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"Net Neutrality": Destroyer of Internet Freedom

3 points by gibsonf1 19y ago

cawel 19y ago
It is the freedom of participants on the Internet to offer and profit from whatever products, services, or content they choose that has made it such a phenomenal source of content and innovation. The author includes what I would call the rules of the network's traffic in his 'services' and it is a problem in the argumentation. On one side, there are user services (e.g. e-commerce, search, etc.) and on the other side, there are network services (e.g. quality of service, priority of packets, guaranteed bandwidth). I would say it is because the attempts to tinker with traffic rules on the network have been restricted that we had so much innovation during the internet history and therefore such a wide spectrum of network applications today. Thus, while I do not refute what he says above, I would say it is primarily because of net-neutrality that internet has been so successful (a "phenomenal source of content and innovation").
cawel 19y ago
I would say his example with UPS is wrong. UPS added a network parallel to the existing mail post network, whereas in the case of internet, private ventures offering "quality of service" services contend with others for bandwidth on the same network.
Goronmon 19y ago
I'm sorry if I don't trust these "innovative" ISPs to not take advantage of any control they have over the data that passes through their lines. Take bandwidth limits for example. With Netflix and XBox Live, on-demand movie viewing is becoming more popular. With Hi-Def content that is a massive amount of data being passed through the network (and entirely legal, I'd like to mention). Now, at first glance it might not be unreasonable to think that, for instance, Time Warner would impose a download limit for subscribers to prevent issues with certain users stressing the lines. However, what happens when Time Warner that introduces their own video-on-demand service that, surprise, isn't effected by these download limits? Suddenly I just think that the downsides with Net-Neutrality come down to annoyances, while the downsides to allowing ISPs control over the data to be much worse.

3 points by gibsonf1 19y ago

cawel 19y ago

It is the freedom of participants on the Internet to offer and profit from whatever products, services, or content they choose that has made it such a phenomenal source of content and innovation. The author includes what I would call the rules of the network's traffic in his 'services' and it is a problem in the argumentation. On one side, there are user services (e.g. e-commerce, search, etc.) and on the other side, there are network services (e.g. quality of service, priority of packets, guaranteed bandwidth). I would say it is because the attempts to tinker with traffic rules on the network have been restricted that we had so much innovation during the internet history and therefore such a wide spectrum of network applications today. Thus, while I do not refute what he says above, I would say it is primarily because of net-neutrality that internet has been so successful (a "phenomenal source of content and innovation").

cawel 19y ago

I would say his example with UPS is wrong. UPS added a network parallel to the existing mail post network, whereas in the case of internet, private ventures offering "quality of service" services contend with others for bandwidth on the same network.

Goronmon 19y ago

I'm sorry if I don't trust these "innovative" ISPs to not take advantage of any control they have over the data that passes through their lines. Take bandwidth limits for example. With Netflix and XBox Live, on-demand movie viewing is becoming more popular. With Hi-Def content that is a massive amount of data being passed through the network (and entirely legal, I'd like to mention). Now, at first glance it might not be unreasonable to think that, for instance, Time Warner would impose a download limit for subscribers to prevent issues with certain users stressing the lines. However, what happens when Time Warner that introduces their own video-on-demand service that, surprise, isn't effected by these download limits? Suddenly I just think that the downsides with Net-Neutrality come down to annoyances, while the downsides to allowing ISPs control over the data to be much worse.