Beware the New New Thing

The New York Times ^ | April 5, 2008 | Damian Kulash Jr.

[moderatewolverine]

If you haven’t been following the debate on net neutrality, you’re not alone. The details of the issue can lead into realms where only tech geeks and policy wonks dare to tread, but at root there’s a pretty simple question: How much control should network operators be allowed to have over the information on their lines?

Most people assume that the Internet is a democratic free-for-all by nature — that it could be no other way. But the openness of the Internet as we know it is a byproduct of the fact that the network was started on phone lines. The phone system is subject to “common carriage” laws, which require phone companies to treat all calls and customers equally. They can’t offer tiered service in which higher-paying customers get their calls through faster or clearer, or calls originating on a competitor’s network are blocked or slowed.

[moderatewolverine]

Stuff that not enough people are paying attention to.

[webboy45]

The comparison to the phone company is all too true, but not the way the Times spins it. The phone company can and does charge more for faster service. The question is whether or not there is a compelling public interest the keep them from doing the same with the internet. I love free things, but I think companies should be allowed to sell better service at the infrastructure end as well as the user end.

[Wuli]

“net neutrality”

is nothing other than google et al

wanting to create new products requiring massive additional pipeline demands - new products highly profitable to them

while trying to get congress to insure that it is only you, not they, not the googles et al, from whom the pipeline owners can obtain the additional revenue meeded for the pipeline requirements needed for the demands imposed by those highly profitable products

google’s business model is built on obtaining an essentially free ride on the telecom backbone at the expense of the residential subscribers

they want you to believe that without ‘net neutrality’ - legal protection for google - it will directly cost you to access google’s best products

no it won’t

YOU are not a google customer

it’s advertizers are

you, the user, is what the google customer is paying to get access to

google will just raise it’s rates to it’s advertizers