguably, some things are naturally best managed by monopolies. Online services, outside of maybe - and it's a stretch - the cables that carry them, are not best served by a monopoly. Every time someone argues that the free market is responsible for monopoly misbehavior, my blood pressure goes up ten points. Free markets imply competition, which is distinctly lacking in the telco context thanks to government intervention.
I understand the sentiment, but the correct answer is "I will never vote for any politician who puts corporate interest ahead of the welfare of citizens and neither should you."
This covers many Democrats and all Republicans. Unfortunately, it also seems to cover most Libertarians.
Corporations are the enemy of Democracy. Not because it's a necessary part of doing business, but because they've have chosen that path.
The only solution is to take all private money out of the election process. There needs to be iron-clad, enforced limitations on campaign finance, with a Justice Department squad whose only job is to make sure that a brand new set of campaign finance laws are enforced without exception.
The notion (put forth by corporatist SCOTUS judges) that MONEY=SPEECH has been the single most destructive opinion put forth by the Supreme Court of the United States in our history. We will never again have fair elections, accountable office-holders or a strong middle class until we have reduced the influence of money in our political system.
Term limits aren't enough. Campaign finance "reform" isn't enough.
You are welcome on my lawn.
because we would still be using telegraph if we had to rely on the government to improve communications infrastructure
What about
sounds like we'd still be using a glorified telegraph without the government to me.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
Oh that's BS and you know it.
Monopolies inevitably become excessive. Free markets are just another buzzword for leave me alone, I want to suck as much out of something as I can without regulation or pesky rules to get in my way.
The states comprised 47 different authorities that the monopolies had to deal with, so they lobbied moving things to a federal level so they only had one jurisdiction to bribe. Now the state utility authorities are almost toothless when it comes to regulating the re-formed giants that are Verizon, Quest, AT&T, etc.
These guys are very interested in TOTAL domination of their markets and they know they have the cost barrier points in their favor, signed-sealed-and-delivered by the FCC and the Congress. After all, they PAID FOR IT. Go ahead, check out the records of how much the utilities have spent on lobbying and campaign contributions (yes, legal bribes).
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
See, this is the kind of silliness that has gotten us here.
The "competitive, free market" is code for siphoning wealth from the productive middle and working classes and giving it to anti-national corporations who are openly hostile to the very notion of Democracy.
It's a fiction that's been created by (guess who?) the corporate interests that are the only ones to benefit from the kind of lawless laissez faire we've been subjected to. They create well-funded "think tanks" like the Heritage Foundation to sell this idea using corporate-paid media voices on corporate-owned media outlets. They have even created the false notion that this fictional "competitive free-market" is the only solution to our problems even as it continues to destabilize societies and impoverish people. Of course, they can never point to a place on Earth where anything like a "competitive, free market" has been "ensured" but it doesn't stop them from selling this poisonous notion.
The damage being done to human societies by unfettered corporations dwarfs any threat by so-called "terrorists".
You are welcome on my lawn.
It always fascinates me, the way jealousy warps the human psyche.
There will always be small people who simply burn at the notion of someone else being talented and successful, especially someone who's not only talented and successful but who has made a large impact on the Internet culture that they enjoy, publishes earnest, well-written science fiction and runs what has been one of the most widely-enjoyed websites about technology and culture, while at the same time staying uniquely independent of commercial influence. Someone who also constantly goes out of his way to bring exposure to other talented, creative people with interesting points of view. That's what brings out the wrath of "Goldberg's Pants".
You young guys take note: When you hate someone for having what you do not, you bring curses upon your own head. The classical Greek dramatists pointed this out and it's no less true today.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Because the government is terrible at managing things, has no competition, and little oversight.
Not true, no matter how much it's the cornerstone of libertarian thinking. It's just that the stuff that the government does manage really well hardly ever gets noticed. Examples include municipal water systems, fire fighting and prevention, traffic controls, and park systems. Municipal power companies also tend to do at least as well as their private competitors in the next town or city over in terms of providing cheap and efficient service to their customers.
I am officially gone from
And that's a valid reason to vote Republican?
Some progress is better than no progress. After a while, maybe the Republicans will get a clue and become even more progressive than the Democrats!
But even if that never happens, it's still better to choose the party of least corruption (unless, I suppose, you are a purveyor of corruption).
Two sides of the same coin.
With one side facing backwards and the other facing forwards...
Because the telcos are terrible at managing things, have no competition, and little oversight.
There, fixed that for you.
But even if that never happens, it's still better to choose the party of least corruption
That is generally going to be the party out of power. So it's actually not a bad idea.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
I've missed your ideological diatribes against anything smacking of non-anarchical systems.
That's right, they'll see one or none. Because no one is going to build out the infrastructure if they can't be assured they'll have a near-captive market.
It's the natural barriers to entry that make monopolies in telecom exist. It's the regulation of monopolies in telecom that should prevent those monopolies from abusing their position.
Competition is not the natural consequence on unregulated markets. Monopolies are the natural consequence of unregulated markets, since there is no such thing as an ideal free market.
Even the Austrian school of economic theory recognizes the need for intervention to keep monopolies from limiting the efficient allocation of resources, and that monopolies are the natural result of largely imperfect markets (like this one, where the huge *natural* barrier to entry makes it so).
Of course, you may be perfectly fine with serial monopoly, but in that case you must be unfamiliar with the sunk costs involved in serial monopolies, which represent inefficient allocation of resources.
We've been over this before, I'm just not sure if you recall the discussion.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Or quite possibly he really is an irrelevant blowhard with a stupid website. Just because someone may (or may not) be jealous doesn't mean their statement is any less true.
And his article isn't THAT compelling, but he does bring up a point that telcos and cablecos would like us to forget: their physical plant makes use of public roadways and rights of way to route their wiring to their customers. If they refuse to invest sufficiently in their networks to provide adequate service to all their customers without traffic shaping shenanigans, then government should replace them with someone else who will.
I think telco and cableco ISPs are classic examples of "gatekeeper" organizations who feel entitled to a cushy income by merely existing and having the power to exact that income. In Michael Heller's recent book "The Gridlock Economy" (highly recommended reading for anyone interested in the harm that "gatekeeper" organizations and their sense of entitlement can do to the economy) he relates the history of the so-called "robber baron" castles along the Rhine River in Europe who exacted heavy tolls on all river traffic. There were so many castles and so many tolls to pay that river commerce became largely uneconomical. The economy of the time suffered until the advent of railroads which could bypass the river toll collectors.
Telcos and cablecos are by no means the only gatekeepers who hold back the economy - there are many other good examples. Net neutrality legislation is a good way for us to cut down the power wielded by these modern robber barons and freeing the Internet economy from their tolls.
As a note, after privatisation of the UK's (formerly state-owned) railways the service become considerably worse and the prices went up, not the other way round.
I agree with your general statements but I do take exception with the statement "This covers many Democrats and all Republicans. Unfortunately, it also seems to cover most Libertarians."
That statement regarding republicans and libertarians is part of the current liberal myths.
See this: http://www.opensecrets.org/overview/blio.php
Look here: http://www.opensecrets.org/bigpicture/DonorDemographics.php?cycle=2006
See that the Dems got the $10k and the $95K plus donation lead categories in even the 2006 cycle. IIn 2008, they smoked it by business.
Democrats got paid by business more than the Republicans. The MSM likes to say the Republicans are bought off more but it is not supported by the facts.
I'm not sure public campaign financing will work however. Do you really want to give these people more power to vote themselves more money to promote themselves? I do think it is a free speech issue and I would rather see a laws around TOTAL DISCLOSURE DOWN TO THE PENNY!!! Every penny, every donor, every time I believe would work better. Money should not equal access rather than saying money=speech is the problem. If I want to buy a billboard for my candidate, it is my money and I should be able to spend it as I see fit. It just should be fully disclosed and any quid pro quo should be obvious. That use to be what the press did but...
p.s. I'm not a republican or a democrat.
"I say we take off, nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."
And it always fascinates me that when encountering an opinion (usually but not always about a person) which conflicts with their own, many people will ascribe that opinion to jealousy no matter how well or how poorly reasoned the conflicting opinion is. Seems closely related somehow to those who enjoy accusing people of attempting to be 'trendy' for holding a contrarian viewpoint that is gaining popularity, without regard to the holders motivation.
"Gold still represents the ultimate form of payment in the world." - Alan Greenspan, 1999
Even a stopped clock is right twice a day. He may be a sensationalist blowhard, but that doesn't mean he'll never touch on a real issue. (Actually, it means he's likely to hit many, if only for attention. Ignore him, but don't disregard a real issue just because the loudest supporter is a nutcase.) Cory may be full of smoke, but where there's smoke there is a fire.
If you read TFA:
"Telus, a Canadian telcom that blocked access to a site established by its striking workers where they were airing their grievances."
The RIAA would love to make iTunes less popular to force people to their own services.
Hulu would love the chance to do this to YouTube. (Forget who makes $ off of celebrity jeopardy, the big prize is stopping amateur movie makers from developing enough of a following to ever pose a credible threat.)
Existing ISPs would love to make it harder to find competitors.
Sweetheart deals where big $ companies paid for upstarts to be unable to compete would be all over. To call that paranoia is to ignore history. (Including a fair amount of recent history) Imagine if before and during an RIAA style sue 'em all, don't bother to only sue guilty people style incident, the victims were unable to find legal assistance.
"Common Carrier" status was established, trading protections to Telcos in exchange for a lack of censoring for one reason, the blackmail capacity the phone companies were sitting on was a racket that could not only crush any other company it chose, it could be used against the country itself. Imagine the economic damage if just one major phone company decided to shut off for the day... The telcos could easily force themselves into power, and given the # of great deals given to them, it's uncertain whether they're being constantly appeased to prevent this, or if it has already happened and this is them giving themselves presents.
The truest form of "'Net neutrality" is for We the People to force the telcos - at gunpoint if necessary - to sell us back the "wires" and shared public infrastructure that they built for us. Cory seems to have *almost* identified the problem, but not quite, and so doesn't identify the correct solution.
The telecom industry should have been nothing more than contractors to the public interest, just as road construction crews are contractors; we don't allow road crews to retain ownership of the asphalt they lay down, and neither should we have allowed AT&T and its imitators to own the telegraph wires and everything else that has followed. We should have paid them ONCE for that work, and then perhaps kept them on as maintainers of that network, but at no point should they have been allowed to own the wires. That is where we screwed-up. Those wires belong to all of us, just as do the roads and the "airwaves" and the air we breathe. Those are all things shared by everyone that lend themselves perfectly to a bit of socialism... in this case public or (*gasp!*) "state" ownership.
The result of public ownership of the wires would be the inability of the telcos to blackmail us - or each other - for right of access. We the People would be in the driver's seat; if we didn't like the antics of one or more telcos, we could use our ownership of the wires to force them to shape up or ship out.
So your problem is with the man and not his argument? Sorry, you lose, automatically.
Moderation in everything, including moderation.
It always fascinates me, the way grown men retreat to the "you're just jealous!" argument when encountering criticism of their idols.
There will always be snivelling kowtows who simply burn at the notion that their heroes might not be as talented as they perceive, nor successful to those with values different from their own - especially when these prostrators consider the person not only talented and successful but are convinced that the Anointed has made an impact beyond their pulpit, published works that must surely also be enjoyed by those who have doffed their blinkers, while at the same time retained a quasi-Saintly independence from the world of decay and change. Someone who goes out of his way to praise those who agree with him. That's what brings out the wrath of the zealot.
You young guys take note: when you love someone because you think he is better than you and insult those who criticise him, you're no better than the Mediaeval peasant who cheered as the Church burnt the heretic. Every post-Renaissance humanist pointed this out and it's no less true today.
"Corporations are the enemy of Democracy"
Corporations are simply large businesses, structured that way for better profit and efficiency. While they can be powerful, they're no more an "enemy of democracy" than other large entities, including our own elected government. Furthermore, I'd like to see you live without corporate products for awhile. Come back and tell me what life is like for you when you can no longer buy cars from Toyota, computers from Apple, burgers from McDonalds, fly on planes from Boeing, or take antibiotics from Merck. You get back to us on what it was like to try and build your own cars, grow all your own food, and make your own clothing.
"The only solution is to take all private money out of the election process."
Bull. We need more private money in elections. We should be able to give whatever amount we damn well please to candidates and causes as long as a donor's list is publicly available. This is one thing I absolutely hated about John McCain, this stupid naive notion that government limitations on campaigns would make campaigns cleaner. All he and Feingold did was muck up the works and insure that new dodges and work-arounds would be created.
When you limit what people can give in a campaign, you limit their voice, because everything in a campaign... travel, TV commercials, everything costs money. What you're arguing for is government enforced limits of political speech. Screw that. McCain and Feingold were wrong about this, and so are you.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Judgments like this one contain information about the one giving them and not the topic discussed.
Thank you for offering an excellent example of how empty/rich this kind of language is:
Parsing the data:
the author is mystified (and maybe irritated)
author thinks CD is irrelevant (to what? presuming to author's criteria of relevance of people)
and a blowhard (??)
CD has a website (a useful fact!)
and the author thinks it's a stupid one (according to author's criteria? compared to what? can websites be stupid?)
The monopolies causing problems in this discussion are all government-granted monopolies. That seems to be the root cause of this problem. Your argument that "government corruption caused this problem, so let's add more government - surely it won't become corrupt this time" seems a bit weak.
While it made sense at one time to allow the phone company to own the lines, since they were taking a huge capital risk on this dubious "telephone" idea (heck, even if you had one, who would you call?), these days ownership of the last mile seems to be the real issue.
A government-owned last mile, with all companies allowed to compete to provide services from there, would seem to solve the problem without any sort of regulation of the internals of those companies. Unfortunately, it's hard to justify "changing the deal" with companies that recently spent lots of money to drag cable.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Monopolies inevitably become excessive
Funny, I don't remember my power company becoming excessive at any point. I remember prices going down once...
You see, many utilities are best served by local monopolies. If you don't like it, you're welcome to start your own power company... but don't look to me for help when you go bankrupt before you have customers.
Now, if internet service were run as a utility, and a minimum connection speed were mandated, then prices wouldn't be so bad, and it wouldn't matter so much if there were only one choice.
So your problem is with the man and not his argument? Sorry, you lose, automatically.
It depends. If the man you are discussing, is for instance a paedophile, Nazi, or terrorist, you are required to have a problem with them not just with their argument. If you are caught suggesting you do not have a problem with the person themselves, you will be labelled a "sympathiser", "evil", "scum of the earth", etc. On Slashdot, this principle is being rapidly rolled out to include Jack Thompson, all record executives, all patent attorneys, Microsoft employees (with the possible exception of Microsoft Research), Republicans, those who believe in God, and lastly but most importantly, people who think the three newer Star Wars movies weren't actually that bad.
Whoever wrote this article is truly ignorant.
Nothing to see here, move along!!!
This is the future I want. Regulated copper/fiber -- they're the utility!
Give access to as many ISPs as possible. Let those ISPs do whatever they want to
the packets -- as long as they tell you what they're doing in an open and honest
fashion. I'll pick the ISP that I want to use.
You can pick the ISP that gets subsidized by your favorite search engine. I might
have a more expensive ISP because they don't get such kick-backs...
Neutrality belongs at the access level -- not the networking level. Keep the access
neutral, and the rest will take care of itself.
Examples include municipal water systems, fire fighting and prevention, traffic controls, and park systems.
And Internet in certain parts of Canada.
As a Canadian with a Crown Corporation ISP it never ceases to amaze me how "libertarians" in the US with "open markets" receive so much less service and pay so much more for it, and rail against the type of service I have because "it never works".
It depends. If the man you are discussing, is for instance a paedophile, Nazi, or terrorist, you are required to have a problem with them not just with their argument.
And if the "paedophile, Nazi, or terrorist" finds the answer to life, the universe, and Everything, you will reject his answer automatically?
I'm not a supporter of the Austrian school, but
is, I'm pretty sure, flat-out wrong. According to the Austrians true monopolies only arise if government mandated or protected. Thus intervention in the marketplace, according to them, by the government is what gives rise to monopolies, not that intervention must stop them.
Additionally,
is a non sequitur; the conclusion is not following from the premise in any way I can see.
Well, he might live in Japan, but I live in Bulgaria (pop. density 68.9/km2, vs 31/km2 for USA) and I have 10 MBit connection for about 20 USD, while even in the most desolate inhabited area you can get at least DSL connection.
We have 1/7 of the nominal GDP per capita, so don't tell me it's just Japan. It's just everyone besides USA, and the faster you accept that, the faster you'll be able to fight for your rights.
Well, fine. If you want to criticise Mr. Doctorow then by all means do so. All I'd ask is to see some actual critical thinking there, rather than just arbitrary abuse. As someone already pointed out, it's difficult to see how some whose blog is widely read can be considered "irrelevant". Equally, the man seems to work rather hard in support of his chosen causes, so it's hard to make "blowhard" stick either.
On the other hand, I think I'd be slower to ascribe to jealousy that which could adequately be explained by trolling. Still, I don't think a word or two in Cory's defence was entirely uncalled for.
Don't let THEM immanentize the Eschaton!
As a fellow Brit, I wish it was our superior wit. In this case however, I think it is simply the fact you bothered to read and understand the post before responding to it.
I've been getting a depressing vibe from Slashdot lately, all the indignant yet unconsidered posts etc are making it clear that we're as a group no better than the ignorant people on the other side of the fence.
It always fascinates me, the way grown men retreat to ...
Wait, wait, wait... stop right there. That's one assumption too many. Who says anyone here is a grown man? And if they happen to be so foolish, I challenge them to cite evidence... evidence sufficient to counter 99.97% of all /. posts ever.
[Ego]out