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> It is easier and cheaper today to to connect with others and express yourself without the need for private companies than it has ever been in the history of m

by kodah 6y ago

> It is easier and cheaper today to to connect with others and express yourself without the need for private companies than it has ever been in the history of mankind. I'm glad you feel secure enough to say that out loud, and maybe from some perspective you are technically correct. But the comparison you gave about email is easily refutable. Most email traffic is controlled by large providers, large providers which can denylist your mail servers for a myriad of vague reasoning which take forever to scrub yourself from. Given that major mail providers now regularly sniff your emails as a feature, your privacy now comes at a premium. In other words, privacy is a feature and a premium one at that. So, while the future is not certain to be what I imagine it can be from this point, it's certainly not open and free as you've asserted.

lotsofpulp 6y ago
>Most email traffic is controlled by large providers, large providers which can denylist your mail servers for a myriad of vague reasoning which take forever to scrub yourself from. Most people choose to use email controlled by large providers. I choose to pay a company for my email needs. Others have that choice too. They can also choose not to use the large providers. It's open and free as in speech (excluding illegal activities of course), but it's not effortless and not free as in beer. I don't see how much more open and free (as in speech) it can get without taking away someone else's ability to do what they want with their computer.
- remarkEon 6y ago
  >I don't see how much more open and free (as in speech) it can get without taking away someone else's ability to do what they want with their computer. Do you understand why some of us are viewing this problem through an anti-trust or public utility lens now? In other words, "I don't understand how much more open and free (as in electricity) it can get without taking away someone else's ability to do what they want with their power plant." It's really, really unfortunate that this debate was triggered for what are at their base partisan political reasons. Because this is a debate we should have had with cooler heads, about what these services actually represent for human society and how government should interact with this technology. Instead, everyone is drawing a line in the sand based on their politics (not saying you are doing this, but others clearly are). And look, yeah, I get it. "Electricity" is not "speech". But when you need electricity and you need computers to transmit speech in the modern era ... well I guess I just see it as six of one and a half dozen of the other.
  - lotsofpulp 6y ago
    >Do you understand why some of us are viewing this problem through an anti-trust or public utility lens now? I'm also viewing it through a public utility lens. But Amazon's computers and Twilio's computers are not public utilities. The network (internet) is a public utility. I would say DNS and ICANN is a public utility also. Electrical power lines are a public utility. Roads are a public utility. But those are the components that are not feasible to duplicate, servers and data centers are.

by kodah 6y ago

lotsofpulp 6y ago

>Most email traffic is controlled by large providers, large providers which can denylist your mail servers for a myriad of vague reasoning which take forever to scrub yourself from. Most people choose to use email controlled by large providers. I choose to pay a company for my email needs. Others have that choice too. They can also choose not to use the large providers. It's open and free as in speech (excluding illegal activities of course), but it's not effortless and not free as in beer. I don't see how much more open and free (as in speech) it can get without taking away someone else's ability to do what they want with their computer.

remarkEon 6y ago
>I don't see how much more open and free (as in speech) it can get without taking away someone else's ability to do what they want with their computer. Do you understand why some of us are viewing this problem through an anti-trust or public utility lens now? In other words, "I don't understand how much more open and free (as in electricity) it can get without taking away someone else's ability to do what they want with their power plant." It's really, really unfortunate that this debate was triggered for what are at their base partisan political reasons. Because this is a debate we should have had with cooler heads, about what these services actually represent for human society and how government should interact with this technology. Instead, everyone is drawing a line in the sand based on their politics (not saying you are doing this, but others clearly are). And look, yeah, I get it. "Electricity" is not "speech". But when you need electricity and you need computers to transmit speech in the modern era ... well I guess I just see it as six of one and a half dozen of the other.
- lotsofpulp 6y ago
  >Do you understand why some of us are viewing this problem through an anti-trust or public utility lens now? I'm also viewing it through a public utility lens. But Amazon's computers and Twilio's computers are not public utilities. The network (internet) is a public utility. I would say DNS and ICANN is a public utility also. Electrical power lines are a public utility. Roads are a public utility. But those are the components that are not feasible to duplicate, servers and data centers are.