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.

[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.