Slashdot Mirror
Bloomberg Op-Ed: The Internet 'Already Lost Its Neutrality' (japantimes.co.jp)
An anonymous reader quotes a new Bloomberg opinion piece on net neutrality:
The internet will be filled today with denunciations of this move, threats of a dark future in which our access to content will be controlled by a few powerful companies. And sure, that may happen. But in fact, it may already have happened, led not by ISPs, but by the very companies that were fighting so hard for net neutrality... Our experience of the internet is increasingly controlled by a handful of firms, most especially Google and Facebook. The argument for regulating these companies as public utilities is arguably at least as strong as the argument for thus regulating ISPs, and very possibly much stronger; while cable monopolies may have local dominance, none of them has the ability that Google and Facebook have to unilaterally shape what Americans see, hear and read.
In other words, we already live in the walled garden that activists worry about, and the walls are getting higher every day... The fact that these firms were able to cement their power at the moment when regulators were most focused on keeping the internet open tells you just how difficult it is to get that sort of regulation right; while you are looking hard at one danger, an equally large one may be creeping up just outside the range of your peripheral vision.
In other words, we already live in the walled garden that activists worry about, and the walls are getting higher every day... The fact that these firms were able to cement their power at the moment when regulators were most focused on keeping the internet open tells you just how difficult it is to get that sort of regulation right; while you are looking hard at one danger, an equally large one may be creeping up just outside the range of your peripheral vision.
Love,
Rich Assholes with Business Interests
Only retarded idiots ever thought the Internet was neutral in terms of opinion. The fight over Net Neutrality is something completely different.
The argument for regulating these companies as public utilities is arguably at least as strong as the argument for thus regulating ISPs
The very fact that we lost net neutrality in direct opposition to the largest public commentary campaign in the history of the world, due at least in part to bought and paid for politicians making regulations that directly benefit their own financial interests, renders this statement entirely untrue.
In the United States, your experience of the internet is far more controlled by Comcast and one or two other ISPs than it is by Google and Facebook. I can easily avoid using Google or Facebook, but in many areas, there are no practical alternatives to Comcast.
I would argue that having a very few companies controlling access to the internet is what leads to the primacy of Google and Facebook, not the other way around.
The default state of the internet was net neutrality, from the time of its inception. Giving control over to a cable company will turn the internet into cable television, and trust me, you don't want that.
You are welcome on my lawn.
I hear a big company is already throttling anyone with VPN's I also stumbled upon a site that uses the regular HTTP transport layer to make something better than a VPN. You people ARE innovative!!
This idiot doesn't know what "net neutrality" even means.
Not that an assertion from an AC will matter, ...
The Net Neutrality and there's oligopolies of WEB products and services.
AT&T and Google are not the same thing when it comes to Net Neutrality.
Now, in areas where there is Google Fiber - then we get into the muddy waters.
Thank you for posting the Bloomberg piece. There are those of us who have been arguing that this is not some high-brow good v. evil debate, but a genuine disagreement on account of economics.
Tons of people here are rightly skeptical of Google, Facebook, at al, but saw nothing suspicious about those companies being the LEADING proponents of net neutrality. Why would these companies, so often duplicitous and manipulative, be coming on so strong for net neutrality? Not out of the goodness of their hearts.
Yeah, Big Telecom is not your friend, but neither is Big Tech. The question is, what is more conducive to freedom? Is it allowing free competition, or is it in allowing politically-connected firms to set the agenda? I choose to side with the former, and that is why I favor repealing net neutrality. Much more needs to be done, like abolishing all these public utility laws so that smaller startups can challenge Big Telecom, but this is a step in the right direction.
Companies like Google and Facebook have Loony-tunes power: everyone uses them because everyone uses them. If tomorrow everyone starts using Bing (hey, it could happen...), Google vanishes in a puff of indifference. (kind of like the coyote who doesn't fall until he looks down).
Verizon has power because they own the poles, and the lines, and the trenches. If tomorrow everyone decides to use a different ISP...uhhh...no. You got nowhere to go. And if Verizon starts adding tracking headers to your HTTP requests, and null-routing domains that they don't like, and null-routing domains who haven't paid them enough, and forging RST packets to kill your torrents, and injecting ads into your web pages, and, and, and....you still got nowhere to go. That's backhoe power. That's why we need net neutrality.
RMS has been shouting this for a decade...
I've been saying this for quite a few years now, and while some may argue there was at least once some sort of semblance of neutrality, that horse has long since fled the barn. In Canada, for instance, no such thing has ever existed, censorship at all sites reigns supreme [and Cory Doctorow is a notorious censor at his site, Mr. so-called progressive activist/free speech dood!]. Nope, I can still only comment a /. and zerohedge.com, and that's about it, as so many sites have permanently banned myself and too many others for making fact-based comments with links, e.g., commondreams.org banned me for linking to Hillary Rodham Clinton's (faux crat, not a true liberal or progressive) government site to show her voting record in the Senate, etc.
Particularly Google has a heck of a lot of control through android and gets content providers to do things they universally wouldn't otherwise want to do (AMP comes to mind). Yes, it is a prudent time to highlight shenanigans that already unreasonably shape the internet that are already happening without any sort of counter.
Of course, doubling down and also opening the flood gates for the ISPs to also lock things down doesn't help matters.
The author blames regulation for the phone experience not progressing and that deregulation paved the way for things to improve. It's a very bizarre thing to blow off the whole forced breakup of AT&T as the factor. I don't think many folks blame FCC regulations for AT&T preserving a monopoly, and certainly no one in their right mind ignores the DOJ breakup of AT&T in favor of some FCC deregulation as to triggering the end of that era. Particularly since this common carrier thing persisted the whole time, it's very strange.
In short, I fint the article to be a bizarre self-contradiction. On the one wand worrying that there already are companies with worrisome control, but also vilifying regulation at the same time..
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Relating the evils of Google and Facebook with ISPs is a deliberate attempt to mislead. It's not remotely an equal comparison, at most it's a different problem, and all I hear is "hey, look over there!" The debate about what these companies should be allowed to do is important, but irrelevant to this discussion.
Net Neutrality was compromised significantly in its brief existence, that is a fact, but the response should have been extreme and powerful, from the legal to the not-yet-legal. The first attempt to get around net neutrality should have seen every single anti-competitive law in the united states eliminated: any company or municipality that wishes to build out broadband cannot be opposed. If they persist, then tax money should be used to build competing services. Finally, if they do not cease and desist, their board and senior executives should be arrested and the company assets seized. That is the level of hostility that we should be insisting upon for these (and any other) monopoly. Either play nice and make some money, or go to jail.
Instead they have bought the government and its regulation body. I look forward to people showing up to their buildings with torches and pitchforks (or the modern day equivalents) to express their "empathy".
So.......your reason for caring about net neutrality was entirely because other people cared about it? How does that even make sense? If you care about something, support it! There will be hypocritical fools will be on your side and on the other side.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Your words are saying that you care more about the people pushing the idea than the idea itself.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
I don't know why people keep trying to mix things up, but that's not the point of fighting for net neutrality. It's not about making Internet services more "neutral" or anything like that.
It's not about keeping the situation great (which it already isn't), it's about not making it worse.
And let's be honest here. One thing is people choosing to use Google instead of Bing, DuckDuckGo, *gasp* Yahoo and a few others that are out there (I personally use DuckDuckGo as default). One thing is people using Facebook instead of several social networks that showed up over the years or you know, none. One thing is people choosing Gmail instead of ProtonMail, a local webserver, among others. One thing is people using Facebook Messenger for convenience instead of some different service like Viber, Signal and others. There's choice. If people don't take them, that's their problem. We don't really need to discuss here on Slashdot how using these services can be bad, I think most people here knows about this. But it's still people's choice to use them, be it for convenience, familiarity, ease of use, or just because everyone around them are using it.
Yes, Google and Facebook have an effective hold in several areas that makes them close to monopolies, but there's still choice and competition. People can't deny that. For the vast majority of americans, there is NO option to one or two ISPs where they live. None. Ziltch. Nada. Nothing. The alternative is not using the Internet, and this is all Net Neutrality is about. Access to it has become a basic need, which is why there needs to be some regulation to it.
When you as a costumer don't have any choice, that's a true monopoly. And since there is no option, without any sort of regulation of course given time they will only get worse in nick and dime schemes, in tiered plans, in forcing their own brands and services to costumers while making it hard for anyone else to compete and whatnot.
Because that's exactly what they do. That's why they have been lobbying for such a long time to kill Net Neutrality once and for all.
It also doesn't mean that they didn't do this in the past, ISPs always finds a way to profit more over their clients. It just means that now they have no regulation to prevent them from doing anything, and that it'll become even easier for abusive practices to pass.
This is like arguing Amazon is non-neutral. Sure it is. It's slowly killing all alternatives. People are flocking to shop there for all sorts of reasons, and they are effectively closing down smaller competing stores and services. But it's something people are choosing for themselves. Amazon doesn't hire goons to beat you up if you go to the local market, they aren't making you sign a contract that you'll only shop there for a year if you buy one product, they aren't saying you can only use their mass storage servers in order to make an account there. There are limits as to what they can do, and this is what Net Neutrality is about. Having at least some limits on what ISPs can do. The more you give in, the worse it'll become.
Funny. Lots of families have lots of weirdos. But seriously, e-mail still works. You can always throw in a hyperlink to your non-mainstream-hosted blog or if you aren't the type to formulate long thoughts, microblog (pump.io?)
I've witnessed both the downfall of Google being a great search engine for my tastes, and duckduckgo rising to the challenge. DDG wasn't a sufficient replacement in the early days, but lately it seems quite fine to me. I only use Google on the rare occasions when I want to track down a torrent for a tv show that weather interfered with my OTA DTV linux general computer based DVR recording correctly. Just to make a political point.
Google and Facebook are not âthe Internet.â(TM) Multiple hosting companies arenâ(TM)t either. Theyâ(TM)re nodes on the network, some of millions (billions?) but itâ(TM)s really the connections between the nodes that make a network a network. Google or Facebook piss you off? With a neutral Internet itâ(TM)s trvially easy to avoid them while still accessing the other millions of nodes without restriction. But if itâ(TM)s your local ISP monopoly that pisses you off? You have no recourse. And if itâ(TM)s a backbone provider that places a price premium on all data to and from your favorite nodes? Youâ(TM)re really screwed. Just because a few sites are particularly popular doesnâ(TM)t mean weâ(TM)re already operating without net neutrality.
This is the actual opinion article by the actual publisher, Bloomberg Businessweek: The Internet Had Already Lost Its Neutrality (Nov. 21, 2017) Why did Slashdot link to the same article in The Japan Times?
There are at least 2 separate issues: 1) Neutrality of speed and access of delivery of digital internet information, and 2) "Neutrality" of what people communicate. That 2nd issue is a very old one. Before the year 313 CE (Common Era), people could be killed for being Christian. After the year 313 CE, people could be killed for NOT being Christian.
The Bloomberg article was written by a woman who apparently has NO knowledge of technology and no interest in technology: Megan McArdle is a Bloomberg View columnist.. Look at the other articles by Megan McArdle at that link, for example: Keep Your Dark Chocolate, and Your Unearned Sense of Superiority.
Notice that, in the article about internet neutrality, Megan McArdle calls President Trump the "genital-grabber-in-chief". Is there beginning to be a world-wide understanding that President Trump is not mentally capable of being a leader? Apparently that idea has been adopted by the Japan Times.
Google's and Facebook's collection of eyeballs comprise an entirely different issue than ISPs being able to relegate the non-wealthy to low-bandwidth (or no-bandwidth) corners of the web.
Right now, you can choose to be Facebook and/or Google eyeballs, but there are other options of various and sundry nature out there that offer interesting content. Facebook and Google are impotent to stop that; all you have to do is find a link, and there the site will be. That link could be anywhere — while you may indeed find it on Google or Facebook, you can also find it other places.
Allowing bandwidth to be prioritized (or outright taken over) by wealthy interests can silence the other sources of information. That's a new problem, and it's not the same as, or even a version of, the old problem.
Bloomberg is being disingenuous here. Or stupid. You choose.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Your work VPN bandwidth will be reinstated for a modest monthly fee. Problem solved.
That's called the "business class tier". How many people in this discussion were reading the ferengi print in their ISP contracts in the '90s? It never went away. If 'Net Neutrality' had ever been more than a narrative illusion pushed by hypocrites, the business-class-vpn-tax would have gone away, with much fanfare. Ditto for tethering. And we'd all be allowed to host our own IRC and SMTP servers at home. 'reasonable network management' is the loophole big enough to fly the starship enterprise through. It means whatever they want it to mean, including whatever it takes to dominate the commercial field of competition. I guess if you have GoogleFiber as your ISP you can go ahead and run a non-commercial server as well as your GMail client, but if you cross that non-commercial threshold into the realm of conceivably diverting a dollar of potential profit away from Google's shareholders, they reserve the right to cease doing business with you whenever they feel like it (whenever they perceive that your competition/innovation on the global information superhighway might start to Disrupt their expected/desired global revenue streams in any significant way)
While cable monopolies may have local dominance, none of them has the ability that Google and Facebook have to unilaterally shape what Americans see, hear and read.
That is neither here nor there. This has absolutely nothing to do with how many users a Web site has. Neither Google nor Facebook has a single iota of the kind of power wielded by the corrupt (*)oply ISP's; not even a whisper of a fragment.
----
* equals Mono, Duo, Olig; as appropriate.
Internet traffic is managed by reciprocal peering agreements between network providers (i.e. you carry my traffic and I'll carry yours). Google or Facebook may provide peering with other providers, but they're only one of countless others. On the other hand, major ISPs like Comcast and ATT are also major network peering providers. So they CAN influence the cost and amount of traffic they carry. Hence the need for regulation. The reference poses a false analogy about a website whose content was so vile that no one wanted to carry it. That's carry Web content, not Internet traffic. That's primarily a function of advertisement and revenue generation. If you carry vile content, companies are not going to want to run ads next to it to avoid the association.
Your words are saying that you care more about the people pushing the idea than the idea itself.
No, his words are saying that their 'ideas' are a pack of lies and totally disingenuous just like they've repeatedly demonstrated themselves and the 'ideas' they've pushed before to be.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
My "Hitler did nothing wrong" posts keep getting modded down. This is communism, and I'm not going to rest until we've given control of Slashdot to Comcast.
I think what's being said is that there's no use getting worked up over it if nobody can be bothered. We're dealing with common corruption, and that's still not a big "bring home the bacon" election issue. That, and nothing gets out the vote like antipathy.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
I can agree with that.....there are not many issues worth getting worked up about. We do it anyway because it's fun.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Fuck this obvious shill in the ass with a durian.
Have gnu, will travel.
Funny. Lots of families have lots of weirdos. But seriously, e-mail still works. You can always throw in a hyperlink to your non-mainstream-hosted blog or if you aren't the type to formulate long thoughts, microblog (pump.io?)
I've witnessed both the downfall of Google being a great search engine for my tastes, and duckduckgo rising to the challenge. DDG wasn't a sufficient replacement in the early days, but lately it seems quite fine to me. I only use Google on the rare occasions when I want to track down a torrent for a tv show that weather interfered with my OTA DTV linux general computer based DVR recording correctly. Just to make a political point.
Would that I had OTA signal where I live in a fairly large city! My isp is my cable co and I do have the choice of either satellite, cable or even the phone company for tv. Though telus tv at 1 mile from the fiber hub through twisted pairs is not necessarily what they advertise and continually try to sell us. I cut their twisted pairs years ago and am at the mercy of the cable company because the jerks at Telus were way out of line with dsl pricing. The wife likes her nutflakes so we have cable dsl but she also insists on tv so the costs of media consumption for us are greater than our other utility bills combined!
My point is that if net neutrality is not observed by our current isp then our provider will be able to abuse the monopoly upon digital communications to an even greater extent than they already do. Question here for all the wifi tech gurus here on Splashdog? Could wifi mesh networks eventually replace the assholes on the poles and put an end to the problems with digital communication media? Would it not be fantastic if the only lines coming into your house were power? Ma bell or Belus as I call it here in Canada and cable tv has had it far too good for far too long and if subscription wifi mesh can become a replacement for these jerks then they deserve to be blindsided. As it is they by and large control all the cell towers, it would be even worse to allow them to dominate wifi mesh networking which our current ISP/cable company/telco/mediaprovider, Shaw, is experimenting with locally.
Bloomberg has a tainted perspective letting the current isps begin to control where and how users access content even more than they currently do is a huge mistake and would be as sensible as having to set Shaw at Home or Telus or Bing as my home page to get access to the internet. Which I am sure is a wet dream for them as it was a wet dream for Microsoft until Google ate them all for breakfast in search.
The point is if net neutrality is broken then it is entirely possible that providers will be able to redirect their customers away from their choice to whom ever pays them the most which will most likely be Microsoft. Certainly not the same thing as Firefux with a difficult to remove Yahoo search but in ways similar.
Break net neutrality and the providers will be able to freely restrict access routes on the internet, the already have the monopolies in place to screw their customers even more than they currently do. They are just waiting for the green light from both the FCC and the CRTC. Remember the old heady days of Win95 when you installed it and if you did not know how to use Trumpet Winsock the OS installed defaults were to local AOL phone numbers and an Iternut Exploiter AOL home page? NOW just imagine ISP created apps that allow you to access a point restricted internet that must be installed before you can have service the same way that cell phones are locked down. Frightening as hell but this is what the asshole republicans in the States and the telcos and cable company lobby in Washington are up to. Getting high tech advice from Bloomberg is as sensible as investing in Enron or falling for a Berni Madoff scam the way many who read Bloomberg when it first came out did! Beware the sheep in wolves clothing.
This message was not sent from an iPhone because Peter Sellers really was a deviated prevert without a dime for the call
Thanks for the information.
However, in the article she wrote to which you linked, As a Woman in Tech, I Realized: These Are Not My People, she seems to justify my conclusion.
She does not have the fascination with technology that other Slashdot readers and I often have.
I'm also fascinated with women. A long time ago, after a long conversation with a woman, I said, "I seem to be more interested in you than you are." She said, "Maybe you're right!"
Being fascinated with technology doesn't stop fascination with humans.
"We don't know what net neutrality is about, but hear us out while we bitch about walled gardens. I'm sure network neutrality is something like that!"
Idiotic, little does the AC know how ridiculous laws regarding net neutrality would become without the means to enforce the statutes and the fact that the imp at the wheel of the FCC is doing exactly what this AC is claiming the democrats will do creating an enforcement organization that essentially creates public policy instead of enforcing it. The same as what the trumpster is doing with Scott Pruitt at the EPA. I am certain the coming ISP created pay walls that are about to happen everywhere to access content on the web will be as effective the Great Wall of Donald even if the Mexicans refuse to pay up! Either way I sense some severely butt hurt Trump sheeple as they realize that they can no longer afford to use the internet.
Hell the internet in China might look more open by comparison if this asshole and the current group of gouging jerks lobbying for the telcos and cable cos in Washington have their way and use the FCC to lock down the internet. Who knows the tweeting moron of Pennsylvania Boulevard might even piss off a few of his friends with this bullshit. Fortunately pissing off your constituents in the first term in office is a sure way to go down in flames the next time around. The only thing I fear is that he will take the entire republican party with him!
This message was not sent from an iPhone because Peter Sellers really was a deviated prevert without a dime for the call
Beware of gaslighting with this op-ed. The article reads to me as if to say, you haven't had net neutrality for a while now so don't complain when it officially goes away and you can't miss what you've lived without. So please quit pressuring Congress to intervene; you'll never notice a change when net neutrality disappears.
As others have pointed out, the article isn't really about something net neutrality will address. The problems with Facebook, Google, spying, and computer control via proprietary software are real problems that need to be dealt with. But net neutrality is about a different issue. Net neutrality is a necessary but insufficient (in itself) quality of network service. I don't want an ISP discriminating for me what other computers my computers are allowed to trade packets with, nor will the absence of net neutrality be fixed by charging me more for an Internet connection. I understand that ISPs in their power and rent-seeking will see this situation differently, but it's critical not to give businesses primacy. People need power to speak freely and be heard, not routed into yet another class system.
Digital Citizen
Indeed, comparing ISPs to Google (unless you are one of the few people with Google as ISP) or Facebook is disingenuous at best.
Google and Facebook and information service providers. ISPs like Comcast, AT&T, Verizon, etc., are common telecommunications carriers. Amalgamating both is wrong, though it is exactly what Pai and his masters want to do.
Consider those excerpts from the article:
- The reclassification of ISPs as common carriers “forced ISPs into an 80-year-old framework designed for the telephone monopolies of a much different era.”
That’s hollow speak. First, the telecommunications act is old, so what? Should we dismiss the constitution also, on the grounds that it’s old? More to the point, the telecommunications act of 1934 (which was revised a couple times, by the way, but the author forgets to mention that) is remarkably broad, readable and relevant today. It defines a common carrier as someone that broadly sells the service of transporting communications or energy by wire or radio; and an information service provider as someone that publishes or processes (storage, transformation, exploitation, etc.) information, including those publishing information via telecommunications, but expressly excluding the operation of the transport infrastructure (i.e., network). Common carriers are expected to meet certain obligations and forbidden to engage in certain practices, for example to “make any unjust or unreasonable discrimination in charges, practices, classifications, regulations, facilities, or services (...) or to make or give any undue or unreasonable preference or advantage to any particular person”. What’s so “1934” in that?
- ”Consider what happened to the Daily Stormer, the neo-Nazi publication, after Charlottesville. One by one, hosting companies refused to permit its content on their servers.”
Bloomberg’s journalist is, once again, confusing hosting with the ability to publish. Refusing to host content is entirely different from refusing to transmit communications. Nothing stopped those guys from setting up their own server and publish their rotten stuff on their own. That’s the beauty of the Internet. Actually, all they needed is a neutral ISP, and that was a given, thanks to the current law. Of course, the typical residential ISP somehow gets away prohibiting its customers from running a server (how can this be compatible with the telecommunications act, I have to wonder). But, even so, all they need to do is purchase a business account.
So, is the author that ignorant? Or is she trying to knowingly deceive readers? Given the length of the article and the time she must have spent on it, I find it hard to give her the benefit the doubt.
...that John Oliver talked about whatabboutism? This is clearly an instance of that. Yes, there may be problems on the internet with large companies, but this doesn't mean that ISPs should be able to charge for different levels or speeds of access on the basis of what content you are consuming. Google and Facebook are crocks with socks. ISPs are Hitler.
What choices do you have to stay in touch with friends and family online? Honestly. Either you be the weird guy, or use facebook.
E-mail. It works just fine.
It should also be noted that Facebook is the new kid on the block: they beat out Friendster and MySpace.
What choices do you have for fulltext search? Duckduckgo? Get real.
Actually, yes. Or Bing.
Compared to those monopolies (which are far more ingrained, because they have a true technological and first to market edge), AT&T and Comcast are fairly banal thing to fix as stuff they do, basically anyone can do with no complex know-how. Can happen either through competetive market (think ISPs in places like india or romania) which emerges with wild-west Laissez-faire approach, or *effectively* regulated state granted monopolies, which favors consumers (korea or even china).
Except that in many place (in the US), there is no market. Your choice is either the local telco or carrier pigeon. And further the FCC is making grumbles of preventing states from stepping in. If things were regulated it wouldn't be as bad, but since the 1990s the US has basically had a "free non-market".
Go to this page and set the minimum and maximum to 1, and see how many counties have only one option:
* https://www.broadbandmap.gov/number-of-providers
Now go to a rough equivalent in Canada, where the CRTC (FCC-equivalent) has mandated that the incumbents (both telco and cableco) must provide open access to their last-mile networks:
* http://canadianisp.ca
Even Cardiff, Ontario, Canada, population 3,400, has a choice of 49 ISPs:
It doesn't mention "climategate"?
The supposed honeytrap targets weren't cybersecurity experts fwiw.
sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
Those are opt-in.
If your ISP decides to filter you, then unless you take measures to prevent that (e.g. VPN) then you're fucked or else have to change ISPs, assuming that's even possible where you live.
If Facebook filters their users, then unless you use Facebook you give 0.00 fucks. You have to go to the extra trouble of using Facebook for them to change what you see, hear and read. Google and Facebook could do all sorts of things, and my TV shows will continue to download just as quickly. Slashdot won't load any slower. My email will continue to work. Every single site I use, won't be even slightly affected.
Yes, they "track" me, assuming I use browser defaults and therefore remain compatible with the tracking. But even that still doesn't change what I'm able to access.
Ok, so you might say that ever people who don't opt into Facebook's filtering, have to live in a society with the rest of the people who do. For example, I heard we have a childish president and I have to live in that world because of the people who submitted. But you can say that about anything. The fact that I live in a world with so many religious people, or people who are convinced that New Kids on the Block is a cool band, is all just part of life. That's still nothing like having your own access filtered.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
There's no "version" of NN.
NN means All communications are created equal and are treated equally by the connection provider, irrespective of where they come from or where they go.
Period.
You're welcome.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
I see. I take it that if you don't like expensive comcast internet (or facebook, for that matter), you're free to use newspapers, television and meeting with people in person. Definitely less walled gardens there.
I don't believe stratification towards inferior solutions is necessarily the answer. Note that those alternatives need not be inferior in pure technical terms (gnu social is awesome), but with social networks, there's usually inferiority in terms of metcalfe's law.
Monopolies are frequently granted on the grounds to serve rural areas, but the reality is that WISP works great and is most cost-effective as a last mile in the country. However In urban settlements, airwaves, especially the narrow free spectrum, don't have the bandwidth. You need "serious of tubes" in there if you're serious about bandwidth.
Current US cableco monopoly blocks this with regulatory capture, both rural and urban. There are are of course some anecdotes signaling cracks in that stalemate (google fiber, municipal fiber). The issue is that rest of the world did all this 15-20 years ago. Paradoxically often because they had incubent monopolies of their own blocking expansion of cheap dialup and DSL, while the US enjoyed relatively sane dialup and DSL market in the 90s - FTC, in spite of all its faults, did far better job back then than it does now.
Bottom line is that basically nobody in the world cares bout "net neutrality", it's purely political US fabrication born out of ignorance. ISPs can have "fast lanes" however they deem fit, and they overwhelmingly do as a routine matter of peering agreements. But if their peering is more shit than the next guy's, people simply switch ISPs, because majority of em have viable alternatives because the market isn't completely cornered.
Net Neutrality does *not* mean anyone is obligated to host your content, and it never did.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Regulating ISPs != regulating the Internet. The Internet is a multinational network. No government can regulate the Internet.
Yup. We should all go back to driving on dirt paths, because the Interstate Highway System was a mistake.
[pauses a moment for emphasis]
The Internet, or at least the portion of it within the bounds of the United States, is basically equivalent to our system of roads. It's a complex, interconnected series of links between various places. And those connections have to be big enough to handle the capacity needs, or else you get collisions and everything slows to a crawl. And, like all infrastructure, local governments tend to do a better job building it out and maintaining it than private companies, because they have no profit motive.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.