Bloomberg Op-Ed: The Internet 'Already Lost Its Neutrality' (japantimes.co.jp) 171
An anonymous reader quotes a new Bloomberg opinion piece on net neutrality:
The internet will be filled today with denunciations of this move, threats of a dark future in which our access to content will be controlled by a few powerful companies. And sure, that may happen. But in fact, it may already have happened, led not by ISPs, but by the very companies that were fighting so hard for net neutrality... Our experience of the internet is increasingly controlled by a handful of firms, most especially Google and Facebook. The argument for regulating these companies as public utilities is arguably at least as strong as the argument for thus regulating ISPs, and very possibly much stronger; while cable monopolies may have local dominance, none of them has the ability that Google and Facebook have to unilaterally shape what Americans see, hear and read.
In other words, we already live in the walled garden that activists worry about, and the walls are getting higher every day... The fact that these firms were able to cement their power at the moment when regulators were most focused on keeping the internet open tells you just how difficult it is to get that sort of regulation right; while you are looking hard at one danger, an equally large one may be creeping up just outside the range of your peripheral vision.
In other words, we already live in the walled garden that activists worry about, and the walls are getting higher every day... The fact that these firms were able to cement their power at the moment when regulators were most focused on keeping the internet open tells you just how difficult it is to get that sort of regulation right; while you are looking hard at one danger, an equally large one may be creeping up just outside the range of your peripheral vision.
Slavery is Freedom (Score:5, Insightful)
Love,
Rich Assholes with Business Interests
Finally some editorial balance on Slashdot (Score:3, Insightful)
Thank you for posting the Bloomberg piece. There are those of us who have been arguing that this is not some high-brow good v. evil debate, but a genuine disagreement on account of economics.
Tons of people here are rightly skeptical of Google, Facebook, at al, but saw nothing suspicious about those companies being the LEADING proponents of net neutrality. Why would these companies, so often duplicitous and manipulative, be coming on so strong for net neutrality? Not out of the goodness of their hearts.
Yeah,
Re: Finally some editorial balance on Slashdot (Score:1)
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So your solution is to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
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always.
That is WHY there are software patents after all
Re:Finally some editorial balance on Slashdot (Score:5, Insightful)
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What choices do you have to stay in touch with friends and family online? Honestly. Either you be the weird guy, or use facebook.
What choices do you have for fulltext search? Duckduckgo? Get real.
Compared to those monopolies (which are far more ingrained, because they have a true technological and first to market edge), AT&T and Comcast are fairly banal thing to fix as stuff they do, basically anyone can do with no complex know-how. Can happen either through competetive market
Da jungle outside the walled garden isnt so savage (Score:5, Informative)
Funny. Lots of families have lots of weirdos. But seriously, e-mail still works. You can always throw in a hyperlink to your non-mainstream-hosted blog or if you aren't the type to formulate long thoughts, microblog (pump.io?)
I've witnessed both the downfall of Google being a great search engine for my tastes, and duckduckgo rising to the challenge. DDG wasn't a sufficient replacement in the early days, but lately it seems quite fine to me. I only use Google on the rare occasions when I want to track down a torrent for a tv show that weather interfered with my OTA DTV linux general computer based DVR recording correctly. Just to make a political point.
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Funny. Lots of families have lots of weirdos. But seriously, e-mail still works. You can always throw in a hyperlink to your non-mainstream-hosted blog or if you aren't the type to formulate long thoughts, microblog (pump.io?)
I've witnessed both the downfall of Google being a great search engine for my tastes, and duckduckgo rising to the challenge. DDG wasn't a sufficient replacement in the early days, but lately it seems quite fine to me. I only use Google on the rare occasions when I want to track down a torrent for a tv show that weather interfered with my OTA DTV linux general computer based DVR recording correctly. Just to make a political point.
Would that I had OTA signal where I live in a fairly large city! My isp is my cable co and I do have the choice of either satellite, cable or even the phone company for tv. Though telus tv at 1 mile from the fiber hub through twisted pairs is not necessarily what they advertise and continually try to sell us. I cut their twisted pairs years ago and am at the mercy of the cable company because the jerks at Telus were way out of line with dsl pricing. The wife likes her nutflakes so we have cable dsl but she
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Monopolies are frequently granted on the grounds to serve rural areas, but the reality is that WISP works great and is most cost-effective as a last mile in the country. However In urban settlements, airwaves, especially the narrow free spectrum, don't have the bandwidth. You need "serious of tubes" in there if you're serious about bandwidth.
Current US cableco
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I see. I take it that if you don't like expensive comcast internet (or facebook, for that matter), you're free to use newspapers, television and meeting with people in person. Definitely less walled gardens there.
I don't believe stratification towards inferior solutions is necessa
Re:Finally some editorial balance on Slashdot (Score:5, Informative)
What choices do you have to stay in touch with friends and family online? Honestly. Either you be the weird guy, or use facebook.
My 17-year old nephew already moved on from Facebook and deleted his account. Apparently "nothing happens there".
You are crazy to compare Facebook monopoly and the Internet access monopoly. There are lots of other way to stay in touch with friends and family online, but all of them involve Internet access.
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Ask her to delete her snapchat and instagram.
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Sure, but in 5 years those will be just like facebook is now and a 17 year old would gladly drop those for some other service. The point is there is competition... Sure, facebook has the huge network but if the kids (and it would, in this case, likely be strongly generational) decide to go somewhere else then that other place will prosper and facebook will suffer.
Of course if facebook, instagram and snapchat are provided with your normal internet service and some new social media sites are require some add
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What's wrong with duckduck go? I haven't found any problems with it. And three people invited to dinner the other night over email as I invited people to my place via email. Again, no problems.
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Or, you know, simply call them on the phone, or send them a letter, or even an email if Internet you must. Duh. The Bookface is almost as evil as Uber.
ISPs in many cases are a singular chokepoint for Internet access, hence the need for net neutrality. Don't like Facebook or Google? There are ready alternatives to both.
free non-market (Score:2, Insightful)
What choices do you have to stay in touch with friends and family online? Honestly. Either you be the weird guy, or use facebook.
E-mail. It works just fine.
It should also be noted that Facebook is the new kid on the block: they beat out Friendster and MySpace.
What choices do you have for fulltext search? Duckduckgo? Get real.
Actually, yes. Or Bing.
Compared to those monopolies (which are far more ingrained, because they have a true technological and first to market edge), AT&T and Comcast are fairly banal thing to fix as stuff they do, basically anyone can do with no complex know-how. Can happen either through competetive market (think ISPs in places like india or romania) which emerges with wild-west Laissez-faire approach, or *effectively* regulated state granted monopolies, which favors consumers (korea or even china).
Except that in many place (in the US), there is no market. Your choice is either the local telco or carrier pigeon. And further the FCC is making grumbles of preventing states from stepping in. If things were regulated it wouldn't be as bad, but since the 1990s the US has basically had a "free non-market".
Go to this page and set the minimum and maximum to
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This is a good interim solution, but not a long term one, the trouble is aggregation. Incubent infrastructure is simply too old and t here's no incentive for them to upgrade it (especialy if they're forced to give it up to competition), so they'd end up overselling.
Most of the countries with developed broadband market went through this 10 years ago, now most of the market happens with a ISPs simply having their ow
Re:Finally some editorial balance on Slashdot (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, you don't have a choice to not use Facebook. They and Google track you all over the Internet via various free developer libraries (like Google Fonts and Analytics) and Like and plus buttons.
And your shadow Facebook profile created in colaboration with all YOUR RELATIONS THAT DO USE Facebook makes you just as targetable as Facebook users, except you are even more expensive "product" because you do not use Facebook.
There must be regulation for both ISPs with regional oligopolies and Big Tech TRACKING networks. There is no "Free Market," there never has been. It's a lmyth like Santa Claus told to the gullible.
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Agreed - I don't use FB and have reduced Google to a minimum. I don't feel I am missing anything. There are lots of other sources.
That's not the case for my ISP - duopoly here of cable company or telco, my only reasonable choices.
Break up ISPs from their content shops (Comcast & NBC-Universal? An inherent conflict of interest), level the playing field for all content providers. Regulate the pipes as Title II utilities - even go so far as to guarantee reasonable rates of return, like back in the days
Re: Finally some editorial balance on Slashdot (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not "free competition" if ISPs have quasi-monopoly status - as they do in most areas of the US. It's also not "free competition" when a cable company can degrade the content of its competitors. I'm generally a free-market guy but seeing what Comcast et al did prior to the NN rule, we can expect more of the same.
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It's not "free competition" if ISPs have quasi-monopoly status
That's right. Remove that monopoly status and there can be competition, and less need to regulate, though the ISP should be under public utility rules. A neutral net is a dumb pipe.
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Is your google broken?
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For starters, I don't consider mobile/wireless service to be comparable to wired. So I don't know and don't count them as competition.
Do you disagree that many or most homes in the US have 2 or fewer choices for ISP? I'd be very surprised if that weren't true. If you tell me you don't believe it, I'll look more. Do you disagree that cable companies don't usually have quasi-monopoly status in the US, whether contractually agreed to or by virtue of owning infrastructure (like telephone poles) where it'
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Re:Finally some editorial balance on Slashdot (Score:5, Insightful)
Here the enemy of your enemy is still not your friend.
Yes, the 'big tech' companies relish their ability to connect freely with people and exploit them, and given half a chance, they'll do stuff to lock you in harder to their control (hello FireOS, Android). Yes they selfishly want to keep the telco companies from effectively holding those precious users hostage and denying them their subscribers and/or ad impressions. Yes everyone should be scared about that situation.
However it's not like AT&T and Verizon are wanting to jump into this fray to give you back your privacy or break some hold of propaganda, they are jumping in to extract more money out of the arrangement. In fact, it is highly likely ISPs will start doing more things to harm competition, but get paid more for it. Like the controversial 'binge on' where t-mobile would let you stream all you wanted, but only from netflix, youtube, and a few others, but if you get content from a non-blessed site, you paid extra. The end game by ISPs is to advantage their home-gown content (which 'big tech' doesn't like), gouge the big tech companies as much as they can get away with (also what they don't want) and in all likelihood to start selling restricted services so you have to add-on access as you want (Imagine a 'facebook only' cost reduced plan), here those big tech companies might not be so unhappy. Yes Amazon might be unhappy that they have to pay more to get their AWS customores fair access, but they will be less unhappy when they start advertising how they can negotiate with the big carriers so you can enjoy better access to visitors to your AWS site as part of your AWS service.
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this.
also too, Google is, in fact, evil. Most companies are, or they at least have a very good incentives to be evil. why people think that companies shouldn't have to participate in society with regards to ethics and morality is one of the great mysteries. they exist solely because we allow them to exist through regulation. why they get some sort of pass to do anything "legal" resulting in a perpetual chase to regulate them to shut down the evil shit they do is ridiculous. See also, regulatory capture
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There's no "version" of NN.
NN means All communications are created equal and are treated equally by the connection provider, irrespective of where they come from or where they go.
Period.
You're welcome.
Premise is disingenuous. (Score:4, Insightful)
Google's and Facebook's collection of eyeballs comprise an entirely different issue than ISPs being able to relegate the non-wealthy to low-bandwidth (or no-bandwidth) corners of the web.
Right now, you can choose to be Facebook and/or Google eyeballs, but there are other options of various and sundry nature out there that offer interesting content. Facebook and Google are impotent to stop that; all you have to do is find a link, and there the site will be. That link could be anywhere — while you may indeed find it on Google or Facebook, you can also find it other places.
Allowing bandwidth to be prioritized (or outright taken over) by wealthy interests can silence the other sources of information. That's a new problem, and it's not the same as, or even a version of, the old problem.
Bloomberg is being disingenuous here. Or stupid. You choose.
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If you side with Big Telecom, you'll ensure that nobody will ever upset the empires of Big Tech (in return for some shakedown money). If you side with Big Tech, you let them keep that money, and the barriers for entry are left where they are.
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Google and Facebook require fresh content in order to remain popular with users. Big Telecom dreams of the day of taking the Internet back to the days of "Value-Added" services where you pay an extra $5 for services like Caller-ID, Three-way calling, Anonymous phone-call barring, Voicemail, Last Number Callback. Some Mobile companies already do this with bundles of internet sites like Video, Social, Messaging (MEO in Portugal).
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Tons of people here are rightly skeptical of Google, Facebook, at al, but saw nothing suspicious about those companies being the LEADING proponents of net neutrality.
Let me help clarify the situation a bit please:
You know the 7 layer TCP/IP model? Google and Facebook are layer 7. They want to monopolize layer 7. The telecoms/ISPs are layer 3. They want to monopolize layer 3.
Well, if layer 3 is monopolized, the layer 7 folks can not be as effective at monopolizing their layer. That is why they fought for Net Neutrality.
This Bloomberg piece is a carefully architected assault designed to confuse you and make you give up (since all is hopeless anyways!) concerning any notio
The Bloomberg site is not well-managed, IMO. (Score:2, Insightful)
There are at least 2 separate issues: 1) Neutrality of speed and access of delivery of digital internet information, and 2) "Neutrality" of what people communicate. That 2nd issue is a very old one. Before the year 313 CE (Common Era), people could be killed for being Christian [wikipedia.org]. After the year 313 CE,
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Completely wrong on McArdle's background. She started out as a technology consultant [bloomberg.com] before deciding it wasn't fulfilling for her, got a business degree and became an economic policy journalist.
(The link goes into some of her background of building servers and whatnot and is a fairly compassionate take on the James Damore brouhaha.)
Interesting article. Thanks. (Score:2)
However, in the article she wrote to which you linked, As a Woman in Tech, I Realized: These Are Not My People [bloomberg.com], she seems to justify my conclusion.
She does not have the fascination with technology that other Slashdot readers and I often have.
I'm also fascinated with women. A long time ago, after a long conversation with a woman, I said, "I seem to be more interested in you than you are." She said, "Maybe you're right!"
Being fascinated with technology doesn't stop fasci
Re:Slavery is Freedom (Score:5, Interesting)
This. You dont have to look at anything from Facebook or Google if you don't want to. Walled gardens? Those are web sites. They are not walled gardens. Just because you can't see the code behind the UI doesn't mean its a walled garden.
Now, why its not the same thing. Call me a right-wing nut, call me whatever, but the big telecom companies are not the same thing. Big Tech didn't get subsidized to build out their sites. Sure, maybe some of them got some tax breaks by the local townships they choose to locate their next DC in, but almost all companies of a certain size bringing X jobs to the local market and investment dollars benefit from the same thing. What Bit Telecom gets on the other hand is strait-up tax-funded subsidies to build out that infrastructure. Cable companies enjoy local monopolies in various cities to exclusively lace coax cables in the ground, and don't have to share that infrastructure with anyone, unlike the ILECs (Incumbent Local Exchange Carrier), who have to allow other companies the right to use phone lines. That is why you can buy a T1 from just about anyone in the telecom space.
You, my dear taxpayer, have already paid the telecom companies to build out that infrastructure, and again, when your elected city councilperson granted them exclusive market access to provide each person with internet.
Under normal circumstances, where the telecom companies paid for their own poles, filed all their own permits, and paid for the access permits, equipment, and grew organically, I would agree with repealing net-neutrality. Companies should be able to use their resources how best they see fit.
But these companies are not operating in normal circumstances. I believe it was the Mann–Elkins Act that forced a walled-garden industry where you can only talk to other telephones in your telephone company network. The act forced the telecom companies to interchange calls and allow anyone in the country to talk to anyone. It did this, and gave the companies funds to complete the build-out of the phone network to the remainder of the country. Tit for tat. Thats what we have here, but backwards. We gave them what they asked for, and forgot to insist that we can all use these publicly funded networks to talk to whomever we want.
Wrong definition (Score:5, Insightful)
Only retarded idiots ever thought the Internet was neutral in terms of opinion. The fight over Net Neutrality is something completely different.
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Dingdingdingdingding... We have a winner!
Somebody linked to this "But Google!" tripe at Bloomberg yesterday (and a similar piece at WSJ). It's no less disingenuous today.
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I've no idea. How does it feel to be a clueless cable company fanboy?
Mod Parent UP!!!! (Score:1)
Not that an assertion from an AC will matter, ...
The Net Neutrality and there's oligopolies of WEB products and services.
AT&T and Google are not the same thing when it comes to Net Neutrality.
Now, in areas where there is Google Fiber - then we get into the muddy waters.
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Now, in areas where there is Google Fiber - then we get into the muddy waters.
Not really. Now they are a service provider, and we're supposed to demand that these services provide us with a dumb pipe (That would be the definition of "net neutrality"). We should never meddle with the content or those providers. That would be censorship, and that is always evil.
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This was an article trying to jump on the bandwagon to push a different issue which, while compelling of itself, has nothing to do with Net Neutrality.
Net Neutrality has nothing to do with whether one company handles most search requests, or whether one company has the most users, or pictures, or content gated behind accounts. That's what the article author was talking about, but.. that's mostly unrelated to Net Neutrality.
Net Neutrality is about whether ISPs should be able to throttle companies based on wh
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Everyone pays for what they put on the network. However, what ISPs want is to be able to charge (e.g.) Netflix even when Netflix doesn't peer with them. For example, If Netflix peers with Comcast and Comcast peers with Verizon, Verizon wants to be able to charge Netflix directly to deliver its packets to Verizon's customers. That is currently against FCC regulations.
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Once the rule is gone, you'll be paying every service provider your signal goes through. Oh well, whatever they do can be reversed after next November, if that's what people want.
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Now, admittedly Cambridge Analytica was the key player in getting both Trump elected and Brexit passed [and I agree with the socioeconomic workers' rights Brexit passage argument], but Facebook and Google most likely played a part as well
Bullshit (Score:2)
The argument for regulating these companies as public utilities is arguably at least as strong as the argument for thus regulating ISPs
The very fact that we lost net neutrality in direct opposition to the largest public commentary campaign in the history of the world, due at least in part to bought and paid for politicians making regulations that directly benefit their own financial interests, renders this statement entirely untrue.
#COMCASTBAD (Score:3)
In the United States, your experience of the internet is far more controlled by Comcast and one or two other ISPs than it is by Google and Facebook. I can easily avoid using Google or Facebook, but in many areas, there are no practical alternatives to Comcast.
I would argue that having a very few companies controlling access to the internet is what leads to the primacy of Google and Facebook, not the other way around.
The default state of the internet was net neutrality, from the time of its inception. Giving control over to a cable company will turn the internet into cable television, and trust me, you don't want that.
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I would argue that having a very few companies controlling access to the internet is what leads to the primacy of Google and Facebook, not the other way around.
Google got the way they did because their search was better. People wanted to use it over Altavista, over Yahoo, and later, over Bing. Besides personal choice, it's less the ISP and more the browser defaults chosen by Firefox and IE (before Bing!) that led to Google's rise. Also, gmail was a hell of a lot better than yahoo mail or hotmail.
People wanted to use Facebook because they wanted all their contacts on one site. They didn't want to go to grandma's site on MySpace and the cousins on their own website.
VPN's (Score:2)
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Let me catch them pulling that crap with the VPN I'm required to use for work, and my employer will see them in court.
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The Devil Has Always Been In The Details (Score:1)
Your work VPN bandwidth will be reinstated for a modest monthly fee. Problem solved.
That's called the "business class tier". How many people in this discussion were reading the ferengi print in their ISP contracts in the '90s? It never went away. If 'Net Neutrality' had ever been more than a narrative illusion pushed by hypocrites, the business-class-vpn-tax would have gone away, with much fanfare. Ditto for tethering. And we'd all be allowed to host our own IRC and SMTP servers at home. 'reasonable network management' is the loophole big enough to fly the starship enterprise through
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I you're using your work VPN for Bittorrent or Netflix or gaming, I suspect that your work network admins will explain firmly that that VPN is _not_ covered as part of your Comcast user agreement. Many business networks do, in fact, apply Quality of Service rules to protect critical services from employees who might abuse their workplace network for bulky, personal traffic.
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You assume much, and wrongly. (For one thing, I don't do streaming or gaming at all.)
I use my work VPN for *work* and if my employer had reason to believe I was using it for entertainment purposes or illegal activities, I'd be out of a job very quickly.
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> You assume much, and wrongly.
If I may beg your pardon, I assumed nothing. I tried to say "I[f] you're using your work VPN for Bittorrent or Netflix or gaming". Please excuse me if the missing "f" led you to assume that I was accusing you of anything foolish.
> if my employer had reason to believe I was using it for entertainment purposes or illegal activities
Then I suspect you wouldn't notice "Net Neutraility" style throttling, even if it were applied to your workplace VPN. You're probably not using
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I do in fact work for a HUGE corporation (it's in the Forbes Top 5) that has some of the most capable (not to mention evil) lawyers that money can buy.
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Sue them for what? If it's legal to pull that crap, the courts aren't going to help you.
Sigh (Score:1)
This idiot doesn't know what "net neutrality" even means.
Loony-tunes power vs. backhoe power (Score:5, Insightful)
Companies like Google and Facebook have Loony-tunes power: everyone uses them because everyone uses them. If tomorrow everyone starts using Bing (hey, it could happen...), Google vanishes in a puff of indifference. (kind of like the coyote who doesn't fall until he looks down).
Verizon has power because they own the poles, and the lines, and the trenches. If tomorrow everyone decides to use a different ISP...uhhh...no. You got nowhere to go. And if Verizon starts adding tracking headers to your HTTP requests, and null-routing domains that they don't like, and null-routing domains who haven't paid them enough, and forging RST packets to kill your torrents, and injecting ads into your web pages, and, and, and....you still got nowhere to go. That's backhoe power. That's why we need net neutrality.
Re: Loony-tunes power vs. backhoe power (Score:4, Insightful)
"That's backhoe power. That's why we need net neutrality."
No, that's why the U.S. needs to split "backhoe power" from "internet service" power, by requiring last-mile providers to offer reasonably-priced wholesale products, so that available last-mile provider doesn't dictate only available internet srervice provider.
Then you could regulate internet service less (and let the market address it).
Many other countries have models like this that have wirked well for over a decade ..
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Regulating ISPs != regulating the Internet. The Internet is a multinational network. No government can regulate the Internet.
Yup. We should all go back to driving on dirt paths, because the Interstate Highway System was a mistake.
[pauses a moment for emphasis]
The Internet,
RMS (Score:2)
Re: RMS (Score:1)
Straight up you're not wrong, bra.
And I logged in with my 4 digit uid just to reinforce this point.
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One of the things I would never have guessed back in the 90s is that RMS would turn out to be the prescient futurist and ESR would be the whacked out extremist with a tenuous grip on reality.
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It doesn't mention "climategate"?
The supposed honeytrap targets weren't cybersecurity experts fwiw.
Duh article --- but still welcome!!! (Score:2)
Sure, there is a problem.. (Score:3)
Particularly Google has a heck of a lot of control through android and gets content providers to do things they universally wouldn't otherwise want to do (AMP comes to mind). Yes, it is a prudent time to highlight shenanigans that already unreasonably shape the internet that are already happening without any sort of counter.
Of course, doubling down and also opening the flood gates for the ISPs to also lock things down doesn't help matters.
The author blames regulation for the phone experience not progressing and that deregulation paved the way for things to improve. It's a very bizarre thing to blow off the whole forced breakup of AT&T as the factor. I don't think many folks blame FCC regulations for AT&T preserving a monopoly, and certainly no one in their right mind ignores the DOJ breakup of AT&T in favor of some FCC deregulation as to triggering the end of that era. Particularly since this common carrier thing persisted the whole time, it's very strange.
In short, I fint the article to be a bizarre self-contradiction. On the one wand worrying that there already are companies with worrisome control, but also vilifying regulation at the same time..
Shill much? (Score:5, Insightful)
Relating the evils of Google and Facebook with ISPs is a deliberate attempt to mislead. It's not remotely an equal comparison, at most it's a different problem, and all I hear is "hey, look over there!" The debate about what these companies should be allowed to do is important, but irrelevant to this discussion.
Net Neutrality was compromised significantly in its brief existence, that is a fact, but the response should have been extreme and powerful, from the legal to the not-yet-legal. The first attempt to get around net neutrality should have seen every single anti-competitive law in the united states eliminated: any company or municipality that wishes to build out broadband cannot be opposed. If they persist, then tax money should be used to build competing services. Finally, if they do not cease and desist, their board and senior executives should be arrested and the company assets seized. That is the level of hostility that we should be insisting upon for these (and any other) monopoly. Either play nice and make some money, or go to jail.
Instead they have bought the government and its regulation body. I look forward to people showing up to their buildings with torches and pitchforks (or the modern day equivalents) to express their "empathy".
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Relating the evils of Google and Facebook with ISPs is a deliberate attempt to mislead.
I'm not sure it's even an attempt to mislead as much as it is an attempt to show that the write had no frigging idea what net neutrality was about.
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I'm not sure it's even an attempt to mislead...
Be sure.
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Ok, I'm sure it's not. Happy? Never attribute to malice... blah blah blah
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This is not some nobody's Twitter feed, it's the widely-read Bloomberg providing a platform for the cable companies' (false) narrative.
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This is not some nobody's Twitter feed, it's the widely-read Bloomberg providing a platform for the cable companies' (false) narrative.
You're saying that as if it's supposed to be some kind of difference? This is new news not old news. Bloomberg have not proven themselves immune to completely missing how things work. Very few modern news companies have. By the way it pays to read the by-line. In this case By: "Someone with no technical credentials to her name" By: "A jack of all trades master of none".
When you write about everything, expect to be wrong some of the time.
That's not what it's about (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know why people keep trying to mix things up, but that's not the point of fighting for net neutrality. It's not about making Internet services more "neutral" or anything like that.
It's not about keeping the situation great (which it already isn't), it's about not making it worse.
And let's be honest here. One thing is people choosing to use Google instead of Bing, DuckDuckGo, *gasp* Yahoo and a few others that are out there (I personally use DuckDuckGo as default). One thing is people using Facebook instead of several social networks that showed up over the years or you know, none. One thing is people choosing Gmail instead of ProtonMail, a local webserver, among others. One thing is people using Facebook Messenger for convenience instead of some different service like Viber, Signal and others. There's choice. If people don't take them, that's their problem. We don't really need to discuss here on Slashdot how using these services can be bad, I think most people here knows about this. But it's still people's choice to use them, be it for convenience, familiarity, ease of use, or just because everyone around them are using it.
Yes, Google and Facebook have an effective hold in several areas that makes them close to monopolies, but there's still choice and competition. People can't deny that. For the vast majority of americans, there is NO option to one or two ISPs where they live. None. Ziltch. Nada. Nothing. The alternative is not using the Internet, and this is all Net Neutrality is about. Access to it has become a basic need, which is why there needs to be some regulation to it.
When you as a costumer don't have any choice, that's a true monopoly. And since there is no option, without any sort of regulation of course given time they will only get worse in nick and dime schemes, in tiered plans, in forcing their own brands and services to costumers while making it hard for anyone else to compete and whatnot.
Because that's exactly what they do. That's why they have been lobbying for such a long time to kill Net Neutrality once and for all.
It also doesn't mean that they didn't do this in the past, ISPs always finds a way to profit more over their clients. It just means that now they have no regulation to prevent them from doing anything, and that it'll become even easier for abusive practices to pass.
This is like arguing Amazon is non-neutral. Sure it is. It's slowly killing all alternatives. People are flocking to shop there for all sorts of reasons, and they are effectively closing down smaller competing stores and services. But it's something people are choosing for themselves. Amazon doesn't hire goons to beat you up if you go to the local market, they aren't making you sign a contract that you'll only shop there for a year if you buy one product, they aren't saying you can only use their mass storage servers in order to make an account there. There are limits as to what they can do, and this is what Net Neutrality is about. Having at least some limits on what ISPs can do. The more you give in, the worse it'll become.
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Oh, I know very well why people are trying to mix things up.
Because using similar-sounding terms, words that have multiple distinct meanings as if they are the same meaning (like a scientific law and a legal law), words that have different meanings in different contexts (Evolution is just a theory, see even the scientists say so!), misappropriating terms like Quantum, etc, is an easy way to confuse someone who wouldn't think too deeply about what was said and will just go with it and support their agenda.
Meaning of âoenetworkâ (Score:2)
Idiotic Red Herring (Score:4, Insightful)
While cable monopolies may have local dominance, none of them has the ability that Google and Facebook have to unilaterally shape what Americans see, hear and read.
That is neither here nor there. This has absolutely nothing to do with how many users a Web site has. Neither Google nor Facebook has a single iota of the kind of power wielded by the corrupt (*)oply ISP's; not even a whisper of a fragment.
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* equals Mono, Duo, Olig; as appropriate.
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Precisely. You don't have to use Google, or Facebook, or any other website. Once your online, you can go to the most obscure website you want.
However, in a lot of places around the US, you HAVE TO use Comcast. Or Verizon. Or whoever else has the local monopoly on your lines. Without net neutrality, THEY get to tell you what you can or cannot access. Or more likely, they'll charge you to access the content. Instead of getting a bill for $100 dollars for your bandwidth, it will look more like this:
Bandwidth C
Lacks understanding of mgmt of Internet traffic (Score:2)
Slashdot has lost it's neutrality (Score:1)
My "Hitler did nothing wrong" posts keep getting modded down. This is communism, and I'm not going to rest until we've given control of Slashdot to Comcast.
Yeah (Score:2)
Thanks ... (Score:2)
Bloomberg Op-Ed: (Score:2)
"We don't know what net neutrality is about, but hear us out while we bitch about walled gardens. I'm sure network neutrality is something like that!"
Bloomberg is gaslighting its readers. (Score:5, Interesting)
Beware of gaslighting with this op-ed. The article reads to me as if to say, you haven't had net neutrality for a while now so don't complain when it officially goes away and you can't miss what you've lived without. So please quit pressuring Congress to intervene; you'll never notice a change when net neutrality disappears.
As others have pointed out, the article isn't really about something net neutrality will address. The problems with Facebook, Google, spying, and computer control via proprietary software are real problems that need to be dealt with. But net neutrality is about a different issue. Net neutrality is a necessary but insufficient (in itself) quality of network service. I don't want an ISP discriminating for me what other computers my computers are allowed to trade packets with, nor will the absence of net neutrality be fixed by charging me more for an Internet connection. I understand that ISPs in their power and rent-seeking will see this situation differently, but it's critical not to give businesses primacy. People need power to speak freely and be heard, not routed into yet another class system.
That’s exactly right. (Score:3)
Indeed, comparing ISPs to Google (unless you are one of the few people with Google as ISP) or Facebook is disingenuous at best.
Google and Facebook and information service providers. ISPs like Comcast, AT&T, Verizon, etc., are common telecommunications carriers. Amalgamating both is wrong, though it is exactly what Pai and his masters want to do.
Consider those excerpts from the article:
- The reclassification of ISPs as common carriers “forced ISPs into an 80-year-old framework designed for the tele
What about that time... (Score:1)
Less relevant than ISPs. Opt in. Lame. (Score:2)
Those are opt-in.
If your ISP decides to filter you, then unless you take measures to prevent that (e.g. VPN) then you're fucked or else have to change ISPs, assuming that's even possible where you live.
If Facebook filters their users, then unless you use Facebook you give 0.00 fucks. You have to go to the extra trouble of using Facebook for them to change what you see, hear and read. Google a
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Your words are saying that you care more about the people pushing the idea than the idea itself.
No, his words are saying that their 'ideas' are a pack of lies and totally disingenuous just like they've repeatedly demonstrated themselves and the 'ideas' they've pushed before to be.
Strat
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I think what's being said is that there's no use getting worked up over it if nobody can be bothered. We're dealing with common corruption, and that's still not a big "bring home the bacon" election issue. That, and nothing gets out the vote like antipathy.
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Idiotic, little does the AC know how ridiculous laws regarding net neutrality would become without the means to enforce the statutes and the fact that the imp at the wheel of the FCC is doing exactly what this AC is claiming the democrats will do creating an enforcement organization that essentially creates public policy instead of enforcing it. The same as what the trumpster is doing with S
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Net Neutrality does *not* mean anyone is obligated to host your content, and it never did.