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Just to play devils advocate for a moment :) 1) The video showed that you could receive a chicken sandwich now. That you were only paying more to receive only
by Bodell 9y ago
Just to play devils advocate for a moment :)
1) The video showed that you could receive a chicken sandwich now. That you were only paying more to receive only ,specifically, a whooper faster. This I thought shows preferential treatment over different types of food (data).
2) the quality of the food was not an issue in this video everyone was receiving the 'same' whooper, presumably.
3) The example burger king made was not quite the same as bribing a Maitre d' to get a table faster than other customers due to limited table resources. The video showed them withholding whoopers that were already made and ready to go, for a certain time-frame, in order to shake down the customer for more money. The idea that others who paid more for their whooper got it faster, due to limited supply of whoopers, was not the issue. The issue was that burger king would be falsely creating a pipeline delay, simply to get money out of the end user.
Although, all metaphors will be mostly speculation, as far as how it will directly relate to future ISP behavior and it's relationship with the end users. How exactly US ISP's decide to use the repeal of net neutrality, debatably, remains to be seen. It would be quite hard to form a 100% accurate metaphor for something that hasn't been fully realized quite yet. I do not mean this to imply that the behavior would in anyway be good. simply that the specifics of it are still unknown.
As a side note I like to think burger king is also inadvertently creating a self-deprecating metaphor. I hope that in the Internet world it is also only the shitty food that is being tiered. If you have to pay more to get Google, Facebook, Amazon (terrible junk food) then no worries for me. Unfortunately that bit of speculation is probably way to optimistic. ;)
- djsumdog 9y agoYea, the chicken sandwich example is .. interesting. I mean it works in this really basic example and I think it will help the lay-person get the general idea. A more accurate analogy would be in a food court: For free, you're allowed to access Taco Hell, Burger Thing, and Mc Doubles. For $5/month, you get a special pass that also sets you access Suppression Chicken[1], Pizza Slut and Baskin Toboggans For $8/month, you get an extended pass that lets you get into the line for a few more diabetes joins. You can get in any of those lines without a pass, but it will cost $1/visit. This is of course, limitation of service (which is already done in some countries, like Optus Australia which gives you unmetered Facebook and Twitter that doesn't count against your mobile data), or African ISPs that give people free Wikipedia (which is arguably, kinda a good thing -- which is what makes this tricky). The other aspect is quality of service. Say you could get to all those fast food joins for free, but you bought passes that put you in different positions in the queues (which is more like what we see with the Burger King example). It's like the airport pre-check. Pay government extortion prices and you get to jump to the front of the line, while everyone else gets molested by the TSA. [1] Chick-Fil-A .. if you didn't get that one Edit: formatting
- chrischen 9y agoWikipedia is a nonprofit, so it is arguably different from a commercial company paying for preferential access.
- Spivak 9y agoI think the problem with this analogy is that nobody would argue that a mall or theme park doesn't have the right to do this. Hell delivery services could also do this too without much fuss. If Taco Hell wants to pay DoorStash to get preferential treatment on deliveries or to be excmpted from delivery fees they wouldn't even have to be sneaky about it -- both companies would probably advertise it as a feature.
- WWLink 9y agoThanks, you just reminded me of the cringe worthy commercial-inside-a-commercial that theme parks like to do on the radio now. xD
- smileysteve 9y ago> nobody would argue that a mall or theme park doesn't have the right to do this I feel like the DisneyWorld / SixFlags priority / qbot system is all the commercial we should need to explain why fast lanes are bad. You can ride 4 rides in the time I stand in one line? you elitist pig.
- jiggunjer 9y agoExcept customers can choose not to eat at the food court if they don't like the system, they won't starve they'll just go somewhere else. Boycotting / refusing your ISP is like going on hunger strike.
- megablast 9y agoThey could do it in an industrial park, where that is your only option.
- DonaldPShimoda 9y ago
- notyourwork 9y ago> 1) The video showed that you could receive a chicken sandwich now. That you were only paying more to receive only ,specifically, a whooper faster. This I thought shows preferential treatment over different types of food (data). I felt this wasn't emphasized enough.
- sundvor 9y agoRe #2, I hate it when my burgers are cold.
- spdmn 9y agoThe message was clear to me yet open to different interpretations. 1) The difference in cholesterol bandwidth is paid for by who is sponsoring this chicken sandwich. 2) Same, but colder. And waaaay late. Too bad their preferential sandwich is not sponsored to be in the "fast-lane" regardless of the subscribers plan. 3) Non-preferential content (ie. those who didn't pay off the ISP to fast-track their content) is at a competitive disadvantage.