Net Neutrality Seen Through the Telegraph

James McP writes "Ars Technica has a write-up on the unregulated telegraph of the 19th century, which gives a view into what could happen to an internet lacking any regulation mandating neutrality. The owners of the 'Victorian internet' used their control of the telegraph to prop up monopolies, manipulate elections, facilitate insider trading, and censor criticism."

Comments

If you ever thought about learning Morse

[caluml]

If you ever thought about learning Morse, you can do it at this very good site: http://www.lcwo.net/. .-.

so clueless!

[FranTaylor]

"BadAnalogyGuy" is just so appropriate for you!

"There is only finite bandwidth available to everyone and one guy in his parents' basement can slow traffic for everyone else. "

"Shouldn't these users be forced to pay more for their extra usage or at least be throttled to the point they aren't causing physical damage to the entire system?"

Apart from all of that, you don't even know what is being talked about here. We are talking about REGULATING, CENSORING, and EVESDROPPING activities.

If you want to fix your Bad Analogy, you should compare this to allowing the turnpike authority to search the contents of every vehicle that enters their roadway, and also allowing them to steal and/or make substitutions for any cargo on any vehicle that enters their roadway.

There, I fixed your BAD ANALOGY for you.

Re:It doesn't matter who is violating your rights

[DreamsAreOkToo]

I'm currently living with 4 people. We are paying for a 120 mbps connection. However, when I'm on WoW, and my roommates are playing Modern Warfare, streaming Hulu or music, all of a suddenly we all lose connection. We all start cussing and swearing about it. But the internet only briefly stops (long enough to boot everyone playing a game online). If we keep trying to all connect, we lose connections again.

If I'm home alone, I never lose internet even for an instant.

So tell me, if I am paying $120 for internet, which is a lot more than everyone else, and I'm using 50 mbps of my 120 connection, why can they kick me? I should be able to use every bit they've sold me 24/7... or they should bloody well send me a fat refund plus damages for advertising their services as "Unlimited."

This is blatant monopoly abuse. A monopoly on a product that my tax money built.

Re:Duh

[dkleinsc]

After all, being truly machiavellian is an art rarely practiced outside of government.

Definitely not true. In fact, there's a pretty good book (as well as quite a few imitators) on the very subject of how Machiavelli is incredibly useful for understanding modern business.