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The Internet Should Be a Public Good

jacobinmag.com

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Re: The Internet Should Be a Public Good

#111

Post by falcolas »

wyager wrote: post #104
falcolas wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me paraphrase your own comment in response. The issue is that the corporations, given no regulation, will start doing things like banning porn or "extreme" political views. This is not hypothetical; it has already happened on Facebook. Censorship is not purely the domain of the government. At least there are checks and balances on a government's power (as ineffectual and slow as they may be); save for the morals…

ISPs could have already tried to ban porn, but they haven't. Facebook isn't an ISP. Just because a single company has content restrictions doesn't mean every company in the world will do the same. Namecoin doesn't need DNS to bootstrap. Why would you need to download something? Do you need to download a DNS client for your grandmother? If such a system becomes adopted, OSs include it in the background, like DNS. If y…

> ISPs could have already tried to ban porn, but they haven't.

Yes, they have. For one example when AOL was both an ISP and service provider, you bet your butt they blocked porn and objectionable speech.

> Facebook isn't an ISP.

I'm not sure I agree with this - the Free Basics program sure quacks like an ISP duck.

> Just because a single company has content restrictions doesn't mean every company in the world will do the same.

With no legal restrictions, what stops them?

> OSs include it in the background, like DNS.

I'm of the opinion that this describes a future that will never exist. Microsoft, Apple, and Linux distros have no compelling reason to include namecoin support by default, and likely never will. Especially since there is limited to no support for failover or localization of name->IP lookups. Even the lack of support for legal disputes over trademarked domains (for example, does amazon.bit actually go to the same location as Amazon.com) would scare off any for-profit company.

> Namecoin doesn't need DNS to bootstrap.

I missed that namecoin uses a number of fixed IPs as seeds for bootstrapping into the blockchain, so DNS control matters less there (well, once you have the software, that is). Of course, IPs are also distributed by a centralized authority, and routing information for IPs can be ignored by ISPs, so it's a mistake to assume the IPs will never change.

Re: The Internet Should Be a Public Good

#112

Post by wyager »

falcolas wrote: post #111
wyager wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ISPs could have already tried to ban porn, but they haven't. Facebook isn't an ISP. Just because a single company has content restrictions doesn't mean every company in the world will do the same. Namecoin doesn't need DNS to bootstrap. Why would you need to download something? Do you need to download a DNS client for your grandmother? If such a system becomes adopted, OSs include it in the background, like DNS. If y…

> ISPs could have already tried to ban porn, but they haven't. Yes, they have. For one example when AOL was both an ISP and service provider, you bet your butt they blocked porn and objectionable speech. > Facebook isn't an ISP. I'm not sure I agree with this - the Free Basics program sure quacks like an ISP duck. > Just because a single company has content restrictions doesn't mean every company in the world will do…

>With no legal restrictions, what stops them?

You tell me. Most ISPs never had content restrictions, even though they could have.

>and likely never will.

You're probably right, but the point is they could if the need was there.

Re: The Internet Should Be a Public Good

#113

Post by jachin »

Maybe this is nip-picky, but I don't think the author knows what "public good" actually is.

I'm referring to economic definition of "public good" which is quite interesting, if you aren't familiar with it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_good

I don't think there's another definition. Is there?

Maybe the author didn't pick the title, but he misused the term in the article too.

Re: The Internet Should Be a Public Good

#114

Post by wyager »

dllthomas wrote: post #108
wyager wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Those powers are enacted by Congress, which is an elected body which can be voted out. You mean the congress with an 11% approval rating? Yeah, that's going great.

That's a misleading statistic. No one votes on "congress as a whole", they vote for their individual representatives. And individual representatives typically have a high approval rating (and are frequently voted out when it falls).

>No one votes on "congress as a whole"

Exactly. But congress as a whole would regulate the Internet.

Re: The Internet Should Be a Public Good

#115

Post by crzwdjk »

tptacek wrote: post #86
EliRivers wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Have you ever called to have your electrical service changed? How was that experience for you? I've had that pleasure, too." I've done this. It's something the UK seems to be really good at. I checked my annual usage and found the supplier who would charge me the least for that. So I phoned them. That was all I had to do. My bills went down. Fantastic. The UK government seems to be enforcing a competitive market, an…

Have you tried to have your electrical provider terminate additional power to your house? That's the kind of change I'm talking about.

I have. It is, as far as I know, pretty much impossible. You'd think they would want to enable customers to use more of their product.

Re: The Internet Should Be a Public Good

#116

Post by dllthomas »

wyager wrote: post #114
dllthomas wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a misleading statistic. No one votes on "congress as a whole", they vote for their individual representatives. And individual representatives typically have a high approval rating (and are frequently voted out when it falls).

>No one votes on "congress as a whole" Exactly. But congress as a whole would regulate the Internet.

I still say that's a little misleading. On any issue of national (or broader) scale, the people accounting for the difference between the behavior of my elected official (of whom I, statistically, approve) and the behavior of Congress as a whole must still be somehow contended with.
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