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I saw this and was very happy that he was exposing the issue of net neutrality to a large audience. However, I felt at times the explanation got a little too c

by tsally 17y ago

I saw this and was very happy that he was exposing the issue of net neutrality to a large audience. However, I felt at times the explanation got a little too complicated. I could see how a non tech person might just stop caring about the conversation when it gets muddled. It's not a nuanced political issue. Simple analogies (like the one Stewart uses, the carpool lane for rich assholes) are the way to go. Or just show your non tech friends this image: http://cupojoe.files.wordpress.com/2007/09/images-netneutralpricing.jpg http://cupojoe.files.wordpress.com/2007/09/images-netneutral...

davidalln 17y ago
I think he did an excellent job of this, especially since his target demo are liberal 18-35 year olds who are generally in tune with modern technology. If I was explaining to my Grandma what net neutrality is, I'm not going to point her to this clip.
lionhearted 17y ago
> Simple analogies (like the one Stewart uses, the carpool lane for rich assholes) are the way to go. I wouldn't mind a non-neutral connection that's faster or cheaper for www than, say, torrents. I reckon it'd be market suicide for an ISP to cut off access to the web without paying more, so some mix of faster/better/cheap/preferential for the most popular sites or lower bandwith content would be okay with me. Net neutrality sounds decent enough, but the government tends to pass laws while they're hot button issues that become arcane bureaucracy later. That bureaucracy is rarely revisited and scrubbed off the books after it doesn't make sense any more. Who knows what new technologies are going to come online in the next 10-20 years? Internet regulations stand to be antiquated really fast, to potentially negative consequences later.
- blahedo 17y ago
  Except that net neutrality is how it is now. Nobody's talking about imposing new rules or bureaucracy.
  - lionhearted 17y ago
    > Except that net neutrality is how it is now. I understand that - but I imagine the internet will continue to change dramatically over the next 3, 5, 10, 20 years. > Nobody's talking about imposing new rules or bureaucracy. It runs the risk of handcuffing the future, especially if there's new and different protocols used to access the internet in different ways in the future. We have a lot of silly and antiquated laws on the books in the USA. Net neutrality sounds like a good thing, but it runs the risk of everyone saying, "Idiot 2009 people passing stupid laws so that XYZ Cool New Technology is illegal... what were they thinking...?"

by tsally 17y ago

davidalln 17y ago

I think he did an excellent job of this, especially since his target demo are liberal 18-35 year olds who are generally in tune with modern technology. If I was explaining to my Grandma what net neutrality is, I'm not going to point her to this clip.

lionhearted 17y ago

> Simple analogies (like the one Stewart uses, the carpool lane for rich assholes) are the way to go. I wouldn't mind a non-neutral connection that's faster or cheaper for www than, say, torrents. I reckon it'd be market suicide for an ISP to cut off access to the web without paying more, so some mix of faster/better/cheap/preferential for the most popular sites or lower bandwith content would be okay with me. Net neutrality sounds decent enough, but the government tends to pass laws while they're hot button issues that become arcane bureaucracy later. That bureaucracy is rarely revisited and scrubbed off the books after it doesn't make sense any more. Who knows what new technologies are going to come online in the next 10-20 years? Internet regulations stand to be antiquated really fast, to potentially negative consequences later.

blahedo 17y ago
Except that net neutrality is how it is now. Nobody's talking about imposing new rules or bureaucracy.
- lionhearted 17y ago
  > Except that net neutrality is how it is now. I understand that - but I imagine the internet will continue to change dramatically over the next 3, 5, 10, 20 years. > Nobody's talking about imposing new rules or bureaucracy. It runs the risk of handcuffing the future, especially if there's new and different protocols used to access the internet in different ways in the future. We have a lot of silly and antiquated laws on the books in the USA. Net neutrality sounds like a good thing, but it runs the risk of everyone saying, "Idiot 2009 people passing stupid laws so that XYZ Cool New Technology is illegal... what were they thinking...?"