What Net Neutrality Vote Means To You (No Dick Rule)
Lots of news today about Net Neutrality, and basically little changed at all. You’re still entitled to your free Internet, and you’re still entitled to whine when you start paying for more broadband. And you will.
But so you sound smart in work, school or at holiday parties, let’s give you “the least you need to know” (also “the most I care to understand” about Net Neutrality). It’s a top 10 list. Hang in there.
- Let’s start our story with the two main characters. There’s the internet service provider (Comcast, Verizon, AT&T, Time Warner) I’ll call pipes. And there’s the content provider or application vendor (YouTube, Netflix, Vonage, Skype) I’ll call the shit. (Via this analogy you’re sucking sewage down the pipe… hey kids, don’t forget to subscribe!).
- Net neutrality means the pipes can’t tier their shit like HUV (high occupancy vehicle lanes, which allow cars with 2 or more passengers to get a fast lane). Net neutrality means the shit has to have equal access to the pipes so it can be poured into the spot where your head used to be. Net neutrality means all shit is equal. Democratic shit pipes.
- There isn’t exactly “neutrality” in most markets, but we try to keep people from being dickheads in America. Triage happens on television and just about everywhere else. But people get their “knickers in a knot” with the web because hippies are concerned about the internet providers (pipes) being dickheads about it.
- Left to their own devices, the pipes will be dickheads about it. The hippies are kinda right.
- Furthermore, left to their own devices, the pipes wouldn’t develop any new shit. They don’t innovate unless forced by customers or market conditions because they’re like giant leeches.
- Here’s the central problem. The service providers are competing with some of the crap you enjoy free through their pipes. They’re pipes and shit makers. The pipes would rather you eat their shit instead of someone elses. Comcast, Verizon, AT&T and Time Warner wants you to buy their shit, and they benefit from putting the squeeze on the shit makers that don’t have pipes. That can piss off a market.
- Good news, however. There are two forces to prevent the pipes from abusing their position of power. First, we have laws against monopolies. They can’t exist (at least for long). Second, as long as we have decisions, we can shop. We have economics. Supply and demand. That takes care of a lot of stuff you don’t have to worry about.
- In fairness, the internet service providers did build the infrastructure, and theoretically should have the right to tier and segregate the shit based on the marketplace. They can be greedy but hopefully the two conditions in point 7 prevent them from being dickheads.
- Sorry- If you’re sucking down loads of streaming content (Vonage, YouTube and Skype), you’re costing the internet providers (pipes) money and you’re going to eventually pay for it. Otherwise you’re being subsidized and acting like an entitled whiner.
- You’re not entitled to free shit or pipes. Free isn’t sustainable for businesses or evolution. It cost money to build infrastructure and keep it alive. It cost money to crank out shit. You don’t have to buy it.
Any questions? Here’s an even better layman’s explanation but without the color.
Left to their own devices the industry has increased speed, content and diversity. Liberals are just butthurt that they can be openly criticized in new media and pine for the days when there were only three news channels, all of them liberal.
we own the internets
we paid for it with tax dollars
we built the infrastructure
we paid for it’s development
it belongs to the people not corporations.
I don’t know why the GOP loves Communist Wall Street so much
You’re brilliant, Kevin
Very well said Kevin. The last time I checked, internet and the Shit/content, is not a god given nor a constitutional right. Advertising is what built the internet and has given us the websites we take for granted today. Tax dollars may have built the original infrastructures. However companies including Google, are building the new infrastructures. I have Clear 4G Home and Mobile Internet. I pay 50 bucks a month and get comparable speeds to Comcast. Google and Intel had much to do with building the Clear network, and have much to do with Verizons 4G network. True you are going to see the cable and phone companies do what ever they can to hold on to their customers. But as the 4G networks become available to a larger part of the population, people are going to go with 4G. We will no longer need the Union lineman who takes his time playing with phone lines. Shit is becoming more simplified, and I don’t know about you. But I am paying less for my internet now than I was 5 years ago, and getting a hell of alot more. The same people who call partners sell outs because they put ads next to their videos. Lets face it, YouTube could put ads by all videos and not pay anyone, anything and people would still use the site. 80 Percent of people on YouTube don’t even know what a partner is. BC over and out………. You’re brilliant, Kevin
wrong WE THE PEOPLE OWN THE INTERNET.
This is knowledge created with tax payer dollars – it is our legacy to civilization and democracy
If google wants to charge you to use their site then so be it – but to stop or control the free flow of information because a company has a kill switch or the ability to cause a bottle neck to certain web sites is utterly immoral.
you want to live in a civilized world?
not everything has to be for sale or profit
oh, and FYI Google was tax payer funded as well..
When the White House had high profile dinners, thats tax payer funded also. Are we invited to that. Bottom line is this, you pay your taxes or you go to jail and sit next to Mr. Snipes. “We Own The Internet” OOORA, and we also have the right to bare arms, so put a gun in your pants pocket and walk into a police station and tell them your practicing your right to bare arms and see what happens. WE THE TAX PAYERS….. Go write a book, about how Al Gore created the internet and you the Tax Payer, owns it. You don’t own crap, every website you visit has ads on it, because a corporation or business is paying so that site can be free. And since not everything has to be for a profit. Ill bet you 10K dollars, that you wont give up your (job/profit) to walk your talk. If your interested in that bet, let me know as IM SERIOUS, After all you should not need to work for a profit because “not everything has to be for sale or profit”
Sorry Kevin, I am starting to learn that like YouTube has trolls, so does Blogs. Should have just said “You’re brilliant, Kevin”
“You’re brilliant, Kevin”
The infrastructure of the internet was funded in large part by the government of the United States. That infrastructure is every bit the same as the Interstate Highway system that we all enjoy the use of. “Pipes” is a inaccurate image, I think of them as equivalent to trolls who have set up their very own toll booths at the entrances to the highway. Once upon a time you too could be an internet service provider; all you needed was access to a T1 line and a bunch of incoming phone lines (understatement but you get the idea). Now we are forced to deal with the Trolls who have gated up all of the entrance ramps to the highway.
Oh by the way “You’re Brilliant, Kevin” and Merry Christmas
It is in the best interest of the consumer that the net not be allowed corporate control in the way this law protects us from. To attempt to say otherwise is simply partisan silliness. This is consumer protection.
There are plenty of opportunities to make money with this law in place (I know. I make money from them). Ways that don’t screw people out of information.
Wait, did BuddaCharlie just call Jan a troll?
You’re brilliant Marilyn!!!
You’re brilliant as well, NutCheese! Merry Christmas to you and all the WVFF peeps!