Portuguese ISP Shows What The Net Looks Like Without Net Neutrality (boingboing.net)

"In Portugal, with no net neutrality, internet providers are starting to split the net into packages," argues a California congressman -- retweeting a stunning graphic. An anonymous reader quotes BoingBoing's Cory Doctorow: Since 2006, Net Neutrality activists have been warning that a non-Neutral internet will be an invitation to ISPs to create "plans" where you have to choose which established services you can access, shutting out new entrants to the market and allowing the companies with the deepest pockets to permanently dominate the internet... the Portuguese non-neutral ISP MEO has mistaken a warning for a suggestion, and offers a series of "plans" for its mobile data service where you pay €5 to access a handful of messaging services, €5 more to use social media; and €5 more for video-streaming services.
The congressman notes this arrangement offers "a huge advantage for entrenched companies, but it totally ices out startups trying to get in front of people, which stifles innovation."

Comments

The trouble with Net Neutrality

[rsilvergun]

is that it's a small potatoes issue when 60-80% of your people are living paycheck to paycheck. If you want people to care about these sorts of things you've got to take care of their basic needs first. That doesn't just mean bread & circuses, that means actual stability in their lives. Trump and the anti-NN folks won because he went to the folks who are just skating by and said he'd do something that matters for them.

Basically, if you don't take care of your working class somebody's gonna come along to do it for you, and you won't like what that somebody does to you and yours.

Re:The trouble with Net Neutrality

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. When your subjects start feeling pain, then you feel pain, and in the worst way because they have nothing to lose.

Lets be honest here, the primary overwhelming, key factor in the US is healthcare. When a doctor's appointment costs $500 because you don't have insurance but only $20 if you do (not because they insurance is actually paying anything, it's just a price reduction to the actual cost), then you know your society is 100%, totally, fucked up.

Re:The trouble with Net Neutrality

[Anonymous Coward]

Being forced to carry a surveillance device so you can participate in society is not an improvement.

Re:The trouble with Net Neutrality

[GameboyRMH]

LOL how incredibly privileged you must be to believe this. You greatly overestimate not only the number and quality of jobs available, but the number of employers who won't instantly circle-file any application that doesn't list a college degree (of the specific level they're looking for - you could be overqualified just as easily as you could be underqualified). You have a libertarian's child's understanding of the job market and I'm guessing no Gen. Y friends who aren't similarly overprivileged.