I’ve struggled at times to explain exactly what “net neutrality” is, and why it is so important to the future of the Internet. But Damian Kulash Jr., the lead singer for the band OK Go, has no such problem; read his op-ed in today’s NY Times: “Beware the New New Thing.”
Most people assume that the Internet is a democratic free-for-all by nature — that it could be no other way. But the openness of the Internet as we know it is a byproduct of the fact that the network was started on phone lines. The phone system is subject to “common carriage” laws, which require phone companies to treat all calls and customers equally. They can’t offer tiered service in which higher-paying customers get their calls through faster or clearer, or calls originating on a competitor’s network are blocked or slowed.
These laws have been on the books for about as long as telephones have been ringing, and were meant to keep Bell from using its elephantine market share to squash everyone else. And because of common carriage, digital data running over the phone lines has essentially been off limits to the people who laid the lines. But in the last decade, the network providers have argued that since the Internet is no longer primarily run on phone lines, the laws of data equality no longer apply. They reason that they own the fiber optic and coaxial lines, so they should be able to do whatever they want with the information crossing them.
[… O]utright censorship and obstruction of access are only one part of the issue, and they represent the lesser threat, in the long run. What we should worry about more is not what’s kept from us today, but what will be built (or not built) in the years to come.
We hate when things are taken from us (so we rage at censorship), but we also love to get new things. And the providers are chomping at the bit to offer them to us: new high-bandwidth treats like superfast high-definition video and quick movie downloads. They can make it sound great: newer, bigger, faster, better! But the new fast lanes they propose will be theirs to control and exploit and sell access to, without the level playing field that common carriage built into today’s network.
They won’t be blocking anything per se — we’ll never know what we’re not getting — they’ll just be leapfrogging today’s technology with a new, higher-bandwidth network where they get to be the gatekeepers and toll collectors. The superlative new video on offer will be available from (surprise, surprise) them, or companies who’ve paid them for the privilege of access to their customers. If this model sounds familiar, that’s because it is. It’s how cable TV operates.
That’s net neutrality in a nutshell: do you want an Internet that operates like the one we have today, or one that operates like cable TV, where Comcast decides which content to carry, and offers it to you only in bundles of its own devising? Most folks simply aren’t going to subscribe to two internets, and those who choose the one with the high definition video on demand, very well may not have access to voices like mine. (Or for those on the other side of the ideological divide, voices like yours.)
You would think this is one issue on which we could all agree.
AND WHAT’S MORE:
Damian Kulash knows ping-pong, too:
I prefer the Internet the way it is now: I can say anything I like and get away with it.
@1
That kind of subversive crap will not be tolerated here–for long.
i’m reporting you.
2 & 3,
Jeez! I didn’t even use any cuss words @ 1!! This is a tough audience! Roger should tread lightly here.
Now that the Genie is out of the bottle, though, can it ever be stuffed back in? I mean, will or would the masses put up with a controlled, sifted and censored net? And what about the Co-op business plan for future service, would that work?
This is indeed a good explanation of net neutrality. I’ve got only one little criticism.
The providers are actually champing at the bit. And if you don’t believe me, look it up.
Absolute freedom in regard to content AND access to the internet is as essential to our way of life as freedom of the press, religion and the right to have firearms. Cyniclown in a post a couple of days ago went nuts pointing out what gun control has done across the world. I would like to see him give an effort of the same verve and emotion in support of net neutrality. ANY attempt to rein in ANY content on the internet would be violation of the highest order.
This is how we are going to communicate in the very near future. Newspapers are dying, weekly magazines practically exist only for medical office end tables. This medium has changed our lives more than anything that I can think of. Even microwave ovens (humor for my Conservative friends). To restrict the internet in any way would violate our constitutional rights. Well, what is left of them after the Bush/Cheney shredding of said constitution.
It’s no surprise that a power elite anywhere in the world will see a challenge to their hegemony as sedition. This is the same old wine in a brand new bottle.
This blast of freedom of expression that we’ve had for the past few years on the ‘internets’ will surely be squelched. It’s time now to start looking for a new way.
@4 “Roger should tread lightly here.”
Why? Do you think those Bushnazi motherfuckers who tapped my phone don’t already have my address? Do I act afraid of them? Fuck ’em! Fuck the Republican Nazis. They can try to come and get me anytime they think they’re man enough.
@9 “Bushnazi motherfuckers”
Indeed….
Or, lapel pin patriot’s.
“Bushnazi motherfuckers”
That is classic.
Does anyone have a rundown on how/where our electeds stand on net neutrality?
@11 They haven’t shut up Roger Rabbit yet.
Of course, given the incompetence of the current regime, that doesn’t necessarily mean they don’t want to. Wanting and getting are two different things.
Anybody who thinks we wouldn’t allow regulation of the net needs to consider the insane drug laws that are an essential part of today’s Republican control.
Leave it to the Democraps, and they will regulate everything you do before long, as long as they can suck another fee out of it that is.
Too many bristles on your tooth brush? $5 to Gregoire’s gang to re-design and re-regulate.
Using water when you are brushing? $10 to the Dumbwater plant if it is ever finished
Spitting in the sink? $20 to the Dumbwater plant if it is ever finished
Use a towel or wash cloth when showering? $40 to Dumbwater plant if it is ever finished
Use Toilet Paper, oh my god! $100 per sheet to the Dumbwater plant if it is ever finished
Need to flush more than once per day? $500 to the Dumbwater plant if it is ever finished
Have your own Septic System and don’t need Dumbwater? Oh my god how dare you bypass our Trillion dollar system!
$10,000 dollar fee!
Leave it to batshit-crazt reichwingnuttery (GS et al.)to offer up off-topic non-sequiturs. Wassamatta? Can’t wrap your three braincells around the idea ?
Heh DUH “TomTar” this article is about “OVER” “REGULATION” My post is about the continual “over regulation and over taxation” of everything including the net as well as every other thing they can wrap their tiny minds around!
We were discussing net neutrality.
Stay on topic or get the fuck outta here !!!
NEXT !!!!!
Yes I am indeed sorry, I should have paid more attention to your brilliant posts on net neutrality and regulation on this thread..
I’ll ask Goldy if he deleted them!
Why does Roger get to be all nasty and not get flagged?
Is he sucking Goldies thing?
re 20: Because WingNutz™ blabber incessantly about topics that only interested people in Philadelphia, Miss. in the 1980’s.
In case you haven’t noticed, your time has come and gone. For instance, the general public now realizes that Rep. Representative John Boner is a weepy (albeit, nasty and vindictive) alcoholic whose only real skill is mixing and consuming mass quantities of gin-rickies.
@20 You haven’t been flagged either, so if I’m sucking Goldy’s thing, you must be too. neener neener
@15 It’s common practice for regulated industries to pay fees to help defray the cost of regulation. Why should I pay for necessary government regulation of your bad behavior? That’s like asking me to pay your traffic fines.
GS would dump his feces in Puget Sound if he could get away with it.
Rep. Congressman Boner’s Gin Ricky recipe:
Ingredients to use: 6.0 oz Club Soda
1.5 oz Gin
1.0 tablespoon Lime juice
Directions: Fill a highball glass with ice. Add gin and lime juice. Fill with club soda and stir. Garnish with a wedge of lime.
Drink ten of these every evening and smoke a pack and 1/2 of Tarryton ‘coal filtered’ coffin nails.
Not only did the doctor drop GS on his head when he was born, he also kicked his fucking brains out.