Save the Internet!

[asterroc]

Here's an email petition you can sign that'll go to your senator and representative. If you're at a loss for what to say, I said:

The internet is based upon the principle of Net Neutrality: the belief that all data should be treated equally and without preference. This is the same principle upon which our own Nation was established: all are created equal. In non-digital law, we have passed acts further bolstering this belief in the realms of race, class, gender, age, and disability status. It is a shame that the United States government is considering such a law that will take us a step backwards in the realm of the Internet and discriminate based upon the paying ability, and therefore class, of the individual.

Comments

[q10.livejournal.com]

more on the actual issue. i don't have a strong opinion on the bill, but the whole discussion seems rather hyperbolic. the objections seem a little like saying that it's wrong to let the postal service offer different mail services at different prices.

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

I see your point in the analogy, but it has enough weaknesses that I don't think it's a good choice of comparison. The law states that the USPS can be the only "regular" mail carrier, but that there can be other express mail carriers. This setup I believe was designed to protect the individual users of mail, and I haven't heard anything from the recent internet bill that would do so. In addition, the mail analogy doesn't work b/c when the USPS provides express mail, it does not in any way detract from the speed of regular mail delivery, which the "express internet" would do. And last, the speed of postal mail is not a crucial aspect of typical postal mail usage - perhaps if regular mail took two weeks it would be a different issue, but regular mail takes less than a week.

Perhaps a better analogy would be if cellphone carriers said that the percentage of lost calls would be inversely proportional to how much either party to the call pays. This would mean, for example, that telemarketers could get through to me a lot more easily than I could get through to my grandmother in a nursing home.

[q10.livejournal.com]

how does one hurt regular service more than the other? if the postal service took all of the resources currently dedicated to priority mail, and put them into the regular mail system, i'm sure regular mail would get there faster. likewise, it's not clear whether an ‘express internet’ would end up hurting regular traffic, or just putting more money into the system to build even more infrastructure to speed up express traffic. both of these are silly extremes, but i think they make the point that the division you're trying to build isn't terribly credible on those grounds.

and we already have that with cell phones, only it's between companies instead of within them - some providers have better networks than others, no? the way you tell the story makes it sound like they're maliciously dropping your grandmother's calls to try to squeeze more money out of you, which isn't a terribly fair analogy.

in any case, the issues involved are a long way from an attack on something as important as the expression ‘the first amendment of the internet’ indicates.

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

Postal service:
I am under the impression (perhaps incorrect) that priority mail is part of FedEx, which is financially independent from USPS First Class (normal) Mail. If this is the case, then no, the money they spend on it is not taking away from regular mail in any fashion.

Cell phones:
All providers charge essentially the same rates to everyone, and their reliability does not depend upon the price structure. (The minutes do depend upon how much you pay, but that is a less crucial aspect of cellphone usage than reliability.) I was suggesting we hypothesize a situation where there were insufficient cellphone towers/bandwidth to carry all cellphone calls, and "normal users" would only get a free line if "premium users" weren't using them.

Internet:
That is the impression that I get for the "express internet" model - that "normal users" would only get through during off-peak hours. I haven't heard anything about using the extra revenue to strengthen the infrastructure - the Snopes.com page you linked didn't say so either. In fact, I haven't heard anything about where the extra revenue is to go at all. If it were going to provide free low bandwidth internet to everyone, I'd likely be FOR the proposal.

[q10.livejournal.com]

(if this is a longer and more argumentative thread than you want in your journal, just let me know and i'll stop.)

Postal service:
quotes from USPS.com on the cost of sending a 3 ounce envelope from Salem, MA to Salem, OR. you can spend between $0.87 (estimated delivery time of three days) and 14.40 (for guaranteed overnight). all of these are options administered by the United States Postal Service. FedEx provides some competing services.

Cell Phones:
i concede that my remarks on this example were ill-chosen.

Internet:
if ‘normal users’ only got through during off-peak hours, then there would just stop being any normal users, and it'd be equivalent to an increase in internet service prices, which happens for everybody. The extra revenue presumably goes in part to pay for the extra cable that the high-speed consumers are using, because, assuming we keep the really evil conspiracies under control, it's generally in the provider's best interest to charge the consumer in proportion to the cost of what the consumer consumes. if normal users did stop getting service at certain hours, then almost everybody would pay for deluxe service, and it'd just be so much more price inflation, which is a fact of life that we (thankfully) don't usually expect the law to try to stop. or if some people didn't it'd be because they valued their money more than being able to get online at all hours. if i'm a light internet user who only wants to check my email once or twice a day, and i'm, say, retired, and have a flexible schedule, and somebody's willing to let me by exactly what i need for less, what's the problem?

as you present it the high volume times bandwidth is in more demand, and the providers want to recognize this by making it cost more at those times. in any other field this would be standard business practice (matinee rates for movies, early bird specials at restaurants, peak hour fees for public transportation, seasonal fluctuations in the price of air travel, phone plans that charge more for calls during business hours, or give you more free minutes on the weekends, et c.). if your business model involves investment in some resources that last a while, but have demand that's variable over time, then it makes sense to use price discrimination to encourage people to use your service at the times when you're not operating near capacity, and to try to exploit the higher demand at other times to get more money for your temporarily more popular product.

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

You're not being argumentative, we're having a rational discussion presenting two differing sides of an issue. I really appreciate such conversations, and do not find them often enough. If you were saying "you're stupid!" that'd be an argument (or perhaps flame war), and one that would be potentially delete-worthy, but this is not that.

However, I do admit to growing slightly tired of this conversation, and it's primarily b/c, as you admit as well, I haven't read the text of the bill! I do not really understand what's at stake here (jethereal said charging for email? ! ), and both of us are betraying this by not having solid reasoning to present to each other. :-P While the discussion is interesting and stimulating, it's too much like work for me to get more info on the subject, so I may just drop it now. *chuckles* If I do go and read more, I will be back!

[q10.livejournal.com]

also, it's already lawful to have a system where the amount of money the receiver of the information is willing to pay affects the speed at which it gets there, and for that matter for content providers to be able to invest in faster connection and servers. so money (on both ends) already affects how quickly my data gets there. why is this so horrifyingly different.

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

For me (and most individual users of the internet), the bottleneck in data is the copper wires leading from some internet hub to my house. Although the data may get from rich companies' servers to the hub faster than from small businesses to the hub, they are all slowed down after that on their way to my computer, so that any difference is imperceptible.

This bill would allow the ISP to speed up the rich companies within those wires from the hub to my house, at the expense of the small companies.

<shrug> I don't feel super strongly against the bill, but I am somewhat, and your points are making me think about it more - both sides, as well as neutrality. Thanks. :) You said before you don't have strong feelings about it - which side do your weak feelings fall on?

[q10.livejournal.com]

as you've probably guessed by now, i'm inclined to think that businesses should be able to use this general price-stratification in these kinds of situations. but there are some respects in which the internet is different (because it's different in a lot of ways, and because in particular of the government's involvement in its establishment and operation), and, although i haven't seen the text, the bill is almost certainly manages to take this not-so-bad-seeming idea and do something obnoxious with it, because congress can never figure out how to deregulate anything without introducing a new regulation intended to give huge, evil, unfair, government-supported advantages to somebody.

[q10.livejournal.com]

well, i haven't read the bill (it looks like i'd be looking for some subtle changes in wording in an awful and huge regulatory statute, and i'm not up for that), but i have read som FAQs, and i have a more informed opinion:

i see a lot of appeal in the idea that network providers should be compelled by law to act as common carriers or public acommodations, who provide the same service without preference to anybody willing to pay the stated price. the prospect of providers excluding certain content based on what it says is pretty alarming, or creating artificial content monopolies in exchanged for bribes, is pretty alarming. i don't know whether a regulatory solution is what we'd want here, because i tend to be very nervous about regulatory solutions to anything, but the concern is real and the case for a regulatory solution is real.

however, so long as they don't ask what you're doing, but only what you're willing to pay for what level of service, i really don't see a problem with it, for the reasons i've noted elsewhere.

i strongly suspect that the competing proposals are a proposal to allow both of these activities on the part of network providers (might end up working out okay, but does sound like there could be very real trouble) and a proposal to forbid them both. it's a bundling that i don't find especially endearing, and i'm mad at both sides for their part in getting things packaged this way.