[GalaxyHead]

http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2007/06/ftc_net.html

Rather disheartening.
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“We completely understand the public’s concern about futuristic robots feeding on the human population, but that is not our mission,” - Harry Schoell, Cyclone Power Technologies Inc, in response to erroneous reports about a robot under development.

[Broco]

I don't know. On the one hand, telecom companies are uncompetitive bastards out to charge as much as they can get away with without improving service. On the other hand, government regulation and price fixing sounds like a cure that's worse than the disease -- I don't get the enthusiasm of some people for these dubious "solutions". A wait-and-see attitude seems sensible.

[v84j3gs2uc7ns4]

[showka]

The problem with waiting is letting telecoms do this is like opening Pandora's box. They'll be making too much money on it later to let the FTC change what will then be the status quo.

Maybe I'm missing something but this essentially means data packets of poor websites have to move at a slower speed than those of rich ones, right? That will make the original services much slower because the super-popular mega sites like YouTube will constantly be streaming packets that get to cut in front of everyone else.

Thus it will become impossible for independent sites to offer certain services, like streaming video or online gaming servers, unless they pay the same price the most popular websites like Blizzard or MySpace can be forced into paying. I have little doubt that because these already massive sites will have plenty of cash to squeeze out, the market will make these "preferred" services grow in cost to where they become inaccessible to the unwashed masses.

And what if I want to use an internet where a podcast from some random dude's website streams just as fast as some shit song streaming from MySpace to the computer of a teenage girl that lives in my neighborhood and has her speakers muted anyway?

If things do go this way it'll be impossible for independent sources to offer the same kind of content as fucking MySpace.

That doesn't sound very fair or Democratic.

[Maztorre]

Hopefully sites that are known supporters of net neutrality (like, say, Google) will take action as soon as one of the providers tries to play hardball. What ISP would want to have the likes of Amazon/Google(AND YouTube!)/Myspace blocking all traffic from that provider?

[internisus]

Embarassing myself itt: What is this image of? It's a really cool looking device / array of devices, and I wish my internet looked like that. What sort of person would I have to become to put one into my home?

Also, I would be very worried about this, except that I expect websites to all load instantaneously starting tomorrow thanks to Future Tech.

[Maztorre]

Gordon Freeman

[internisus]

Yes I am hoping to style my residence as Black Mesa West

[Broco]

Looks like a rack of routers or switches.

You would need to be the sort of person who has 20 or more working, modern computers in your home. In other words, this kind of equipment is only used in offices.

[psiga]

Famous techno-commie, Cory Doctorow, doesn't seem to have a problem with this development. http://www.boingboing.net/2007/07/08/weinberger_delaminat.html

They seem to be relatively hopeful about the direction that it will take. But... egh. Large corporations have a tendency to think like business organisms rather than people. They do strange things when put in stressful situations.
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[GalaxyHead]

To be honest, I don't see this as such a horrid development like my other colleagues in C.M.C.R.. Some of the romantics will/have equated it to the consolidation of radio and television, something that will choke the freedom of the internet. I almost doubt a monopolization of access speeds will entirely change the internet as we know it.
_________________
“We completely understand the public’s concern about futuristic robots feeding on the human population, but that is not our mission,” - Harry Schoell, Cyclone Power Technologies Inc, in response to erroneous reports about a robot under development.

[v84j3gs2uc7ns4]

[Broco]

That's how most people went online a decade ago. AOL and some of the other services were all about keeping users in the little company-run sandbox. But it can't go back to as bad as it was. The content produced by openness is just too compelling.

[GalaxyHead]

I don't see why it wouldn't!

The great thing about the Internet is that people could more or less do what they wanted. Now, people can do what they want, but only in situations where they automatically lose. There's no reason for an ISP to allow its users to use something like Youtube when they could launch their own service that used the full pipe, and limit download speeds at Youtube to something ludicrously low.

The barrier of entry just got a lot higher; you can't just run a website anymore, to run a successful website you also have to own a huge media megacorporation to "lock in" your audience. It's taking what was an open frontier and fencing it into feudal states. I don't know about you but I don't feel like being a peon.

[showka]

[Tokyo Rude]

tell me when someone actually acts on this?

[showka]

If AT&T is already spending money lobbying congress on this I think they'll act the moment their lawyers say they can.

[GalaxyHead]

[EmX]

I don't really see what the impact will be on the consumer side of things. It doesn't really make sense for a company to effectively lock people out of big sites like MySpace and YouTube and establish their own service in its place when they can just offer open access to the entire internet at a lower cost. And hell, if big sites want to pay more for a fatter pipe, let them do it -- there's no incentive to make the sites that can't afford a prioritized connection run any slower than they already are. The basic barrier to entry will probably stay the same, it's just that successful companies will have more options when it comes to delivering their content.