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Netflix Trash-Talks Verizon's Network; Verizon Threatens To Sue
jfruh (300774) writes "If you're a Verizon broadband customer and you've tried streaming Netflix over the past few days, you might've seen a message telling you that the "Verizon network is crowded" and that your stream is being modified as a result. Verizon isn't taking this lying down, saying that there's no proof Verizon is responsible for Netflix's issues, and is threatening to sue over the warnings."
Since Netflix already paid off Comcast I'd wager they're willing to do the same for Verizon. However, Verizon is probably trying to bleed them for more than they're willing to pay. In other words, this is just their way of negotiating the contract down to a "reasonable" amount. (as if they should even have to make payoffs to the cable companies in the first place)
Considering Verizon owns(?) Redbox Instant, why wouldn't they throttle Netflix?
...over the sound of all its whining.
"I'd just like to emphasise that taking a million years isn't a metaphor here..." -Rich Bradshaw
I'll run a comparison with my current network (Verizon) and when Google Fiber finally drops in my area. I'm sure I'll find all the proof I need.
How can we cheer for that?
I was doing a bit of streaming over the weekend (BSG) from my Tivo on FIOS and didn't get see any messages nor did I see performance problems.
if (check_network_speed() == '-1'){
if (our_nets_check_ok() && systems_latency_ok()){
print "the $network is crowded";
}
}
Good people go to bed earlier.
Right. Verizon isn't artificially limiting network speeds. Just like Comcast wasn't.
I'm really interested to see what evidence ends up being offered in this. Can Netflix prove that ISPs are at fault? Can Verizon prove that it's not their fault.
I find this part pretty interesting:
Citing the Internet Phenomena blog, Verizon said that instead of using its ability to connect directly to every broadband network in the country, Netflix has tried to cut costs by relying on a "panoply of content-distribution and other middle-man networks" to reach customers.
It seems like an awfully strange complaint. How is Netflix supposed to "connect directly", and are people not supposed to use content distribution networks? What's the argument exactly on Verizon's side. If Netflix is using a "panoply of content-distribution networks", I would think that'd imply that they should be able to get decent distribution without suffering bottlenecks on their end of things.
Since we are talking about static content, you can have it cached right next to the consumer, if you want.
BUT.
No one is interested in a solution which not only solve this, but also let anyone to use and cache their content, independent of the provider.
What everybody in the Internet industry is doing instead is trash-talking each other.
I have both Verizon FIOS and Netflix. Here is what I, as a user/subscriber, expect. I pay Netflix to stream movies. I pay Verizon to provide me bandwidth and internet/web access. I don't pay either of them to throttle my connection or do what they want to quality. I pay for X amount, and expect to get it. If Verizon cannot hold up their end of the deal to provide me a pipe, then they aren't doing their job.
I will shred my adversaries. Pull their eyes out just enough to turn them towards their mewing, mutilated faces. Illyria
Haha this suit is never coming, they sure as hell don't want to be in a courtroom over this topic too much risk in having netflix expose them and others.
I can completely confirm Netflix''s claims. In the last month streaming over FIOS has become unbearable. Last week I couldn't take it and ordered Optimum. Streaming is back to normal and even latency and bandwidth to other services has improved. If you can, dump this bloated monopoly known as Verizon. Why did we break up AT&T to just to create a new monopoly 30 years later?
Well this seems like a fine "solution" to companies that are trying to get rid of net neutrality.
What if every big content provider started popping up such messages? Let the user know directly that their content is being delivered slower because their net provider is throttling the data.
As long as the content provider can accurately determine this is happening, then what can anybody do to stop them from saying it? Verizon can huff and puff about it but if its provably true can they legally do anything to stop it?
I bet people start caring about net neutrality real fast..
-- Senior Software Engineer, Attorney appearance services, locallawyerapp.com.
Wrong.
Just a sample of median income over time,, race, etc (in 2004 dollars) (source):
1950 -- White men: $18000; White women: $ 7000; Black men: $ 9775; Black women: $ 3150
1980 -- White men: $28939; White women: $10741; Black men: $17390; Black women: $ 9944
2004 -- White men: $31335; White women: $17648; Black men: $22740; Black women: $18379
Not only has (inflation adjusted) median-- not mean! -- income risen, it looks to my casual eye like the disparity has massively dropped. It went from a 3:1 ratio for black men to women to 1.25:1; between blacks and whites it went from ~2:1 to ~1.5:1.
If you were to look at education over the past 100 years you would see the same trend. Im not sure where people are getting these "facts" about the dismantled middle class but theyre terribly wrong. All of this talk about class warfare can only be made by one completely oblivious to reality and history.
Because now that they have paid Comcast. Netflix has the potential to claim actual financial damages, allowing them to bring a case all the up to the Supreme Court.
2004-2014 ?
A lot has happened in the last decade....
How is this different than the "use firefox" or "we recommend internet explorer" or "we recommend chrome"
that many banks, websites, etc... have routinely shown. Many websites have gone so far as blocking you
if you didn't have an "approved" browser. I see no reason why netflix can't do the same. They could even
do something like "because we have detected that you will get a subpar experience, we currently don't allow
verizon customers to use our service".
No matter which side of the Net Neutrality debate you espouse, how is this newsworthy? *Of course* Verizon is threatening to sue. Look, this is not a case of some random stranger calling the person's baby ugly - this is straight up libel, until proven otherwise (and Verizon requested they prove otherwise, if you care to read the source material). I would expect nothing less of any publicly traded company whose key service was dissed by another publicly traded company in a very public way. I might have expected more professional behavior by Netflix, but given recent history, I should not and will not again.
Is buffer bloat -- the over-buffering many ISPs do in the hopes of giving better last-mile performance, but which actually breaks TCP's internal throttling mechanisms -- part of what is at fault, here?
Well, apparently, you only have to fool the majority of people for a little while.
The flaw in your reason is is that inflation adjusted median income growth is a poor measure for purchasing power. You have adjust the median income growth with the expenditures side to get Purchasing Power Parity. Today, middle income people are feel poorer and are poorer than their 1950s 60s counterpart.
All of this talk about class warfare can only be made by one completely oblivious to reality and history.
The only part of your entire post that was worth anything.
Im not sure where people are getting these "facts" about the dismantled middle class but theyre terribly wrong
$18k was middle class black in 1950, but once you adjust for inflation, that means in 2004, they should be making about $54k assuming a low 2% inflation, but they're only making $31k. So the median white man when from middle class in 1950 to "lower class" in 2004. The other demographics have gone up, and that's great, but we have fewer middle class.
In the US, it doesn't matter if there's no proof that Verizon is responsible for Netflix's issues. As the plaintiff, it would be Verizon's burden to show that there is proof that they aren't.
I've been getting this same message with Mediacom lately. I'd say it started a little over a month ago. ...other streaming services seem to work fine
"The source of the buffering problem faced by Netflix customers is almost certainly not congestion in Verizon's network, but most likely congestion on the connection that Netflix has chosen to use to reach Verizon's network, David Young, Verizon's vice president for federal regulatory affairs, wrote in a blog post on Wednesday."
I.e. They didn't pay us enough to use our un-throttled connection, er fast-lane.
You missed the "in 2004 dollars" part of the GPs post. In 1950s dollars, median income was below $5000.
Now, with income disparity increasing the middle class may well feel like they're worse off, but they really aren't. They are, however, relatively further behind the wealthiest.
$18k was middle class black in 1950, but once you adjust for inflation, that means in 2004, they should be making about $54k assuming a low 2% inflation,
Is your bias so thick that you didnt even bother to see if the number was already inflation adjusted? ..or are you so uneducated that you think $18K was a middle class income in the 1950's? Which is it? Disingenuous bias or tragic ignorance?
..but here you are, claiming that it was $18K before adjusting for inflation... disingenuous? ignorance? both?
The unadjusted figure for white males for the 1950's is $2,709
There is a reason that "the right" is doing better financially, and its not because they are holding you down. You are holding yourself down by not giving a fuck about things like facts.
"His name was James Damore."
They are being enslaved willingly. So I do not care for them at all. If people want to give up their freedoms so they can be lazy and feels safe then fine. I just want these lazy pussies to stop trying to give away my freedoms and responsibilities.
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
The whole concept of live streaming accross the internet has always been a stupid idea for pre-recorded non-live media consumption
There is no basis for Netflix to assert that issues relating to playback of any particular video session are attributable solely to Verizon, according to the letter. ... The source of the buffering problem faced by Netflix customers is almost certainly not congestion in Verizon's network ...
I'm not saying either Netflix or Verizon is right or wrong, but given the greed displayed by many (most?) ISPs, wanting to double-dip from the money trough, I'm presently inclined to side with Netflix.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
One of the fundamental problems here is that consumers don't always have a choice of ISP. At best, most can choose between two local monopolies, so... yeah.
Bleeding hear dipshits. You do not even see how fucking horrible your statement was.
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
How dare we make them choose!
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
I guess you could also look at this way.
Yes, i am doing better. But i saw some other guy doing worse than me! Fuck you, give me more of your money. Not like you have any other choice anyway, so you may as well just bend over while i rape you with my increased prices.
I have FiOS 75gig down and 35gig up. A few months ago I noticed that Netflix was dog slow as before it wasn't. I'm paying Verizon big money for internet. This is the same as when Verizon got involved at stopping their customers from going to different sites because of piracy reasons and enforcing fines to be paid directly to Verizon. Same damn program. Google fiber is what I'll be moving towards when my area gets it.
The entitlement that some people feel is amazing. It does not matter that they have a car and a flat screen and video games. That they never have to starve. Food is given out for free. Life is easier for the "poor" than it has ever been. They still want to bitch because some people have it better than them. And because they feel that way. That things must be given to them to make them more equal they can never succeed.
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
Verizon is asking customers to buy something like 10Mbps download speed and an order of magnitude less of upload speed. Now Verizon gets "congested", and they claim a surplus of content generated by upload to its network being responsible for that and want to get paid extra for that upload content.
What are they billing their customers for then, if it does not include actually downloading stuff from others? Looking at the Verizon billing page or what? And that is going to saturate the bandwidth they are paying for?
lol, I wish that was the issues of being poor in the US...
we are all invisible unless we choose otherwise
I r blind. Thank you my good sir.
"ignorance" it is! Really, it is.. sorry. Thanks for the correction.
"Verizon network is crowded"
I see no mention of Verizon's mother in this quote. I find the claim of trash talk to be exaggerated.
Net neutrality always seemed so one sided unless you have an imagination like mine and apparently Netflix's. It's always stated as "demand money and there's nothing they can do about being throttled." Yeah, except you're the content provider and you can send whatever messages you want on-screen, in an e-mail, etc. One little "if you want better quality and buffering speed, switch to someone other than Verizon" message and suddenly Verizon is the one losing millions.
By making the consumers WANT it to die.
Netflix already backed down: http://time.com/2848782/netfli...
I don't think that means what you think it means. Trash talk is untrue and inflammatory. Netflix' wording is anything but and actually pretty conservative.
The Verizon network *is* crowded because they're willfully neglecting to build out the infrastructure as they should be.
Furthermore, one can buy partial ownership of these corporations for money. If corporations control everything, just buy your fair share (1/300,000,000th) of all US corps and you've got your proportional vote (and that's only like $50k).
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Im not sure where people are getting these "facts" about the dismantled middle class but theyre terribly wrong. All of this talk about class warfare can only be made by one completely oblivious to reality and history.
Its far worse than just not knowing the facts - they get simple reasoning wrong too. For instance they think that if say 90% of people were only making 0.001% of the money, that 90% of the people would be doing badly. It is the "inequality" that leads them to this hair-brained completely illogical conclusion. If 9 out of 10 people made $10 per day, then $10 per day would buy a lot of goods and especially services (do they really think that the top 10% provide services?) This is obviously so if you take currency out of the equation and reduce your arguments to a pure barter system instead of economy by proxy. If I could trade 8 hours of my labor for 8 hours of yours on simple barter, than whatever amount of money we make as a proxy to avoid direct barter is irrelevant.
This is convincing proof that the people people that complain about "income inequality" really and truly are completely ignorant about economics. They've been told before that the measure of wealth is the goods and services that you can enjoy and not the specific number of currency units you command, but it simply doesnt sink in. They keep talking about the "inequality" rather than anyones wealth. If they had to actually talk about wealth, they would have to admit that most folks are doing really well compared to pretty much any other point in history, be it 20 years ago or 50 years ago.
They think things must have been "better" in the past because... what? There are some likely outlying culprits as to why its so easy for these ignorant twats to convince themselves.. such as the price of a house, or of an education, but explain to them how government has fucked up both markets greatly distorting prices upwards to completely irrational levels, well they simply dont want to accept it. Those programs that fucked up those markets have good intentions, so instead it must be some 1%'re conspiracy against the populous.
"His name was James Damore."
The elephant in the room: Requiring streaming for every customer simultaneously with no option for offline playback is a broken model with respect to how the internet works.
Granted, since any customer can arbitrarily choose any item in the Netflix library for viewing, the capability for streaming in real-time needs to work decently well. In practice, however, only the things in "My List" are likely to be viewed by a given customer, so downloading to a local cache would allow playback at optimal quality without needing ideal network performance.
It seems to me the intense desire on the part of Netflix and the "rights holders" for full control, maximum monetization and the deep rooted fear that someone might figure out how to make a copy is the real reason this is even a problem.
I would have no problem with a Netflix client that incorporated some sort of DVR-like functionality so that items of interest could be added to a local queue (sorry - queue is a deprecated term - My Local List). That would be wonderful for situations where the available network is sketchy (eg. hotel, coffeeshop) or not present (airplane, campsite, beach, etc). Rampant sharing could be minimized by allowing only one (or a few) devices to have the locally cached content, and requiring a network connection to download or release a particular item. Or if that's too complicated, just allow a limited number of authorized devices per account that can cache the same content.
I think enough customers would take advantage of this to alleviate the problems caused by real-time streaming and take a lot of power away from the intermediaries.
It's not so much whether or not the median has risen as the huge gap between the mean and the median that tells you about the middle class. The median is a better indicator of what people do make, the median is an indicator of what they should make.
when people talk about "the poor" in america, thats usually who they are not talking about. Rarely do we ever talk about the truely poor in this country unfortunately
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
I've been finding many angry homeowners getting COMCAST! reinstalled, where it had been dropped for Fios.
Also Verizon doesn't give a fuck about thier fiber it feels, No tracer with ANY service, and won't respond to calls about conduit with a fiber line thick as My fist running in it... Lots and lots of fiber line hits with no one to blame but themselves.
Do you actually own your home? How about your car? You and not the bank likely owned them in the 50's and that is with a single income family.
You don't just have to factor for inflation, you also have to factor out manufacturing efficiency increases. A toaster today does not equate to the same value as a toaster in the 50's. A toaster in the 50's represents more labor and natural resources than a toaster today. A toaster today probably costs $10 but to buy something with an equivalent amount of resources as a 1950's toaster is going to cost at least $100-$200 today.
There is a form of hidden inflation where the reduced purchasing power of citizens in the western world is hidden by improving manufacturing efficiencies and reducing the quality of goods and services.
So while you might have two cars in the garage with your dual income and both mostly owned by the bank, your 1950's single income family counterpart's purchasing power would have them owning at least 4 or 5 modern cars.
Not that this has anything to do with the actual topic of this story, but I don't think that's an accurate description of the situation. We're not being bred for slavery because (even if they were morally willing to) the ruling class no longer has a need for slaves in the long-term (the only time-frame that a "breeding program" would actually be useful). Automation will be the new "slavery" without all the nagging ethical issues of real slavery. It will leave only the most "interesting" jobs remaining (before strong AI, if it's actually possible, replaces even those jobs) which the small portion of the population comprising the ruling class will be able to perform as hobbies to feed their intellectual curiosity/egos.
If anything, we are being obsoleted and the present struggle is between those of the ruling classes that have ethics/morals and those that don't over what to do with the excess of humans that will soon no longer be needed. The ones with ethics/morals will push for more socialization, education, and birth control adoption while the ones without morals/ethics will be more inclined to focus all excess resources/energy towards personal profits and ego driven vanity projects while letting the masses starve. They'll push for the use of highly automated police/military forces to put down any civil/political unrest.
Rules of Conduct:
#1 - The DM is always right.
#2 - If the DM is wrong, see rule #1
You can buy partial ownership, but you can't buy partial control. Groups of people can buy partial control, but it takes large groups, and they have to act through delegated representatives....who generally figure that anything that produces more money must be good. (There are specialized funds with different values, but few of them are available as, say, retirement investments.)
If you don't have control of 5% of the stock, you very rarely have ANY influence over policy. Occasionally a decision will be close enough that a smaller block will become important, but not often. Usually if a choice is that contested, it will be deferred.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
You throw aside the fact that the poor peoples lives are easier and better with statements about "improving manufacturing efficiencies". Like that means nothing.
You can not get it past your need to hate the rich that their investments into increasing their wealth are what made the "improving manufacturing efficiencies". Just because they got more out of it than the little guy in no way allows you to just throw out the very real improvements in their lives.
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
That assessment fails to account for purchasing power. Inflation does not accurately reflect purchasing power because of manufacturing and technology improvements (and quality reduction) since the 1950s. It also fails to account that the 2004 values are household vs household. In the 1950's households were generally single income whereas the majority of households are dual income now so having an equal income means getting half as much income per hour of labor worked.
So households now are contributing twice as many units of labor to society and able to purchase fewer total units of labor and natural resources vs the 50's. Where is all that labor going? Mostly to produce the excess valued consumed and stored by the top 1%.
Wish I lived in your world...
But wait, you were poor once... you think...
Cheap storage VM.
A 1950's TV would cost ~$495 in 1950 dollars, which is ~$5,000 in 2014 dollars. It would be 21", low resolution, not capable of HD, use a ton of electricity, and eventually the phosphors would give out causing it to have wierd colors. In 2014 you can get a 52" TV for $600.
Hows that for "hidden inflation"?
Except that half of my post was demonstrating a DECREASING disparity.
Median incomes listed are per person, not per household-- hence the inclusion of gender data.
Verizon has an interesting way of dealing with arrangements they do not like. They blame the other guy.
In my company we are dealing with two separate Verizon/Cogent peering issues. We have an office with a 100mbit cogentco and an office with 100mbit Verizon eth handoff. The transfer between the two offices is terrible. I mean for hours the max throughput we can get between them is less than 5KB/sec with long periods of packet loss. In another office with Cogent back to that same place with Verizon is a little better but not great, average of about 20Mbit/sec. Those same offices have no problems with our other offices with various carriers other than Verizon. Only our 2 Verizon Cogent places suck.
This problem has gone on for almost 2 years. I've been on the phone with each carrier more than I should have . The bottom line is the peering point where Cogent meets Verizon in each of these areas is way over-saturated and Cogent has shown us some data to indicate they have done everything they can do to increase the throughput there but the bottom line is Verizon has to upgrade their end. Verizon feels it is not their problem and only offered that we switch our Cogent offices over to Verizon.
We are a customer of both carriers and our transfers are direct from us to us so it is really hard for them to pass the blame but they are.
If Verizon does not like the deal they are getting, they will and do actively limit or will not upgrade peer points and the other carrier will be blamed. When they say it is not their issue that a peering point is saturated, they mean it. They will not do anything about it and expect you to complain to the other carrier. I bet this same exact thing is happening with Netflix.
It's not even that simple. Some things have gotten cheaper, others have gotten MUCH more expensive. Housing has gotten more expensive much faster than inflation, though there are arguments that it's quality has improved. (I don't accept them, by the way. My grandfather's very cheap house was better than an expensie modern house. For one thing, it was a lot more durable.) People are coerced into buying condominiums or trailers because the price of land makes simple ownership insupportable.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
If you were to look at education over the past 100 years you would see the same trend. Im not sure where people are getting these "facts" about the dismantled middle class but theyre terribly wrong. All of this talk about class warfare can only be made by one completely oblivious to reality and history.
Maybe the problem is you are looking at the wrong thing. Average income isn't what defines middle class. The change in average CPI from 2004 to 2013 is 23.32% That would mean the 2004 numbers if they kept up with inflation would be white men $38,642, White women $21,764, Black men $28,043 and Black women $22,665. Do you really think somebody making those amounts in 2014 is middle class?
No, to determine what is happening to the middle class you to look at the number of people in lower, middle and upper class income ranges. If you do that, you will find that the middle class has shrunk and the lower class has increased. It's a serious issue because historically, how the middle class went, is how the economy went as most of the purchasing power was concentrated there.
"If I could trade 8 hours of my labor for 8 hours of yours on simple barter, than whatever amount of money we make as a proxy to avoid direct barter is irrelevant."
But you can't. I can trade 8hrs of my labor for the output of 3 of your hours. We each give 5 hours worth of every 8 hours we work to a "passive investor" aka someone who is leeching from the system without contributing labor of their own or who is contributing labor but each hour of their labor get traded for 10's, 100's, 1000's, or millions of hours worth of other people's labor.
The proxy system is very relevant because it abstracts this in such a way that people can't see what a lousy trade that is.
The problem is the way they do their accounting, people pay a monthly rate no matter what, and every bit they deliver is written down as an expense. Verizon doesn't feel they are obligated to actually provide the service their customers are paying for. I'm not even sure what they think their customers are paying for. They will readily admit that 30% of their peak traffic is Netflix, but somehow it never occurred to them that some customers might be paying them $120/month so they can have access to Netflix. Also, if Netflix can deliver this service $8/month (most of which is spent buying content), it's hard to believe Verizon can't keep up with them for 15 times that amount! In reality, there's a bunch of shady nonsense going on here.
If Verizon doesn't like government regulations, they probably shouldn't be such total assholes to their customers. You'd think that the geniuses running that company would have the foresight to realize their monopoly is only secure as long as their customers are happy, but instead they are pulling this crap.
If you prefer a free market solution, we could pass a law requiring ISPs to charge per GB delivered. Then they'd get the message that their customers are paying for data, not whatever the fuck Verizon thinks they're providing. But either way, Verizon is totally in the wrong here.
Median income isn't a particularly relevant measure. If the incomes are now flatter below the median, that would indicate fewer people are being excluded from the middle (I'm pretty sure that's not the case except at the lowest incomes), if the incomes are steeper above the median it means that there is more wealth in the hands of more people (again, I am sure this is not the case except at the highest incomes). Show me the 10th, 25th, 75th and 90th percentile incomes and then we'll talk.
The US government have made it clear that we have no inalienable rights; any we do not defend vigorously will be taken.
Comcast is really fast, Verizon is slow... but then Netflix pays a ransom to Comcast and does not to Verizon. Maybe they are related?
WHO CARES about the "1%"??? The system we have is pulling everyone up at a phenomenal range; if some people make a lot of money doing so, who, really, needs to care about that?
There *is* income inequality, and it *has* gotten worse. I will agree that the ways of measuring it are jiggered, but I don't have a simple way that's inclusive. You could consider how much living space each person controlled as a proxy, but it's clearly incomplete. And you actually CAN'T reduce current economy to a pure barter equivalent. I'm not sure it could be done in principle, but I'm quite clear that it can't be done in practice. You can only reduce simplified slices of it to such a system.
One example of this is the problem of how much (non-reimbursed) of each year do you work to support the government? I've heard arguments that have put the date in June or July, but they aren't counting reimbursal of services, like road maintenance, radio spectrum allocation, etc. And you can't get agreement about this because people differ as to what they consider reimbursal. A thief doesn't consider governmental theft prevention efforts to be to his advantage...unless he's devised ways to work around them. A bicycleist doesn't consider enabling cars to go faster to be advantageous. Etc. (Yes, I'm picking oversimplified outlier cases. The problem, however, is deep. E.g. people change their opinions about what is "reimbursement" depending on what's happend recently.)
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
There is a reason that "the right" is doing better financially, and its not because they are holding you down. You are holding yourself down by not giving a fuck about things like facts.
It's sad to see someone criticizing another for bias and then throwing something like this out. No one said anything about "the right," and if you're going to throw out a claim like that you should back it up with something.
If "the right" means Republicans, as it usually does in the US, I've seen nothing but poor financial decisions out of them in the few decades that I've been paying attention. I would not say that they're doing better financially. (better than who? "the left"? the middle class, as the grandparent was discussing?)
Prices for everything one needs to live are lower than ever. Subsistence food was over half of family budgets 100 years ago.
Meanwhile, if you're well off and not giving to charity, you're a total dick, that's an inescapable fact. But individual assholes aside, collectively the well-off in America give quite a bit to help the needy.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
"this is straight up libel, until proven otherwise"
Um, while there are some nutjob countries that force people to prove what they're saying is true (the UK I believe is one) here in the US I think it works exactly the opposite, those bringing the lawsuit must prove that the party they are suing is lying or acting with "with reckless disregard of whether [their statement] was false or not".
Verizon should get off their lazy asses and spend more effort on improving their networks and customer service than fighting the truth. If they choose take the crazy route with the lawyers, then welcome, the Streisand effect may actually shine some light on their profit maximizing business practices.
Astute. The pool of available liquid currency precisely buys the pool of available commodities. Like tic tac toe, the only way to win this game is to not play it, but perceived happiness is devilish when your next door neighbor has a nicer car than you do.
I've heard mentioned that Netflix should adopt a P2P model using BitTorrent in order to circumvent ISP throttling. (Maybe I've got that wrong. I'm not terribly informed.)
But that got me thinking. Could we, and big providers in particular, sort of collectively force network neutrality on the ISPs by encrypting everything, so that it's impossible for the ISPs to know what the packets are, only that they're supposed to be delivered to such-and-such a place? Would that work? And what would it take to make it happen? Or is there a big reason why it can't be done that I don't know about?
Lets see what has to say about that.
Excerpts:
In 2000, 2-in-3 householders in the United States owned their own homes; in 1900, less than half owned their homes.
Nationwide rate -- 1950: 55.0%; 1970: 62.9%; 1990: 64.2%; 2000: 66.2%
You can buy partial ownership, but you can't buy partial control. Groups of people can buy partial control, but it takes large groups, and they have to act through delegated representatives
So, no worse than democracy then? Since it's a (representative) democracy of shareholders, it's of course going to have all the flaws of democracy. 1/300,000,000th piece of control isn't much, after all, but it's each of our fair share.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
It seems to me that the luxuries are cheaper, but the necessities are more expensive. My TV, computer, and other toys might be less, but my gas, groceries, medical care, and housing are going up like rockets.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
I think you'll find that the census incorrectly considers those with mortgages to be homeowners. The bank owns those homes.
Given the rampant unemployment I'd contend the system is definitely not pulling everyone up at a phenomenal range.
.001%.
The cut the 1% get isn't just numbers on a page, it translates into actual labor that is contributed by the middle class. The output of MOST of that labor is going to the 1%. The other 99% could be enjoying far more of the benefits of our collective labor if it weren't being leeched on by 1% of the population.
Actually, I'm not even concerned about the 1%. I'm concerned about the
"It would be 21", low resolution, not capable of HD, use a ton of electricity, and eventually the phosphors would give out causing it to have wierd colors."
Yeah in 10 years vs the 2 years you can expect a modern TV to last but that is a different issue.
The point being the screen size, lower cost, improved resolution, power savings, etc ARE NOT improvements in the economy. In the 1950's a middle class home could have that $5000 TV. In 2014, someone earning the median $30k/yr income CANNOT afford a $5000 TV.
Your 1950's car would struggle to sell for $500 today - it is unsafe, unreliable, un-air-conditioned, inefficient, and undesirable compared to even a high-mileage poor condition used car now.
Oh, and that 'single family income' was generally only available to white males not from southern Europe or Ireland . Black? Single Mom? You worked as a cook in someone's kitchen and lived in a hut with no plumbing. It is amazing what standard of living you can claim if you only look at how things are going for the most fortunate ~35% of the population.
Oh, one more thing: You could afford to own your own house today too if we had 1950's zoning and building codes in place.
--- There are two kinds of people, those who accept dogmas and know it, and those who accept dogmas and don't know it
Hey now, I donate plenty to charity's and I'm still an asshole.
- koch brothers for a whiter america
- merit scholarships for priveleged white people whose parents might hire my company.
- Guns for tots.
- Coal for a more american smelling america
- storage units for homeless people somewhere I can't see them
Don't paint all of us assholes with the same broad brush.
I get your point but...
1950's cars had air conditioning, they where quite reliable if your did proper maintenance and will typically sell for far more than $500 today (even scrap value is probably above $500 right now)
If you're affirming the consequent, then you're probably an asshole.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
But that got me thinking. Could we, and big providers in particular, sort of collectively force network neutrality on the ISPs by encrypting everything, so that it's impossible for the ISPs to know what the packets are, only that they're supposed to be delivered to such-and-such a place? Would that work?
Not really, no. It works when ISPs are interfering with traffic using deep packet inspection, but they're unlikely to be bothering in this case. They know where Netflix traffic enters their network. They simply degrade ALL such traffic, regardless of its contents, knowing they're mostly catching Netflix packets in the process. If that's not what they're currently doing, it's certainly something they could do. Encryption then doesn't help at all.
VPN evidence indicates that's precisely what they are doing. VPN forces a change in route, so traffic from Netflix enters Verizon's network from an unusual direction. Magically, no "congestion". It's artificial, it's anticompetitive, and it's a violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act.
And no prosecutor has the nerve to do anything about it.
I'm pretty sure that the GP meant "own" as in "not have a mortgage" where I'm positive the 66% figure in 2000 includes many people with mortgages. I don't think you two are talking about quite the same thing.
The Quirkz Handbook of Self-Improvement for People Who Are Already Pretty Okay
How, exactly, is 6.5% rampant?
On the whole, I preferred the FT spat, but it was a bit drier as a read, I suppose
A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing. Look up real non BLS adjusted inflation stats at a site like shadowstats and you'll understand why official inflation numbers and the cost of living for middle class citizens have now become very poorly correlated.
Don't just look up numbers in an actuarial table. The average middle class college grad in the 1950s could pay off his student loans in less than two years and was able to afford a home and a car shortly thereafter, while being the only earner in a household.
Today I know other engineers who take 7+ years to pay off their college loans and who still cannot afford to buy an apartment, much less a home in Vancouver, BC, Canada. Government inflation numbers use hedonics now. Also, while a computer twice as fast costs half as much it doesn't improve my quality of life even in that small subset of my life by a four fold factor on a per dollar basis.
Technology growth curves are exponentially exponential and smoothly so. We have good data on the total wealth created by nations. I agree that a CEO should earn more than an engineer, but I know that obtuse and unfair legislative frameworks have lead to a salary ratio expansion that is a perversion of capitalism. CEO worth 30 times the engineer working for him like in the 1970's? Sure. Worth 400 times? I'm not so sure. However, currently accepted business practices allow the fruits of optimization to accrue disproportionately to the capital owners at the expense of newly redundant employees and while it might be legal it is immoral.
Wouldn't it be a fairly simple thing to pinpoint the congestion and only shame Verizon if it's in their network or at an under-sized interconnect? Netflix might know (or care) more about Verizon congestion than Verizon does.
Competition Good, Monopoly Bad.
See the other reply for why this is not a panacea BUT;
The VPNs he mentions are encrypted channels, but they are more than that, as they also force a route through the VPN provider. They are inefficient for general use because as long as the networks are being administrated properly the VPN will actually degrade your performance - when it solves performance problems instead that is a smoking gun showing that your ISP is so badly misconfigured it makes sense to assume malice.
It's not a cure-all but encrypting everything whenever possible should be considered minimal best practice anyway. Since the early 90s I have said that everything should be encrypted, it is and always was ridiculous that internet traffic carrying all sorts of sensitive data (starting with usernames and passwords of course) just gets passed around in plain text, like if we were using snailmail and everything went out on a postcard, no envelopes in site. But encryption is hard, and cycles were short back then, and everyone said oh dont worry about it we can always tack that on in the application layer later. Which almost never happens.
Well at least today a lot more people are thinking about security, and we'll probably see more and more traffic incorporating encryption at one level or another, and the more that happens the less of a moral hazard the internet will be for those who administer and control the networks.
If you dont have it already, go get this:
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
A 1950's TV would cost ~$495 in 1950 dollars, which is ~$5,000 in 2014 dollars. It would be 21", low resolution, not capable of HD, use a ton of electricity, and eventually the phosphors would give out causing it to have wierd colors. In 2014 you can get a 52" TV for $600.
Hows that for "hidden inflation"?
This.
People forget that in the 50's everyone had fewer toys. It's quite possible to have a house on a single income like in the 50's... but you have to go the whole hog and completely 50-ise your life.
Thats one car, used sparingly.
No toys like Ipads.
1 modest TV and 1 modest computer for the whole family.
No central air conditioning or heating.
No mobile phone, only a landline which is used sparingly.
No dishwasher, you do it by hand.
An automatic washing machine is a luxury and forget the dryer.
No personal loans or credit cards, you save for what you want and pay cash.
You're lucky I'm not using 50's Australia, which is no TV, no computer and likely, no phone either.
When comparing now to nineteen-dickety-two they always forget that we have more toys now days.
However one of the biggest costs that we have now days that we didn't have in the 50's is our reliance on credit. When someone loans their money out, they expect to get it all back plus some. Most people dont get this when they put everything on credit. Interest, Interchange fees and Merchant Service Fees are giant black holes which swallow money whenever something is bought on credit.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
That's the difference between inflation (low) and the cost of living (high).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Same shit, different decade.
I expect something like "selective avialability notice" and ""XY provider premium service" to be used as a negotiating tactics by more content-provider companies. Breaking net neutrality is a double-edged swors.
Im not sure you are correct.
1) I think Census.gov is well aware of the legal circumstances around mortgages, and I got the impression from their site that they were actually NOT considering mortgages. But even if that were the case...
2) I do believe with a mortgage YOU own the house; there is simply a lien on the title, so that it is forfeit if you renege on your debt. This is similar to a car title loan; you still own the car, but you lose it if you default.
So how are you explaining the fact that-- despite the massive growth in disparity-- the middle class is comparatively richer than ever?
I mean at some point you're going to have to square up with those median incomes, which for some groups (black women) have increased 6-fold and in all cases have nearly doubled.
Yeah in 10 years vs the 2 years you can expect a modern TV to last but that is a different issue.
Bull. I dont know of anyone who had to replace their TV in 2 years. My sample size is limited (probably 30-50 TVs / monitors), but I know my own DLP is 8 years old at this point, and my PC monitor is 6 years old.
In the 1950's a middle class home could have that $5000 TV.
No, they couldnt, because their 1950 income was ~$2000/year.
n 2014, someone earning the median $30k/yr income CANNOT afford a $5000 TV.
Yes, he can, because rent + food + expenses should hit ~$20000 if he is frugal.
I mixed up currency years above, let me clarify.
(2004 USD)
1950: income, ~$9000; TV: $5000. TV represents ~55% of your income. This is pretty much not doable.
2004: income, ~$32000; TV: $600. TV represents ~2% of your income. Even assuming you get a $5000 TV, you're looking at ~17% of your income
Im not sure how you're figuring that he is worse off today.
In the 70's our tv was about 17" and black and white. Color and 21" in the 50's would be a dream.
On September 30, 2010, the Board of Directors of Hewlett-Packard announced the election of Apotheker as the company's Chief Executive Officer and President, effective November 1. During Apotheker's tenure at HP, the stock dropped about 40%, dropping nearly 25% on 19 August 2011 after HP announced a number of seemingly abrupt strategic decisions: to discontinue its webOS device business (mobile phones and tablet computers), to begin planning to divest its personal computer division and to acquire British software firm Autonomy for a significant premium. Over the months following Apotheker's departure, HP eventually spun-off the remaining webOS assets into a new subsidiary, Gram; backtracked on any plans to spin-off HP's personal computer division and wrote-down almost $9 billion related to the Autonomy acquisition, which it indicated was due to a lack of due diligence during the acquisition process under Apotheker.
Though Apotheker served barely ten months, he received over $13 million in compensation: a severance payment of $7.2 million, shares worth $3.56 million and a performance bonus of $2.4 million (seriously? performance bonus? despite the company losing more than $30 billion in market capitalization during his tenure.
In other news, HP laid off around 16000 employees just a couple of weeks ago (this in addition to several thousad that they've laid off over the past couple years) but hey, when these employees speak out against what's wrong with the system, knobheads such as yourself can go and tell them how they're just a bunch of lazy whiners who're unhappy simply because Mr. Apotheker, an honest to God hardworking individual, is doing so much better than them!
No...or yes. In corporate ownership control is vested in the wealthy (i.e., in the large investors). In a democracy theoretically all votes are equal, and each (represented) person gets only one vote.
The "or yes' is because the theory isn't well mapped to the implementation, and this is largely because of interference by corporations and other similar entities. (These days I think it's all corporations, but there used to be extremely wealthy people with similar power.) Note that in these cases the influence is managed by corporate management rather than by "owners", and often does things that the majority of owners would be apalled by, but usually not that the weighted majority of owners would be apalled by (where weight is measured by the number of voting shares that are held).
It's actually much more similar to an aristocracy than to a democracy.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Well, it's quite similar to democracy-as-practice in most times and places in history. At least we don't have a Roman-style formal wealth requirement to run for office.
But the amazing thing here is that anyone, regardless of birth, is legally allowed to become wealthy (and that's only been true here for 150 years, after all). For all that it's less than ideal, it's progress. And, really, building wealth is just a matter of impulse control and setting priorities in life, so while the problem of a few people getting lots of control is real, getting one "fair share" of control just isn't that hard.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
IMO Verizon has congress and SC-judges on their side; So, NetFlix, Vudu, and US are the lossers.
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?
Do I think he got overpaid? Sure. He sucks and got paid a lot. I care about my community, my family and my job performance and compensation. I am not going to ask how much you make and decide if I like it or not. It is none of my business how much your employer wants to pay you. Now if some one wants to sign a contract that pays me crap loads and gives me bonuses no matter how badly I screw up ... I think I would be ok with that.
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
So Verizon say we're capping how much bandwidth we give to you unless you pay because the service you offer is more intense then http ........ Then when Netflix pays for QOS quality of service and STILL gets the horrible bandwidth ...... And to top it off They are not allowed to tell their paying custom that quality is not assured because Verizon are not keeping their end of the deal ?
Kinda looks like Verizon is just money grabbing and annoyed because they have been caught out.
Verizon leads the campaign to preserve the television industry in the United States.
As broadcast television and real-time cable approach irrelevancy, the incumbents in the video-distribution business seek control over cached video programming.
The right to charge extra would affirm Verizon FiOS as a cable television operator with the right to charge to carry even cached content.
Not coincidentally, real-time one-to-many propaganda operations like Fox News depend on this campaign to turn Internet providers into a small subset of the digital data transport industry.
Now if some one wants to sign a contract that pays me crap loads and gives me bonuses no matter how badly I screw up ... I think I would be ok with that.
Yeah good luck with that, you are just naive or stupid, more likely the second. He got that contract not because he is better or more qualified, but just because the system you live in had it made for him. respectively you will NEVER get that contract. If you care about your family and community, you would advocate a system that improves life for them. what are you saying, however, to put it in a more understandable perspective, is that in Rome slaves should not have complained because their owner has it that they are housed and fed. I hope you understand all the nonse of your words (unless you are the owner).
You missed the point entirely.
$500 in the 50s equates to roughly $5000 today.
A median family could afford that $500 TV in the 50s. Could a median family afford a $5000 TV today? I don't think so. Ergo, buying power of the median family has decreased.
This signature is false.
I think you replied to the wrong post. Your point is the same point I was making.
Your groceries are going up roughly in line with inflation, at least over the last 10 years or so.
Gas is an entirely different animal, and cant really be brought into a discussion on US economics.
Learn to use quote properly. The system we have has allowed more mobility along the economic ladder than any other ever, I advocate for a system that dose not value equality of income over the ability to create and succeed. What I want for my children is an environment that allows for the possibility that their hard work past failures can reward them. I do not want a system that provides for all their needs regardless of effort.
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
whoops. yeah. Meant to reply to limecat, above. C'est la vie.
This signature is false.
It was a lot easier to "build wealth" 5 or 6 decades ago. Except that for some people it wasn't. But if you think that all it takes to build wealth is "impluse control and setting priorities in life", then you are either very lucky, have wealthy parents, of haven't tried yet.
Most people have a certain spectum of skills, and some are more rewarded than others. What's rewarded has more to do with who's making the decisisons about pay levels than it does about relative difficulty of work. And if you can start near the center, you have a tremendous advantage over those who start nearer the edge. If you start near the edge, there may be no legal way to make progress (though sometimes there is, as luck then plays an even larger role).
If you were instead to claim that those with poor impulse control and poor ability to set priorities were more likely to fail, then I'd agree. But if you're lucky, then the game is your's to loose. If you're "sort of middling" then given luck you might just win. If you're on the edge, your most probable fate is to be thrown under the wheel, and your skills other than intimidation and as a con-man won't aid you much. But it is true that from every position poor impulse control and poor ability to set priorities will PROBABLY cause you to slip towards the edge.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
corporations are people. Looks like they are teenagers and have learned that if someone insults you, you can sue them. Teen years are the awkward ones. WIll these kids ever grow up?
--- Say something clever. Pretend it was me. Thanks.