Over the long term, you're right. Over the short term, it's going to be limited. For the purposes of the above analogy, water, electricity and trash pickup are no more unlimited than broadband access. Especially trash pickup -- you can always send more people out, but you know, you actually have to do it first.
But what you conveniently leave out is that the providers are trying to create a fastlane so the net doesn't get choked off. Prioritize the packets, and the time-critical voice and video packets will come through just fine. Pass legislation that prevents them from doing this, and well, guess you'll have to watch Colbert at 11:30.
Joshua, the mistake you make is in thinking that the telcos wouldn't be offering better service for charging more. They are not talking about charging them more for the same service they have now -- they're talking about creating a fastlane, a higher tier, and for that they would pay more service.
There's a lot of misinformed talk going around about how telcos will "degrade" the service of users who didn't pay the higher prices, but that's nuts at best and a lie at worst. Sure, maybe relative to those who paid for the faster lane, it would be *relatively* slower compared to that lane. Still it would be *absolutely* faster than it is now.
Moreover, do we think that there aren't faster lanes already? Google and similar companies already pay Akamai to make sure their bits get there faster than they would otherwise.
Whatever happened to technolibertarianism? It seems that now the internet has been developing awhile a lot of people want to lock it in the way it is now. But if we did this 6 years ago, we'd probably still be using AOL. No thanks. I'll take the unknown future.
Whatever one thinks of the telecom cooperation with the NSA -- and I would like to point out that this is not about listening in, just pattern analysis -- it would be a mistake to tie "network neutrality" into it.
It's like me saying I have to hate the San Antonio Spurs because I hate the Los Angeles Lakers and they both play in the NBA. Well, I love the Spurs. OK, kind of a tortured analogy. But they're still separate issues.
And I know you were joking, but let's also make it clear that the telcos were dealing with the executive branch (NSA), and the upcoming bill is in the legislative branch (you know, Congress). It's complicated enough as it is...
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Over the long term, you're right. Over the short term, it's going to be limited. For the purposes of the above analogy, water, electricity and trash pickup are no more unlimited than broadband access. Especially trash pickup -- you can always send more people out, but you know, you actually have to do it first.
But what you conveniently leave out is that the providers are trying to create a fastlane so the net doesn't get choked off. Prioritize the packets, and the time-critical voice and video packets will come through just fine. Pass legislation that prevents them from doing this, and well, guess you'll have to watch Colbert at 11:30.
Joshua, the mistake you make is in thinking that the telcos wouldn't be offering better service for charging more. They are not talking about charging them more for the same service they have now -- they're talking about creating a fastlane, a higher tier, and for that they would pay more service. There's a lot of misinformed talk going around about how telcos will "degrade" the service of users who didn't pay the higher prices, but that's nuts at best and a lie at worst. Sure, maybe relative to those who paid for the faster lane, it would be *relatively* slower compared to that lane. Still it would be *absolutely* faster than it is now. Moreover, do we think that there aren't faster lanes already? Google and similar companies already pay Akamai to make sure their bits get there faster than they would otherwise. Whatever happened to technolibertarianism? It seems that now the internet has been developing awhile a lot of people want to lock it in the way it is now. But if we did this 6 years ago, we'd probably still be using AOL. No thanks. I'll take the unknown future.
Whatever one thinks of the telecom cooperation with the NSA -- and I would like to point out that this is not about listening in, just pattern analysis -- it would be a mistake to tie "network neutrality" into it. It's like me saying I have to hate the San Antonio Spurs because I hate the Los Angeles Lakers and they both play in the NBA. Well, I love the Spurs. OK, kind of a tortured analogy. But they're still separate issues. And I know you were joking, but let's also make it clear that the telcos were dealing with the executive branch (NSA), and the upcoming bill is in the legislative branch (you know, Congress). It's complicated enough as it is...