To be honest, no, I hadn’t read your article, but did so now. My first reply in this thread was in response to @janitors opinion on NN. If I understood your article correctly, when you’re talking about net neutrality your talking more the actual content that might get filtered out because it is deemed inappropriate or offensive, e.g. more related to freedom of speech and decentralisation. If that’s correct I’m not sure if net neutrality is the best term to use, because this has a completely different meaning to most people.
The term net neutrality is, for me at least, associated with the definition that you quoted from wikipedia, I’ve said that before, but the way maidsafe seems to work is not neutral if you ask me, because it favours content that is popular. If the demand for a file gets bigger, more nodes cache it and therefore it loads faster than content that is not as popular. That is net neutrality inside the SAFE network. Even when the network is up and running, there still is the case to be made for NN outside of the SAFE network. As long as we don’t have a mesh network that spans the globe (which I don’t see happening in the foreseeable future, if ever), we still need the “old internet” to get our SAFE packets around. Without NN, this will become increasingly hard, because there is no company that can pay an ISP to transport SAFE packets as fast as youtube and facebook packages. Even with SAFE, we still have to use the old infrastructure that is subject to the goodwill of ISPs to do the right thing.
I don’t disagree with most of what you say, but it’s a lot more complex when it gets down to it.
For instance, I don’t think it’s in the interests of ISPs or even high-bandwidth providers like Netflix to want to screw “the little guy, who just want’s he/her internet to work well.” Given current models, there is a good argument to be made that if some need and want a lot of high-bandwidth services, there’s no real problem building out delivery lanes to deliver it, and charging participants more, via fees to those content providers who produce it. This would take traffic off the other lanes which will otherwise be forced to carry all the traffic for everybody. Otherwise, those who are happy with email, instant messaging, standard web surfing, etc., won’t be forced to pay higher prices for building out the whole highway.
I may not have all the technical aspects of this, but I do know that that is how it has been presented at times. If that’s true, I don’t have a problem with “non-net neutrality”.
The whole subject is a political puppet show, I fear, and whenever the flames of passion are fanned for political action, I get wary.
My point about the SAFE Network is that, rather than getting into a political/social control stance to solve many issues, it seeks to make it irrelevant to a large degree.
Making politics irrelevant is always a far better choice than taking a political stance, which is always choosing sides in a battle that you’re almost always better off not fighting at all.
I don’t think it’s about screwing the little guys either, it’s about screwing the competition and getting a piece of the cake that they’re (ISPs) missing out on.
What you’re describing is the basic model of how our society works. I’m paying for a lot of stuff with my taxes that I don’t necessarily agree with, but I’m ok with that. That is, literally, the price we have to pay to live in a society to support the minorities, regardless of whether we agree with them or not. The same is true for (health) insurances, the fact that I rarely need to see a doctor makes it possible for older people to get get good health care and hopefully it’s still the same when I’m old and sick.
That is, or should be, the same argument when it comes to content on the internet. Who will decide what will get on the fast lane and what doesn’t? The ISPs will decide. Today it’s only that you have to pay extra for netflix. Next year there will only be packages where you can choose between package A) wikipedia, youtube b) facebook, tumblr c) amazon and netflix. Every other site is so horrendously slow that they’re basically unusable. That would mean the death of every opensource/volunteer programm. It would mean that a youtube 2.0 from 3 unknown guys without the big bucks won’t stand a chance anymore.
I mean, look at what facebook is doing with internet.org in India. They’re claiming that they’re bringing internet to people who wouldn’t have access to it otherwise. While that may be true, the real reason certainly is to make sure that their own market grows and to give them an advantage over the competition. The internet is not the same for these people as it is for us. Internet means Facebook, wikipedia and the three other services that are included. With this model, there won’t be a indian Mark Zuckerberg that makes another Facebook, simply because he can’t afford to get his foot into the door. This is a major shift in how the internet works. Today anybody can become successful on the internet because chances are equal, without net neutrality only the big players, or those who can buy access are able to rise and flourish.
And again, as long as SAFE Network uses the infrastructure of the normal internet and therefore the infrastructure of the ISPs who want to abolish net neutrality, they’re subject to this change. If they decide to prioritise only those who pay, SAFE network won’t be able to succeed because packages will be delivered so slow that it won’t matter how good the SAFE network itself is. The success of SAFE network is very much dependent on net neutrality. without it, it won’t be able to have the impact we’d like it to have.
I understand. As I’ve said, I can argue the matter with equal (almost) passion from either side. I just think that there are layers underneath that should be examined.
2x now has come the notion that company management has a duty to earn as much profit as possible for the share holders or even a duty to make a profit. This is utter nonsense. And its only in the code to prevent tax games. Even Neutron Jack recognized that shareholders are way at the back of the list of stake holders.
Also its not telco’s private infrastructure. The market belongs to the public and much of then land is leased and all of it subject to imminent domain. They are utilities and they are not to collude and with their local monopolies were always subject government control on rates. And the rates and the performance in the US is horrid. $80 a month for what is covered by real infrastructure with no cost to the average end user. These are communication systems, the greed of people throwing their money at them is the least of concerns. This talk of no neutrality would be like a free way and road system where you had to pay tolls per mile because of useless private property games.
How about this: I’m not YouTube’s customer or shareholder.
Apparently you got 3 likes for this so it seems most people are on the same page here - redistribution and subsidies are bad only if you’re getting screwed, otherwise it’s OK!
Also, please consider what you claimed: that Larry and Zuck needed our help, so we had to provide even without being asked. What kind of reasoning is that???
You’re mistaken, but if you can’t break through that belief, I won’t try to persuade you about this NN stuff either - it’s OK.
By the way, I’m curious - do you also think that the minimum wage supports the underprivileged and poorest workers?
It would’ve been nice if you told why I’m mistaken about that…
I don’t know why you’re trying to bait me into a completely different debate without finishing the first one. Minimum wage has absolutely nothing to do with this, so if you want to discuss the implications of minimum wage, please be so kind and open up a new topic. In the meantime, let’s try and stay on topic here.
btw, you also haven’t answered my question regarding your fedex example.
Do you complain about the McDonald truck in front of you in the traffic because you never eat there?
Larry and Zuck paid to upload their data and their users paid to download it, which help do you give?
What have you provided without being asked? Your fair share of your bandwidth? Actually you have been asked and you agreed when you signed the terms and conditions with your ISP. It’s written in there: “your experience may vary”.
If your ISP sells bandwidth knowing that if their users use it fully it will clog up the network that’s your ISP’s problem. As a customer you can change ISP or ask them to give more reasonable bandwidth so nobody can abuse it.
You are talking like you’re an ISP who offer unlimited download and complain because people use it all. Don’t pledge what you can’t afford to give. If your overly generous plans result in a shitty experience for your clients then they will take their business elsewhere, that’s the free market for you.
The US taxpayer paid for it (and I don’t mean Al Gore’s paychecks, but DARPA), it’s not something that came out of nothing. You may also want to consider to think what would have happened with the Internet if the US government tried to “sell it” (I don’t know how, but just hypothetically).
Some industry commentators have speculated that YouTube’s running costs—specifically the bandwidth required—may be as high as 5 to 6 million dollars per month, thereby fueling criticisms that the company, like many Internet startups, did not have a viably implemented business model.
I said this before: the price is not the issue here, but who pays. The cost of moving network packets from any-to-any wouldn’t have been (significantly) different, only costs would have been allocated justly.
Who makes laws & regulations? Are telecommunications an unregulated or regulated market?
Yes, because I didn’t notice you made changes. Let’s see:
But Amazon is not forced to do business with FedEx, and neither is consumer forced to subscribe to any commercial service (except Obamacare).
That’s exactly why there shouldn’t be NN and similar government meddling in these matters. Does the government regulate - or should it regulate - prices and delivery schedules FedEx and TNT offer to customers?
Should Mom’s & Pop’s pay the same prices or have “dedicated client reps” as Amazon (package neutrality!)?
I can’t be against or in favor of something based on vested interests (then it’d be pointless to argue in favor of my position).
Maybe without NN the cost of running SAFE would be a little higher, but it would be higher for everyone (including YouTube, Bittorrent, etc.) so one more time, the cost is not an issue, as long as it’s properly allocated. SAFE would still prosper, perhaps even more so, without NN.
With NN I really think telcos/ISPs will introduce packet equality (poor service for everyone), but with network caps, which would be very bad for the SAFE network.
ISPs - experts in their fields - didn’t estimate future demand and now the government (generally speaking made up of most incompetent people) is taking over to organize things for us. Awesome!
You’re now assuming the streaming side pays for traffic. Why would JanitorTube pay to the telco so that you can watch funny cat videos for free? That doesn’t make any sense.
Without government interference, consumers would pay for the type of service they desire. Some would buy all you can eat, others “basic + QoS/VoIP”, content providers (e.g. JanitorTube) would have to pay similar to end users, but cheaper because they buy large amounts).
Since all video content providers pay proportionately to their consumption and discount rates aren’t that different, even a small content provider would be at a very small disadvantage vs. JanitorTube.
I already mentioned Amazon and how small companies use Amazon to stream shit and still make money. It’s not a theory, but the reality and it works fine today. One gigabyte, 3 cents (Amazon S3 Simple Storage Service Pricing - Amazon Web Services). You can stream 300 funny cat videos (1MB each) for 1 cent. I don’t understand, what’s so horrific about that?
Ugh, great point, no doubt this will earn you a like!
Why would I complain about that. I assume the road is not mine, it’s not blocking my way, it doesn’t cost me anything and I can take overtake the truck if I’m not happy with my place.
Five companies and their wonderful customers cause a good chunk of my telco’s infra spending, and that reflects in my monthly bill. I’d prefer an unregulated market so that I can pay close to the exact amount of data traffic I use and get a better tailored service.
I don’t think anyone needs help. I mentioned above, you can download the whole damn Guttenberg library for couple of dollars. No child will be “left behind” because of a proper cost allocation.
Yes, that’s how the system works.
It’s no different from the banks - if everyone went in to get their money, they’d all go bust.
With the fractional reserve banking sysstem we had a near collapse in 2008. Then the government experts came in.
Now we have the same system propped up with our money, and it is even worse. Financial crises - mission accomplished. Health care - fixed! Next big mission - fix the Internet.
Guys I never said the current system is good, I am saying NN will make it worse.
JanitorTube does pay telcos so you can watch funny cat video. They make that money back by also showing ads. That’s their business model. If JanitorTube can’t make enough money with ads then they go bankrupt. There’s no telco who would allow JanitorTube to send data for free. That wouldn’t make any sense.
Interesting watching this play out from “both sides”.
I think the debate proves the point of my article. “Net Neutrality” is a tangled mess to consider. The only way thru is to go ahead and create what is basically a “neutral medium” by design.
It’s my opinion the SAFE is at least one of the steps needed to “cut the Gordian Knot” (look up the phrase if you don’t know it) that we find ourselves facing. Both “sides” have good points, though I’m always inclined to fall down on the side that doesn’t include coercion as a first principle.
But since coercion is at the core of how we’ve organized society thru most of history, it takes a while to unwind. And it’s in the minds of people that this must happen. But unwinding it is. Project SAFE will help unwind it further. That’s my point, and that’s the main reason I’m a fanboy.
Yes, of course they pay, I meant they wouldn’t pay on your (consumer) end to your ISP, they’d pay for their own link to their own ISP or datacenter (who then has their own peering agreements or leased lines to the Internet).
Ads or whatever other revenue can be used to subsidize costs, of course, they could even pay you 50 MAID to watch 5 ads or fill out a questionnaire.
Of course they wouldn’t pay my ISP. I’m the one paying my ISP to open the gate for their data. So since I’m paying my ISP and they are paying their ISP can we agree there is no free rider and everyone involved pay their just cost?
At the end of the day, what I would like is this from my ISP:
Charge me for how much I download and make it dependent of the current load of the network and the speed at which I get it. Don’t discriminate about the origin of the data, the only thing you should care about is one and zeros. Simple, elegant, efficient, just and honest.
I don’t really understand where the hell @janitor is coming from.
Net neutrality isn’t about some kind of government plan to destroy the internet. Network neutrality is about removing the ability for the ISPs to throttle packets that have been paid for (usually twice) as well as removing their ability to extort more money out of customers who paid for connectivity fair and square.
If the ISP didn’t want someone to max out several gigabit lines, maybe they shouldn’t have let the customer buy several gigabit lines?
I don’t see how buying bandwidth for its going rate is somehow freeloading on the infrastructure. The reason network neutrality is being implemented is because the ISPs sold bandwidth, then deliberately throttled the data going through the network, causing users of (for example) Netflix to experience degradation of service.
I do not understand what kind of sick twisted worldview one has to have where the ISP is the victim here.
They are paid for building and maintaining the infrastructure; selling people bandwidth and then whining that it’s unfair that they need to build more infrastructure to accommodate that bandwidth seems like really weird logic.
All details aside, here is where I think our fundamental difference stems from: You think that government consists only of stupid people that are trying to make life difficult as possible for the little guy and more importantly for the average business owner. And frankly, the language you’re using in this context doesn’t make it easy for me to really listen to your arguments (Obamacare, Obamanet, etc). It’s just rhetoric that isn’t necessary, but to each his own. I’m not judging, just trying to convey how you come across
I don’t get how you can look at government and business side by side and the objective goals they have and come to the conclusion that less rules for businesses could be a good thing. Businesses have ******* us over time and time again, because their objective is (like you said) to make the most money, not to care about people or the environment. They don’t give a shit about people, that’s why we have to force them to do these things. You know, like environmental safety, workers safety, what goes into our food and they’re still finding ways to make more money by exploiting loop holes.
Is government perfect? Absolutely not. But they don’t have a monopoly on stupid people, there are plenty of stupid people in businesses too. I think government is a place where we as the people can come together to achieve together what we can’t do alone and that is a good thing, because I want to see society progress as a whole and greed that drives businesses won’t do that.
With that being said, without NN their business model would quickly change to the picture I posted above, I have absolutely no doubt about that, since they’re already trying to do that in an attempt to make more money. Once the first ISP starts to that, the others will follow and there won’t be an ISP left that will offer our current model. The free market won’t do anything to prevent that.
But it isn’t as easy as that, simply because
a) of the way the internet works (routing is not direct)
b) the internet and it’s connections are infrastructure, like roads and therefore are of interest for all the people.
c) the taxpayers subsidised the upgrade of the internet infrastructure with billions of dollars to the ISPs (not that they used the money to actually upgrade the internet, but that’s another story) so it’s not only up to businesses to decide what happens.
I think the current model is a huge benefit to society as a whole and I see that as a very good thing and I would very much like to see it continue that way.
One part of them thinks they’re more competent than others and that they’re going to rescue the rest of us with their benevolent designs, part of them are corrupt and power hungry and the majority is incompetent. Some combine multiple traits. A tiny minority is good.
Please understand (also @hilbicks and @davidmtl) that I am not saying the current system is good.
The best way to remove their ability to extort money and engage in rent-seeking activities is to make the market unregulated.
We can’t know what will be, but I am confident that with this NN nonsense it won’t get better.
I googled a bit to check whether what I think is common sense occurred to others.
Worse yet, any solution of new rules or guidelines, whether enforced by the FCC or legislated by Congress, will most likely render the Neutrality medicine worse than the disease. Even with the purest, most benevolent intentions, it is practically impossible to construct verbiage that wouldn’t have either the worst of unintended consequences or be totally meaningless. Armies of lawyers on all sides stand at the ready to exploit any new rule or law along these two extremes.
One simple alternative that avoids these risks is transparency. Carriers should be allowed to differentiate traffic however they desire as long as they disclose exactly what they are doing. Additionally, carriers must provide a uniform policy of differentiation in all markets. With these two simple rules, consumers will be empowered to decide the matter themselves. Guidelines for transparency actually do exist and indeed were upheld in a recent court ruling.
I think the “meaningless, but expensive” outcome is interesting and not unlikely.
The paper also concludes that under the best of circumstances, even if networks are significantly upgraded in the presence of net neutrality rules , the proposed non-discrimination provisions would provide incentives for those who would build and operate networks to offer “blended” QoS levels that are “too high” for some applications and “too low” for others. Mediocrity in broadband service is hardly an objective that policymakers in the United States should be trying to achieve.
The ISP is not the victim. They’re a private business that should have the right to employ their own property in ways they see fit. Some of them, given opportunity, employ bad business practices. That’s not news, that’s how things work when there’s no free market.
The current system makes it possible to engage in non-transparent practices and retards competition. You think that the same people who made rules for the current system will fix it, I disagree.
Folks, you are barking against the wrong tree.
We need to cancel existing laws and regulations, and not introduce new ones.
I am not arguing in favor of either ISPs or SAFE. I believe that SAFE has better chances if the market for telco services is truly free, and normally (in other topics) most people expect the same (especially when the topic involves mesh networks). But suddenly when it’s about corporations and not individuals (as if corporations aren’t comprised of individuals like we are), everyone turns against the free market. Should the government regulate and oversee mesh networks? Should individuals be banned from setting QoS on their mesh network stations so that they discriminate against 3rd party traffic vs. their own?
I mostly agree with you, if I were to write the laws for net neutrality it would go like this:
“Do whatever you want but you can’t discriminate data based on it’s origin, destination and content”
That’s all that matters to me, let the free market figure out the rest.
EDIT: And the reason why we need this is that the technology doesn’t allow us to have a very competitive free market in this industry. Once we have a total free market where the barrier to entry is cheap and available to a wide range of entrepreneur, remove the law and let the free market decide it all.
You have hit the crux of the problem. The fact that the infrastructure is owned and operated by a corporation is exactly the reason why people don’t want to give them free reign. In a corporation no person is ever responsible for what happens, if an actual person is punished they are generally a scapegoat chosen by the corporate executives and lawyers.
If a corporation is found to have deliberately skimped out on safety equipment causing untold environmental destruction and the deaths of thousands, the people responsible for that decision aren’t brought into court. The corporation is treated as a single entity and is generally given a slap on the wrist, less than half a percent of their net worth is paid out in fines (that don’t go into the cleanup or to the families of the deceased) for the gross negligence of the corporation’s leadership.
The best case scenario for punishment of the guilty parties is that they get fired from their position in the company for causing the lawsuit to happen, but only if they lost more in the lawsuit than they saved by neglecting the safety equipment.
Corporations are entirely amoral because of their structural incentives, lack of accountability and the leadership positions’ tendency to be attractive (and well served by their guilt-deficient nature) to psychopaths.
Because they are amoral, they will take exactly as despicable a course of action as they can get away with, which is in practice to exploit every loophole and other weakness in legislation and its enforcement like their whole business would collapse if they didn’t.
If you don’t explicitly ban it and it will help a corporation grow, the corporation will do it, no matter the cost to everyone else.
