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I think it's hilarious how many people think it's consistent to simultaneously hold the opinion that this is a tragedy and that Google Fiber was the ISP that th

I think it's hilarious how many people think it's consistent to simultaneously hold the opinion that this is a tragedy and that Google Fiber was the ISP that they wish they could have, while also supporting federally-imposed "net neutrality" and the implicit claim behind it, which is that all ISPs are just dumb pipes that are moving bits, and that consumers are agnostic about who does it. All the sheep on Reddit who got behind FCC mandated "net neutrality" are directly responsible for this. Urbanites get a warped view of this country and vastly underestimate the amount of places where satellite internet is their only option. Yet they have the nerve to bitch and moan about what a tragedy it is that they can't stream 4k video without buffering. The government must fix this! To hell with the rural schoolchildren and their lack of access to wikipedia, I want to watch high-def cartoons! There was so much innovation taking place behind the scenes to provide a decent web-browsing experience via satellite internet and WISPs. And it's all for naught. I'm still excited for this next year. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ViaSat-2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ViaSat-2

MagnumOpus 10y ago
What is the contradiction here? > "net neutrality" and the implicit claim behind it, which is that all ISPs are just dumb pipes that are moving bits, and that consumers are agnostic about who does it This is consistent with wanting a dumb ISP that moves more bits for less money and with fewer outages. Nobody wants Goog Fibre because it comes with #"google prime video library" or whatever tie-in. They want it because it moves more bits more reliably as a big dumb pipe ought to.
- nickysielicki 10y ago
  That's a fair point, maybe some people don't care about the added services... but Google Fiber comes with a lot of added extras: * 1TB of Google drive * A Google-made 802.11AC WAP that doesn't suck. * Cable box has built-in chromecast and is built on top of SageTV. * Bill management through a Google website. Maybe I'm just a pessimist but I don't believe that Google put ~$100MM into Fiber simply because they wanted to be a dumb pipe and put pressure on other telecoms to compete. How do you rationalize that to shareholders? Maybe they have some people in the public convinced that they entered this market out of the goodness of their heart. But it's pretty clear to me from Fiber and from Project Fi and OnHub and NEST that they believed that they could succeed as an ISP because of the frameworks they would put around their internet services, not simply by outperforming in performance.

MagnumOpus 10y ago

What is the contradiction here? > "net neutrality" and the implicit claim behind it, which is that all ISPs are just dumb pipes that are moving bits, and that consumers are agnostic about who does it This is consistent with wanting a dumb ISP that moves more bits for less money and with fewer outages. Nobody wants Goog Fibre because it comes with #"google prime video library" or whatever tie-in. They want it because it moves more bits more reliably as a big dumb pipe ought to.

nickysielicki 10y ago
That's a fair point, maybe some people don't care about the added services... but Google Fiber comes with a lot of added extras: * 1TB of Google drive * A Google-made 802.11AC WAP that doesn't suck. * Cable box has built-in chromecast and is built on top of SageTV. * Bill management through a Google website. Maybe I'm just a pessimist but I don't believe that Google put ~$100MM into Fiber simply because they wanted to be a dumb pipe and put pressure on other telecoms to compete. How do you rationalize that to shareholders? Maybe they have some people in the public convinced that they entered this market out of the goodness of their heart. But it's pretty clear to me from Fiber and from Project Fi and OnHub and NEST that they believed that they could succeed as an ISP because of the frameworks they would put around their internet services, not simply by outperforming in performance.