Craig Newmark, founder of craigslist, describes the issue perfectly:
Most Americans believe that if you play fair and work hard, you’ll get ahead. But this notion is threatened by legislation passed Thursday night by the U.S. House of Representatives that would allow Internet service providers to play favorites among different Web sites.
Here’s a real world example that shows how this would work. Let’s say you call Joe’s Pizza and the first thing you hear is a message saying you’ll be connected in a minute or two, but if you want, you can be connected to Pizza Hut right away. That’s not fair, right? You called Joe’s and want some Joe’s pizza. Well, that’s how some telecommunications executives want the Internet to operate, with some Web sites easier to access than others. For them, this would be a money-making regime.
Thanks kottke for the link.
Comments
So…if this happens…maybe enough of “ethical” hackers could organize to cripple everything…until they change it back.
I have no hacking skills, but will go out of my way to vote against anyone that helps enact this. How about a challenge to all webmasters to post a “page of shame” on their sites listing the elected officials that sold us out…..
Sometimes I really think that money sucks….then it dawns on me that greed is the problem. So basically, greedy people suck.
Blah.
That analogy is really lame… and not how it will work.
A better analogy is this:
I call US Airways and get put on hold for an hour because they are too cheap to spend the money to have sufficient staff on hand.
I hang up and call United, who get my business because I can talk to a customer service rep after a minute or so.
The internet business model has changed. The ISPs were not built to handle the type of bandwidth we are looking at. And with companies offering services which require Huge amounts of low latency bandwidth, ISPs can’t be expected to provide them with extra service (latency) at no cost.
If you are going to start a airline company you will need to calculate the costs of enough customer service reps to answer your phones or else you will go out of business.
http://www.wormus.com/aaron/stories/2007/04/01/in-defense-of-the-internet-network-neutrality.html
Aaron – good call on the analogy. Good comments in your article.
Jake – start saving your pennies so that you can “buy” the fattest pipe possible when this comes down. I want my UtterlyBoring goodies popping up in microseconds when I click the bookmark…..
😉
Stratboy: I’m going to have to get a LOT more clicks on the ads on this site before I would be able to afford premium bandwidth, that’s fer shur.