Disney Strikes Against Net Neutrality

1 a bee writes "Ars Technica is running a story by Matthew Lasar about how Disney's ESPN360.com is charging ISPs for 'bulk' access to their content. According to the article, if you visit ESPN using a 'non-subscribing' ISP, you're greeted with a message explaining why access is restricted for you. This raises a number of issues: '... it's one thing to charge users an access fee, another to charge the ISP, potentially passing the cost on to all the ISPs subscribers whether they're interested in the content or not.' Ironically, the issue came to the fore in a complaint from the American Cable Association (ACA) to the FCC. A quoted ACA press release warns, 'Media giants are in the early stages of becoming Internet gatekeepers by requiring broadband providers to pay for their Web-based content and services and include them as part of basic Internet access for all subscribers. These content providers are also preventing subscribers who are interested in the content from independently accessing it on broadband networks of providers that have refused to pay.' So, is this a real threat to net neutrality (and the end-to-end principle) or just another bad business model that doesn't stand a chance?"

Comments

Re:Well, the cable industry should know.

[thetoadwarrior]

Someone should have modded this funny by now.

Re:Well, the cable industry should know.

[cbiltcliffe]

Oh...you mean the Toyota that they kind of dent a little with a wrecking ball that swings 10 feet, then say "Ooooh! Look how tough it is! It's dented, and it still starts!!!"

That Toyota - I watched that vid a year or so ago - had a nice cushion of falling concrete when it dropped from the sky scraper, which is possibly the worst test it had.
After all of it, the wrecking ball, the sky scraper, the North Sea; it still looked like a truck.

That Buick looks like it's been...well, run over with a bulldozer. It doesn't look like a car anymore. There's virtually no body left, all the electrical systems are nearly destroyed, there are no rear wheels, and the thing still fucking drives.

Besides....mechanical engineers are not auto mechanics. My auto mechanic says the best minivan to get, bar none, is a Chrysler. Not a Honda, Toyota, or anything import. A Chrysler.

But you're making a blanket statement that all American cars are crap, and all Japanese ones are good.
Remember the 90's Civic del Sol? Worst body integrity in the industry, according to Consumer Reports.
How about the first Civic to sell in North America? It was crap. Absolute crap.

Every company goes through periods of good products, then periods of crap. Look at MS. Windows 3.0, crap.
3.1, not bad.
3.11 WfW, pretty good.
95, crap.
95 OSR2, reasonable.
98, reasonable.
98SE, pretty good.
Me, crap.
2K, pretty good.
XP, pretty good.
Vista, crap.

For MS, that cycle seems to be about 5-6 years long.
For car manufacturers, it's more like 40 years.
Well, the domestics had their latest crap period in the late 80's, early 90's.
The Japanese imports had it in the late 60's and 70's.

That means the Japanese are due sooner for their next period of crap than the domestics are.

Re:Well, the cable industry should know.

[Grishnakh]

Mitsubishi in general gives Japanese cars a bad name WRT reliability.

When people talk about super-reliable Japanese cars, they're usually talking about Honda and Toyota, and to a lesser extent Nissan. Definitely NOT Mitsubishi.

BTW, these aren't "preconceived notions"; there's plenty of statistical evidence to back up the claims that Japanese cars (being the Big 3: Honda, Toyota, Nissan) are much more reliable than the average Big 3 American car, and have been since the 80s.

Re:Well, the cable industry should know.

[Hadlock]

The irrefutable proof is the complete and total failure (and I am in no way exaggerating - see also: the buyout of GM, the sale of Chrysler to Fiat (FIAT! seriously.)) of the American auto industry, and the ascendancy of Toyota to the #1 manufacturer. Not to mention the interior quality (or complete lack thereof, have you seen the inside of a Chevy Malibu lately? You'd have a hard time determining if you were in a giant tupperware tub or an American Car) and the overall poor long term reliability (exception: trucks).
 
But keep buying American! Someone has to keep my government's stake in the company afloat long enough to sell the company to the next sucker.

Re:Well, the cable industry should know.

[cbiltcliffe]

I was right. You're an idiot.

A giant tupperware tub? Really? That's the best you could come up with?

When every Honda and Toyota I've been in recently looks like it was made by Fisher Price, but maybe without the horrendous colours?

I haven't seen a Japanese car from _any_ manufacturer recently that didn't look like plastic puked inside, and you're bitching about the domestics?

And another thing....either your sig line or your homepage link completely borks the formatting of your posts. Fix it.

Re:Well, the cable industry should know.

[Thinboy00]

That means the Japanese are due sooner for their next period of crap than the domestics are.

That assumes that history will repeat itself. Current economic conditions are unprecedented; this normally reasonable assumption is no longer valid.

Re:Well, the cable industry should know.

[Hadlock]

Well I was going to say "action packer" but unless you do a lot of camping you probably don't know what that is. Its the same type of plastic with the same texturing even, and if you've ever seen one you would make the connection immediately. Tupperware is a close analog and gets the point across nicely. Have you seen the inside of a Chevy Malibu? I'm not exaggerating when I say tupperware.
 
Attacking my descriptions doesn't help your argument, the fact still remains that American cars have generally terrible, plastic interiors. Nissan, Honda and Mazda (Mazda is owned by Ford, though you wouldn't know it sitting in one of their cars). Cadillacs are fairly nice inside, but you can buy a topped out Honda Accord for half the price and of better quality. VW and Toyota make pretty nice looking interiors for cars in the 18-30K range (what most people can afford). Though I wouldn't recommend a VW for reliability either.
 
All of your comments sound decidedly anti-foreign cars and I haven't heard a single concession from you about them which really hurts your credibility.

I haven't seen a Japanese car from _any_ manufacturer recently that didn't look like plastic puked inside, and you're bitching about the domestics?

Go look at a Nissan Murano, Mazda 3, Mazda 6, Honda Civic, Honda Accord, Toyota Corolla, Toyota Camry. Those are all excellent cars with fantastic interiors, near-spotless (the civic had some transmission issues in 2001 since it was an all-new car) reliability record for the past 20+ years. That's my "argument", which is accepted by the general public if you look at the sales data and consumer reports reliability records.
 
  When every Honda and Toyota I've been in recently looks like it was made by Fisher Price, but maybe without the horrendous colours
I'll concede the Challenger is damn cool looking, along with the Charger. But all of Ford's cars look awful, the new mustang looks nice but gutless compared to prototypes; GM makes "jellybeans"; other than a few halo cars American styling isn't much to write home about either.

Re:Well, the cable industry should know.

[cbiltcliffe]

and the ascendancy of Toyota to the #1 manufacturer.

You mean the Toyota that builds cars where the power windows may shatter, flinging glass in the drivers face, when you put them up or down? (Which, incidentally, also affects certain Pontiac vehicles that were manufactured in part by Toyota...)
http://www.automotive.com/2004/49/toyota/corolla/recalls/77773.html

Or the Toyota that builds cars where the wheels might fall of when you're driving, due to crappy rims?
http://www.automotive.com/2004/49/toyota/corolla/recalls/66552.html

Or maybe the Toyota that builds cars where that nice safety feature called an air bag just plain doesn't work?
http://www.automotive.com/2007/49/toyota/camry/recalls/50400.html

Re:Well, the cable industry should know.

[zvonik]

Your Honda isn't as robust as you think. It's an interference engine design and if you don't keep replacing the timing belt, it will catastrophically fail.

http://www.aa1car.com/library/2003/us70343.htm

Re:Well, the cable industry should know.

[deets101]

I owned 2 Fords, and the mechanics I would sometimes goto would just end the list of problems with, "But you know, it's a Ford." I have a Honda now, and I can tell you, I'm never going back.

Let me guess, now they just end the list with "bend over and hold on tight, this is gonna hurt!"

Re:Well, the cable industry should know.

[mwvdlee]

A comment some random person posted on a forum isn't "irrefutable proof".

How about this for proof...

For the USA index which takes into account only incident rate:
http://www.reliabilityindex.co.uk/man_index_2.html?country=usa&searchtype=relindex

For the UK index, which takes into account cost of repair and such:
http://www.reliabilityindex.co.uk/man_index_2.html?searchtype=relindex

In both charts lower scores are better.

If you compare the entire car Mitsubishi scores better than Chrysler.

If you compare only the engine, Chrysler scores better than Mitsubishi.