4 ms·

This is nothing like the phone lines -- the FCC isn't going to come in and force them to play nice, and these companies are not going to do it out of the goodne

by hodwik 11y ago

This is nothing like the phone lines -- the FCC isn't going to come in and force them to play nice, and these companies are not going to do it out of the goodness of their hearts. The big players will just starve out the little ones. AirBNB isn't infrastructure, it's a service. Without a complete socialist re-imagining of society, that will never happen.

kragen 11y ago
The FCC isn't forcing Level3 or Global Exchange or AOL to "play nice" either. You're apparently arguing from a complete ignorance of history, and consequently your prescribed remedy is likely to make the situation worse instead of better.
- hodwik 11y ago
  The internet evolved over the phone lines, where providers were legally banned from blocking traffic. They were made to play nice. The fact we still have a free internet is the result of that legacy.
  - kragen 11y ago
    While I agree that common carrier obligations helped the internet significantly, your picture of history is still mostly wrong, and the particle of truth in it is drastically oversimplified. The internet didn't evolve over phone lines. Phone-line providers weren't legally banned from blocking traffic, and in fact did legally block data traffic over phone lines for decades. Common carrier obligations didn't exist in most of the countries where we have a free internet, and have never been relevant to most of the participants in the internet: not to AlohaNet, not to ARPANet, not to Mindvox, not to Netcom, not to UUNET, not to AOL, not to Level3, not to Global Crossing, certainly not to JANET, not to NSFNet, and not to The Little Garden. Rather, the internet was created by an academic-military coalition that had sufficient political power to overcome the phone companies' and regulators' opposition to data networking. It's plain that you weren't on com-priv then, you aren't on NANOG or equivalent now, and you haven't read the history.

by hodwik 11y ago

kragen 11y ago

The FCC isn't forcing Level3 or Global Exchange or AOL to "play nice" either. You're apparently arguing from a complete ignorance of history, and consequently your prescribed remedy is likely to make the situation worse instead of better.

hodwik 11y ago
The internet evolved over the phone lines, where providers were legally banned from blocking traffic. They were made to play nice. The fact we still have a free internet is the result of that legacy.
- kragen 11y ago
  While I agree that common carrier obligations helped the internet significantly, your picture of history is still mostly wrong, and the particle of truth in it is drastically oversimplified. The internet didn't evolve over phone lines. Phone-line providers weren't legally banned from blocking traffic, and in fact did legally block data traffic over phone lines for decades. Common carrier obligations didn't exist in most of the countries where we have a free internet, and have never been relevant to most of the participants in the internet: not to AlohaNet, not to ARPANet, not to Mindvox, not to Netcom, not to UUNET, not to AOL, not to Level3, not to Global Crossing, certainly not to JANET, not to NSFNet, and not to The Little Garden. Rather, the internet was created by an academic-military coalition that had sufficient political power to overcome the phone companies' and regulators' opposition to data networking. It's plain that you weren't on com-priv then, you aren't on NANOG or equivalent now, and you haven't read the history.