Serious question: When did it stop mattering that these companies are private entities that can do what they please with their services? I'm not, at all, arguing in favor of censorship, I would just like to know where the line is that they crossed where suddenly they have to uphold the message?
Or, to put it another way: What would have to happen for it to be censorship if I don't allow a particular presidential candidate to put their sign on my lawn?
All over the place? Heh. If that were actually true it'd work to your benefit, you'd have something to argue with. I've said the same thing over and over again. Consistently. I even went as far as to not stray off-topic. That one thing that I've said over and over again is the one thing that neither you or the other participant has been able to provide an answer to. THAT is why you're bailing.
So yes, I am going to take you up on that last word. The goal of a mobile ISP is to take your money and send you as little data as possible. In fact, this whole Binge On concept, is strictly about sending less data out. The less data they send out, the more money in their pockets. They've created a system to serve this purpose with the feel good word 'unlimited', but it violates Net Neutrality. Your acceptance of that little issue is that you trust them. That's it. You have provided no reason to find their human-based application process acceptable other than you like them. You're willing to cannibalize Net Neutrality because: free shit!
Okie doke, I'm done. We're cool. I do hope you have the good rest of your Sunday.
I 'ignored' it for brevity. Everything you quoted supports me. The whole point I've been making this entire time is that there is a human being making the decision. The argument is that the rules are purely technical in nature so it doesn't matter that there's a human there. The question about the application process was to draw out an answer as to why a human has to be involved in the first place. Not one person has provided one. In fact, I have a nice lonely little question earlier in this thread still waiting to be replied to.
Oh and the "set this up for me" button... it bypasses the need for an application process. Yes, you are still being hasty in your replies.
Further, I never attempted to bail on the discussion...
Yes, you did. That was the whole point of the "no point in continuing to discuss this..." comment you made. It was a dare for me to produce something you can nitpick with an out that lets you jab your nose in the air. I wouldn't normally mind, but we're talking about human beings here and you want to nitpick an alternative to a process that is already flawed.
That you think I would find them frivolous speaks volumes...
Heh. I didn't say the ideas were frivolous. Actually what I said was that you would find frivolous reasons to dismiss them, like the willful lack of reading comprehension that you demonstrated right here and again later in your post.
So you never claimed there was no reason for Binge-On to have an application process and that it should be able to be fully automated?
why have a human-required application process at all?
Again, you are in such a hurry to find something to be critical of you're cannibalizing your own point. A "set this up for me" button is automation. A form to fill out and email to T-Mobile is not.
Heh. I'm sorry, this is amusing. It's almost like you included my rebuttal for me to save time or something.
First of all, what was off-topic?
Your attempt to bail on the discussion because I didn't bother writing an essay on using well-established tools on the internet to send a few strings of data around to which you would find issue with then humorously declare impossible. That's not what we're actually discussing.
You're ready to pound your fists on the keyboard because I didn't rattle off a quick list of ideas that you were just going to find frivolous reasons to shoot down? The important point is that there are plenty of ways to do it, it has to be done anyway to even apply to Binge On. It would be dirt simple for a site aiming to work with the service to provide an 'Add us to Binge on!' button that gets all of the pertinent info into the right spot.
I know you need to pin something on me to get your easy 'face-saving' way out, but that's just off-topic.
I'm not sure what you think is consumer-friendly about a service that not only won't work as expected due to technical limitations...
They already have a service that doesn't work as expected due to technical limitations. "Just wait, maybe one day your favorite site will become available!" Some of the reviews go into detail about other surprises that customers of that service encounter, feel free to peruse them at your leisure. As for the problem with whitelisting all the appropriate places, that's such a frivolous issue that I came up with 3 different solutions while walking out to my mailbox. It's just a whitelist for sites to use a slower channel. If it's really that difficult then just make a 'fast and slow' switch, you pick which plan you want to use. Seriously, T-Mobile's solution is so bass-ackwards I don't understand why anybody on this site in particular isn't making a fart noise whenever it's mentioned.
I have to admit you have lost me on the video recompression. I honestly don't have the slightest idea what that is in reference to. All of the 'optimization' that T-Mobile thinks it needs human eyes to verify is making sure the video stream fits within a 1 megabit pipe. If a site fails to do that, which is hard to picture since most sites including Youtube (who took a surprisingly long time to become available...) have a mode like that because of mobile phone usage, then buff...buu...buv.b..buffering. There is no recompression on T-Mobile's end involved. I don't think it would work, I cannot imagine a way it could work, I even agree with you that I don't know how they'd even do it because of encryption. (I do have doubts as to whether that's actually a copyright issue, but I feel that's a very different discussion.)
This debate I'm having with this guy has been going on in two separate threads, because of that there is some missing context. He is of the opinion that T-Mobile's way of doing it is the *ONLY* way to do it, which frankly I find kind of sickening. That quote of mine is me teasing him for his inability to see past what's in front of him. On a day-to-day basis he sees all sorts of examples that could be applied as alternatives, but that part of his brain was turned off for this discussion.
But I can see how you read it in a completely different way that is totally relevant to this conversation. I meant something completely different but, you're right, it does read exactly the way that you saw it.
So for you I'd like to clarify: I wasn't intending to say the masses should be able to tell T-Mobile who to add. In our debate I suggested that T-Mobile just provide an unlimited 1 megabit channel. That's basically what they're already doing, only they've drawn up their own whitelist to declare which domains get throttled. His complaint was that if you do it that way then you run into problems because some things you want at the faster speeds. He's not wrong about that, in fact some of the people that reviewed Binge On complained that the throttling of those specific sites has had some unintended consequences similar to what he described. I made a remark that it was a solvable problem, to which he insisted it wasn't.
I was poking fun at his willful blindness by suggesting to him that instead of T-Mobile playing gate-keeper, that you just let the customers come up with their own 'slow list' of domains that they get zero-rated on. T-Mobile provides their innovative service and does so without violating Net Neutrality. It's far more consumer-friendly.
Is there a compelling reason to make a human give a thumbs up on a site that need only meet technical requirements that his computer would judge for him anyway?
If I were T-Mobile I would accept every application I got while all the eyes are on me. I would even accept unlikely to be popular sites like PornHub to prove how nice I am.
What matters is if they unfairly exclude content providers from their version of Binge On.
Yeah, like taking an endless amount of time to approve applications because there's a meatbag in the way. Show me an automated approval section, or alternatively a user-submitted list of services they would like on the unlimited channel, and you'll see me happily recede into the shadows.
Which isn't much of a restriction.
Serious? How long do you think they can go quiet after a submission?
BECAUSE THEY CANNOT SIMPLY ASSUME THAT A VIDEO SERVER WANTS TO PARTICIPATE IN BINGE ON, THEY HAVE TO HAVE A REQUEST TO BE PART OF THE PROGRAM.
Right. Somebody in charge at a web-service goes to the T-Mobile website, types in some stuff, clicks "Submit", and the T-Mobile server runs a few tests and goes 'Approved'. You don't need a human for that unless you want things to be slow or you have criteria for choosing services that a computer cannot make.
You have no argument against T-Mobile...
Wrong. They're using humans where they don't need to.
...and that's why you keep bringing up Comcast or Verizon or AT&T as proof why T-Mobile shouldn't be able to do what it is doing.
Bringing it up because it's an example of why "Oh but T-Mobile is a good friendly company that loves me and my family and they've invited me to come join them in candyland!" is a faulty approach to ascertaining the breadth of this issue.
The burden is yours to provide evidence for the existence of this problem.
I did. They put a human being in between the process for ascertaining the technical validity of the service of a website. It doesn't make sense to do that. That, in and of itself, is a violation of Net Neutrality.
Show us that this problem exists, and THEN we'll get upset about it..
Do a porn search some time, you'll find a thousand. Oh and as for the list of denied sites, there's no transparency there, we'll never know until it makes headlines on Slashdot. One beautiful perk of requiring an application is the endless supply of excuses for why they don't have it today.
Are you willing to talk about the actual subject, rather than straw-men?
Straw man... right. Anyway. If T-Mobile is successful with this plan there is nothing to stop AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, etc from creating a similar service. AT&T and Verizon actually offer their own services that most of the applicants for Binge-On compete with. We've already seen how Verizon will behave when given the chance. So, yes, the answer to my question is important because basically what you're saying is: "It's not against Net Neutrality because I trust this particular corporation!"
Uhh... I don't even know how to reply to that. it's very hard to take anything you say seriously.
Of course not, you disagree so you're not listening to me anyway. We're not discussing this, after all, we're debating it. You have absolutely no interest in pondering what it means for a company to prefer specific web-services over others. It's a shame you weren't one of the lucky FIOS customers with 200 megabits of service but couldn't get a 2 megabit stream from Netflix.
So: people are saved money and bandwidth, they can participate or not, any content provider can participate or not, nobody is forced to, there's no content-based restrictions whatsoever... and you are apparently upset?
There is a very big restriction there. They have to apply. Every time you guys talk about this you hand-wave away the application process as "oh it's just a technical thing, they never turn services down!" So if this process is so simple that they just have to meet technical criteria, why have an application process involved at all? The answer is simple: They are reserving the right to say no. Whether they actually do or not is immaterial. Their failure (that we know of) to reject a service during a period of high visibility is not an indication that their process is in keeping with Net Neutrality. The fact that you're banking on their good behavior really should be a sign, after-all this is what we all gripe about with Apple's App Store process.
It is my assertion that they have never said "no", and moreover, they have made it clear they are willing to partner with anyone regardless of content.
What if Microsoft or Comcast made that promise?
It helps customers.
It does not. If you don't believe me, picture Verizon offering this service in light of how they treated Netflix.
... Okie dokie. Well, give me a little credit, at least I didn't make up something about you and act as if it's true.
Because they don't want to. Because they can't. I don't know. You don't know.
So they don't pick and choose, but they decide to use an approach where they must pick and choose... but, no you don't know, I don't know, what's happening, the room is spinning!!
Why not just meet the technical standards and talk to T-Mobile so YOUR CUSTOMERS can benefit from this program? What do you have against your own customers? You want them to pay full rate for your streaming video instead of getting a break, so you must really dislike them.
Do you have me mixed up with someone else or did you just hallucinate a fictional backstory for me?
I guess you're too wrapped up in your net neutrality hysteria to recognize that one cellular company offering different services than another has NOTHING to do with net neutrality.
Close. I'm wrapped up in net neutrality... which is why I see why this service violates it. They. Control. Who. Gets. Zero. Rated. You can go through the entire range of human emotion about how you feel about the service, even sexual gratification, it doesn't change that underlying fact.
I know when I'm downloading a 50Mb PDF of some manual, I don't want to wait more than five minutes to get it, but I would be perfectly happy if the 5 minute video I'm watching takes 4:59 to transport across the net.
Gee., if only computers were advanced enough to provide a simple solution to that problem.
Since you've never done it, and you've never been told "we'll get back to you in 6-8 weeks", you're talking out your ass.
"This is inconvenient so I will make a fart noise and pretend that's a rebuttal." If it's only a matter of meeting technical requirements, then there's no need for an application process. They chose to approve, by hand, who gets through. Geeeee I wonder whyyyyyyyyyyyyyy????
Why are you so outraged that you can do something simple to save YOUR CUSTOMERS money?
I don't want my ISP choosing which websites it likes best. We already tried that approach, that's why we have Net Neutrality now.
Then why not automate the process? Or, better yet, just offer a one megabit pipe and just publish the specs so those sites can provide good service to their customers?
Slashdot Mirror
Do you seriously not know why that wouldn't be considered hate speech?
Serious question: When did it stop mattering that these companies are private entities that can do what they please with their services? I'm not, at all, arguing in favor of censorship, I would just like to know where the line is that they crossed where suddenly they have to uphold the message?
Or, to put it another way: What would have to happen for it to be censorship if I don't allow a particular presidential candidate to put their sign on my lawn?
All over the place? Heh. If that were actually true it'd work to your benefit, you'd have something to argue with. I've said the same thing over and over again. Consistently. I even went as far as to not stray off-topic. That one thing that I've said over and over again is the one thing that neither you or the other participant has been able to provide an answer to. THAT is why you're bailing.
So yes, I am going to take you up on that last word. The goal of a mobile ISP is to take your money and send you as little data as possible. In fact, this whole Binge On concept, is strictly about sending less data out. The less data they send out, the more money in their pockets. They've created a system to serve this purpose with the feel good word 'unlimited', but it violates Net Neutrality. Your acceptance of that little issue is that you trust them. That's it. You have provided no reason to find their human-based application process acceptable other than you like them. You're willing to cannibalize Net Neutrality because: free shit!
Okie doke, I'm done. We're cool. I do hope you have the good rest of your Sunday.
I 'ignored' it for brevity. Everything you quoted supports me. The whole point I've been making this entire time is that there is a human being making the decision. The argument is that the rules are purely technical in nature so it doesn't matter that there's a human there. The question about the application process was to draw out an answer as to why a human has to be involved in the first place. Not one person has provided one. In fact, I have a nice lonely little question earlier in this thread still waiting to be replied to.
Oh and the "set this up for me" button... it bypasses the need for an application process. Yes, you are still being hasty in your replies.
Further, I never attempted to bail on the discussion...
Yes, you did. That was the whole point of the "no point in continuing to discuss this..." comment you made. It was a dare for me to produce something you can nitpick with an out that lets you jab your nose in the air. I wouldn't normally mind, but we're talking about human beings here and you want to nitpick an alternative to a process that is already flawed.
That you think I would find them frivolous speaks volumes...
Heh. I didn't say the ideas were frivolous. Actually what I said was that you would find frivolous reasons to dismiss them, like the willful lack of reading comprehension that you demonstrated right here and again later in your post.
So you never claimed there was no reason for Binge-On to have an application process and that it should be able to be fully automated?
why have a human-required application process at all?
Again, you are in such a hurry to find something to be critical of you're cannibalizing your own point. A "set this up for me" button is automation. A form to fill out and email to T-Mobile is not.
Heh. I'm sorry, this is amusing. It's almost like you included my rebuttal for me to save time or something.
First of all, what was off-topic?
Your attempt to bail on the discussion because I didn't bother writing an essay on using well-established tools on the internet to send a few strings of data around to which you would find issue with then humorously declare impossible. That's not what we're actually discussing.
You're ready to pound your fists on the keyboard because I didn't rattle off a quick list of ideas that you were just going to find frivolous reasons to shoot down? The important point is that there are plenty of ways to do it, it has to be done anyway to even apply to Binge On. It would be dirt simple for a site aiming to work with the service to provide an 'Add us to Binge on!' button that gets all of the pertinent info into the right spot.
I know you need to pin something on me to get your easy 'face-saving' way out, but that's just off-topic.
I'm not sure what you think is consumer-friendly about a service that not only won't work as expected due to technical limitations...
They already have a service that doesn't work as expected due to technical limitations. "Just wait, maybe one day your favorite site will become available!" Some of the reviews go into detail about other surprises that customers of that service encounter, feel free to peruse them at your leisure. As for the problem with whitelisting all the appropriate places, that's such a frivolous issue that I came up with 3 different solutions while walking out to my mailbox. It's just a whitelist for sites to use a slower channel. If it's really that difficult then just make a 'fast and slow' switch, you pick which plan you want to use. Seriously, T-Mobile's solution is so bass-ackwards I don't understand why anybody on this site in particular isn't making a fart noise whenever it's mentioned.
I have to admit you have lost me on the video recompression. I honestly don't have the slightest idea what that is in reference to. All of the 'optimization' that T-Mobile thinks it needs human eyes to verify is making sure the video stream fits within a 1 megabit pipe. If a site fails to do that, which is hard to picture since most sites including Youtube (who took a surprisingly long time to become available...) have a mode like that because of mobile phone usage, then buff...buu...buv.b..buffering. There is no recompression on T-Mobile's end involved. I don't think it would work, I cannot imagine a way it could work, I even agree with you that I don't know how they'd even do it because of encryption. (I do have doubts as to whether that's actually a copyright issue, but I feel that's a very different discussion.)
This debate I'm having with this guy has been going on in two separate threads, because of that there is some missing context. He is of the opinion that T-Mobile's way of doing it is the *ONLY* way to do it, which frankly I find kind of sickening. That quote of mine is me teasing him for his inability to see past what's in front of him. On a day-to-day basis he sees all sorts of examples that could be applied as alternatives, but that part of his brain was turned off for this discussion.
But I can see how you read it in a completely different way that is totally relevant to this conversation. I meant something completely different but, you're right, it does read exactly the way that you saw it.
So for you I'd like to clarify: I wasn't intending to say the masses should be able to tell T-Mobile who to add. In our debate I suggested that T-Mobile just provide an unlimited 1 megabit channel. That's basically what they're already doing, only they've drawn up their own whitelist to declare which domains get throttled. His complaint was that if you do it that way then you run into problems because some things you want at the faster speeds. He's not wrong about that, in fact some of the people that reviewed Binge On complained that the throttling of those specific sites has had some unintended consequences similar to what he described. I made a remark that it was a solvable problem, to which he insisted it wasn't.
I was poking fun at his willful blindness by suggesting to him that instead of T-Mobile playing gate-keeper, that you just let the customers come up with their own 'slow list' of domains that they get zero-rated on. T-Mobile provides their innovative service and does so without violating Net Neutrality. It's far more consumer-friendly.
Cops!
Is there a compelling reason to make a human give a thumbs up on a site that need only meet technical requirements that his computer would judge for him anyway?
If I were T-Mobile I would accept every application I got while all the eyes are on me. I would even accept unlikely to be popular sites like PornHub to prove how nice I am.
What matters is if they unfairly exclude content providers from their version of Binge On.
Yeah, like taking an endless amount of time to approve applications because there's a meatbag in the way. Show me an automated approval section, or alternatively a user-submitted list of services they would like on the unlimited channel, and you'll see me happily recede into the shadows.
Which isn't much of a restriction.
Serious? How long do you think they can go quiet after a submission?
BECAUSE THEY CANNOT SIMPLY ASSUME THAT A VIDEO SERVER WANTS TO PARTICIPATE IN BINGE ON, THEY HAVE TO HAVE A REQUEST TO BE PART OF THE PROGRAM.
Right. Somebody in charge at a web-service goes to the T-Mobile website, types in some stuff, clicks "Submit", and the T-Mobile server runs a few tests and goes 'Approved'. You don't need a human for that unless you want things to be slow or you have criteria for choosing services that a computer cannot make.
You have no argument against T-Mobile...
Wrong. They're using humans where they don't need to.
...and that's why you keep bringing up Comcast or Verizon or AT&T as proof why T-Mobile shouldn't be able to do what it is doing.
Bringing it up because it's an example of why "Oh but T-Mobile is a good friendly company that loves me and my family and they've invited me to come join them in candyland!" is a faulty approach to ascertaining the breadth of this issue.
The burden is yours to provide evidence for the existence of this problem.
I did. They put a human being in between the process for ascertaining the technical validity of the service of a website. It doesn't make sense to do that. That, in and of itself, is a violation of Net Neutrality.
Show us that this problem exists, and THEN we'll get upset about it. .
Heh. History shall repeat itself.
Whether you do that or not is YOUR choice, not theirs.
Then why not automate it? Why make this a require a human being when there are thousands of sites out there?
You claimed I was making up some "fictional backstory" for you, and I have idea what the hell you are talking about.
So you're saying that I haven't made the same repetitive point over and over again in this thread. Okie dokie.
Do a porn search some time, you'll find a thousand. Oh and as for the list of denied sites, there's no transparency there, we'll never know until it makes headlines on Slashdot. One beautiful perk of requiring an application is the endless supply of excuses for why they don't have it today.
How long do you think it'll take for T-Mobile to approve a thousand sites?
That should be easy to figure out, show me a list of all who have applied.
Are you willing to talk about the actual subject, rather than straw-men?
Straw man... right. Anyway. If T-Mobile is successful with this plan there is nothing to stop AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, etc from creating a similar service. AT&T and Verizon actually offer their own services that most of the applicants for Binge-On compete with. We've already seen how Verizon will behave when given the chance. So, yes, the answer to my question is important because basically what you're saying is: "It's not against Net Neutrality because I trust this particular corporation!"
Uhh... I don't even know how to reply to that. it's very hard to take anything you say seriously.
Of course not, you disagree so you're not listening to me anyway. We're not discussing this, after all, we're debating it. You have absolutely no interest in pondering what it means for a company to prefer specific web-services over others. It's a shame you weren't one of the lucky FIOS customers with 200 megabits of service but couldn't get a 2 megabit stream from Netflix.
So: people are saved money and bandwidth, they can participate or not, any content provider can participate or not, nobody is forced to, there's no content-based restrictions whatsoever... and you are apparently upset?
There is a very big restriction there. They have to apply. Every time you guys talk about this you hand-wave away the application process as "oh it's just a technical thing, they never turn services down!" So if this process is so simple that they just have to meet technical criteria, why have an application process involved at all? The answer is simple: They are reserving the right to say no. Whether they actually do or not is immaterial. Their failure (that we know of) to reject a service during a period of high visibility is not an indication that their process is in keeping with Net Neutrality. The fact that you're banking on their good behavior really should be a sign, after-all this is what we all gripe about with Apple's App Store process.
It is my assertion that they have never said "no", and moreover, they have made it clear they are willing to partner with anyone regardless of content.
What if Microsoft or Comcast made that promise?
It helps customers.
It does not. If you don't believe me, picture Verizon offering this service in light of how they treated Netflix.
Please link to a single instance of them saying "no" to a service that met their technical requirements.
Is it your assertion that they cannot for some reason say no? If that's what you're saying, then why have a human-required application process at all?
YOU choose to meet the technical requirements or you choose not to. They don't choose anything.
... until after your application is sent in.
I have no idea what you're complaining about here.
Really? Heh. I told you several times.
Troll talk.
... Okie dokie. Well, give me a little credit, at least I didn't make up something about you and act as if it's true.
Because they don't want to. Because they can't. I don't know. You don't know.
So they don't pick and choose, but they decide to use an approach where they must pick and choose... but, no you don't know, I don't know, what's happening, the room is spinning!!
Why not just meet the technical standards and talk to T-Mobile so YOUR CUSTOMERS can benefit from this program? What do you have against your own customers? You want them to pay full rate for your streaming video instead of getting a break, so you must really dislike them.
Do you have me mixed up with someone else or did you just hallucinate a fictional backstory for me?
I guess you're too wrapped up in your net neutrality hysteria to recognize that one cellular company offering different services than another has NOTHING to do with net neutrality.
Close. I'm wrapped up in net neutrality... which is why I see why this service violates it. They. Control. Who. Gets. Zero. Rated. You can go through the entire range of human emotion about how you feel about the service, even sexual gratification, it doesn't change that underlying fact.
I know when I'm downloading a 50Mb PDF of some manual, I don't want to wait more than five minutes to get it, but I would be perfectly happy if the 5 minute video I'm watching takes 4:59 to transport across the net.
Gee., if only computers were advanced enough to provide a simple solution to that problem.
Since you've never done it, and you've never been told "we'll get back to you in 6-8 weeks", you're talking out your ass.
"This is inconvenient so I will make a fart noise and pretend that's a rebuttal." If it's only a matter of meeting technical requirements, then there's no need for an application process. They chose to approve, by hand, who gets through. Geeeee I wonder whyyyyyyyyyyyyyy????
Why are you so outraged that you can do something simple to save YOUR CUSTOMERS money?
I don't want my ISP choosing which websites it likes best. We already tried that approach, that's why we have Net Neutrality now.
You've got to be kidding, or a troll.
Settle down. This isn't a credibility debate.
The fact remains. Meet the criteria, you're good.
Then why not automate the process? Or, better yet, just offer a one megabit pipe and just publish the specs so those sites can provide good service to their customers?
No, they don't pick and choose...
Then why even have an application process?