I’m glad to see this TOO!
These companies are just as much part of the Net Neutrality issue as the ISPs.
What good is it to guarantee neutral access to Edge Providers who could care
less about being neutral?
Many of the Net Neutrality proponents who want to keep ISPs under the thumb of
the heavy handed regulators at the FCC, State Public Utility Commissions and
local governments, are concerned about access for the next big Edge Service.
They complain that without heavy handed regulation it will not be possible for
the next Facebook, Amazon, Netflix or Google to pay off the ISPs to gain access
to their subscribers.
But that’s not the real issue. Internet access is NOT FREE.
Anyone who wants to create a major web service, or the next streaming video
service, will need the financial resources to pay for the servers, carriage and
promotion needed to compete. The dust up between Comcast and Netflix serves as
a prime example.
Comcast was not blocking or throttling Netflix - Netflix was purposely using
CDNs that were incapable of handling the traffic as they tried to force Comcast
to pay to carry their traffic. Any new service will need to cover these real
carriage costs to compete.
The reality is that someone must pay to create the next big thing.
But who?
Do we tax the big edge providers like Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Netflix,
and give the money to new competitors?
Do we rely on the capital markets to fund new start-ups, or accept the fact
that creating competitors to the FANG monopolies will require a massive capital
investment?
One can hope that “big tech” will take responsibility for their commitment to
neutrality. Trying to argue that ISPs “might” behave badly, pales in
significance when compared to the reality of the NON-NEUTRAL behavior of many
Edge Providers.
And NOW we have a new canard to deal with. Addiction to social media and the
mobile devices kids use to access them. The new meme is that “Internet
Addiction is The new Tobacco.”
The first wave of this new attack has been directed at Apple, and its massive
pile of off-shore cash. They want even better parental controls than Apple
provides today - never mind that the real problem is the lack of real parental
control, and the design of these social media services to exploit human
psychology - i.e. the dopamine hit from being ‘liked.”
No doubt the real culprit here is the ISPs that are allowing kids to access the
Internet...
;-(
Regards
Craig
On Jan 8, 2018, at 10:20 PM, Manfredi, Albert E
<albert.e.manfredi@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Monty Solomon posted:
Big Tech to Join Legal Fight Against Net Neutrality Repealhttps://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/05/technology/net-neutrality-lawsuit.html
Good to see this about to begin. I really think the order needs fought with
the larger perspective in mind, though, of the historic, and long assumed,
neutrality GUARANTEES of the US telecoms, in general. Not to make this
something special, just for the Internet, which really weakens the case.
The level of corruption of this FCC is what has to be on trial here. The
stubborn, in-your-face, dictatorial corruption. Shine a bright light on it,
call it what it is, make it disappear forever. Corruption needs to stamped
out.
Bert
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