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Which works great, until ISPs start offering subsidized plans for Facebook, Gmail, Spotify, Twitter, and expensive plans for everything else. When that happens,

Which works great, until ISPs start offering subsidized plans for Facebook, Gmail, Spotify, Twitter, and expensive plans for everything else. When that happens, there is very little economic incentive to have smaller websites, smaller e-commerce websites end up being part of Amazon, and Google starts providing more and more of its own content.

emddudley 9y ago
I agree that could be an outcome, but could there not also be a reverse "Eternal September" where niche communities thrive? Since people would need to make a conscious, meaningful choice to join them?
- kristianc 9y ago
  The evidence thus far has seemed to suggest that when deprived of the oxygen of search & RSS traffic & the independent blogosphere and niche communities have withered on the vine. Less traffic and less commenting means less incentive to post, which means less posting. What seems to have happened is people have gathered around the last remaining campfires for warmth.
_pmf_ 9y ago
> until ISPs start offering subsidized plans for Facebook, Gmail, Spotify, Twitter, and expensive plans for everything else. Is priced content worse than the current situation, where services are monetized exclusively by essentially running malware on the user's machine?
- AlexB138 9y ago
  Those are two separate things. OP is talking about the pipe being monetized. That is an extra charge we will pay just to get to the sites that then monetize via ads or gathering our data.
  - _pmf_ 9y ago
    My point is that there might be kickbacks from pipe operator to content mill.
- kristianc 9y ago
  > Is priced content worse than the current situation, where services are monetized exclusively by essentially running malware on the user's machine? You're conflating two things: the revenue model for publishers and ISPs cutting off access to services which do not sign an agreement with them. The fee ISPs charge, you can take as read would not go towards subsidizing independent content.
  - isostatic 9y ago
    But then you just choose an ISP that doesn't do such dastardly deals. It might cost more, but that's your choice.
    - _emacsomancer_ 9y ago
      In the US, one's choices are often (1) ISP A, (2) no internet.
      - isostatic 9y ago
        Do you not have cable as well as the phone system? Do you not have sewers a competitor could run fibre through? Do you not have unlicensed p2p wireless?
vlehto 9y ago
EU is about to enforce GDPR. Net neutrality seems to be American problem, while rest of the world is moving to the opposite direction. Which economy has better prospects in the long run? Currently internet is very U.S. centric because most of the big players are located there. That could change if European legislation is more supportive for small agile companies to evolve.
- Hedja 9y ago
  Net neutrality is still a problem outside the USA. For example, a lot of network providers provide "Unlimited Streaming" where they pick popular music and video streaming providers and allow you to use them without using up your data allowance. Example: http://www.three.co.uk/go-binge http://www.three.co.uk/go-binge
- kodablah 9y ago
  > EU is about to enforce GDPR [...] if European legislation is more supportive for small agile companies Surely you see the contradiction there. > Currently internet is very U.S. centric because most of the big players are located there. That could change if [...] That's not just a coincidence and I don't believe it's any kind of first-mover advantage. It's about the environment in which you operate and passing more and more laws and rules, regardless of the intentions, is the opposite direction. One can lament the digital lawlessness, but we can't pretend it didn't have value or that tailored laws could have a similar effect.
  - candu 9y ago
    Not necessarily a contradiction - GDPR could have many possible effects; it's too early to claim that these effects will disproportionately harm small companies. One possibility, of course, is that larger companies will have more resources to tackle GDPR compliance, and thus be better able to respond effectively than small companies. However, it's also possible that, by taking privacy / security seriously from day one and storing the minimal set of user data needed to operate, a smaller company will have a distinct advantage over some BigCo that must now migrate sprawling, inter-tangled distributed systems never designed for GDPR compliance. After all, that small company now has a compelling legal reason to avoid feature / data warehousing bloat and save their limited engineering resources, whereas the larger company most certainly has that bloat baked deeply into their stack due to years and years of "Big Data" hype.
d--b 9y ago
Of course net neutrality matters for the small guys to thrive. My point is that net neutrality is the only thing that matters. This is not about HTML or RSS or Facebook feeds. A non-neutral internet would have impacted the 90s internet in the same way.
- simonh 9y ago
  And in fact almost did. Things like ISPs blocking VOIP services, blocking VPNs, preventing more than one device being able to use a connection, are things that actually happened, though a couple of years too late in some cases to count as 'the 90s'.

emddudley 9y ago

I agree that could be an outcome, but could there not also be a reverse "Eternal September" where niche communities thrive? Since people would need to make a conscious, meaningful choice to join them?

kristianc 9y ago
The evidence thus far has seemed to suggest that when deprived of the oxygen of search & RSS traffic & the independent blogosphere and niche communities have withered on the vine. Less traffic and less commenting means less incentive to post, which means less posting. What seems to have happened is people have gathered around the last remaining campfires for warmth.

_pmf_ 9y ago

> until ISPs start offering subsidized plans for Facebook, Gmail, Spotify, Twitter, and expensive plans for everything else. Is priced content worse than the current situation, where services are monetized exclusively by essentially running malware on the user's machine?

AlexB138 9y ago
Those are two separate things. OP is talking about the pipe being monetized. That is an extra charge we will pay just to get to the sites that then monetize via ads or gathering our data.
- _pmf_ 9y ago
  My point is that there might be kickbacks from pipe operator to content mill.
kristianc 9y ago
> Is priced content worse than the current situation, where services are monetized exclusively by essentially running malware on the user's machine? You're conflating two things: the revenue model for publishers and ISPs cutting off access to services which do not sign an agreement with them. The fee ISPs charge, you can take as read would not go towards subsidizing independent content.
- isostatic 9y ago
  But then you just choose an ISP that doesn't do such dastardly deals. It might cost more, but that's your choice.
  - _emacsomancer_ 9y ago
    In the US, one's choices are often (1) ISP A, (2) no internet.
    - isostatic 9y ago
      Do you not have cable as well as the phone system? Do you not have sewers a competitor could run fibre through? Do you not have unlicensed p2p wireless?

vlehto 9y ago

EU is about to enforce GDPR. Net neutrality seems to be American problem, while rest of the world is moving to the opposite direction. Which economy has better prospects in the long run? Currently internet is very U.S. centric because most of the big players are located there. That could change if European legislation is more supportive for small agile companies to evolve.

Hedja 9y ago
Net neutrality is still a problem outside the USA. For example, a lot of network providers provide "Unlimited Streaming" where they pick popular music and video streaming providers and allow you to use them without using up your data allowance. Example: http://www.three.co.uk/go-binge http://www.three.co.uk/go-binge
kodablah 9y ago
> EU is about to enforce GDPR [...] if European legislation is more supportive for small agile companies Surely you see the contradiction there. > Currently internet is very U.S. centric because most of the big players are located there. That could change if [...] That's not just a coincidence and I don't believe it's any kind of first-mover advantage. It's about the environment in which you operate and passing more and more laws and rules, regardless of the intentions, is the opposite direction. One can lament the digital lawlessness, but we can't pretend it didn't have value or that tailored laws could have a similar effect.
- candu 9y ago
  Not necessarily a contradiction - GDPR could have many possible effects; it's too early to claim that these effects will disproportionately harm small companies. One possibility, of course, is that larger companies will have more resources to tackle GDPR compliance, and thus be better able to respond effectively than small companies. However, it's also possible that, by taking privacy / security seriously from day one and storing the minimal set of user data needed to operate, a smaller company will have a distinct advantage over some BigCo that must now migrate sprawling, inter-tangled distributed systems never designed for GDPR compliance. After all, that small company now has a compelling legal reason to avoid feature / data warehousing bloat and save their limited engineering resources, whereas the larger company most certainly has that bloat baked deeply into their stack due to years and years of "Big Data" hype.

d--b 9y ago

Of course net neutrality matters for the small guys to thrive. My point is that net neutrality is the only thing that matters. This is not about HTML or RSS or Facebook feeds. A non-neutral internet would have impacted the 90s internet in the same way.

simonh 9y ago
And in fact almost did. Things like ISPs blocking VOIP services, blocking VPNs, preventing more than one device being able to use a connection, are things that actually happened, though a couple of years too late in some cases to count as 'the 90s'.