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Keep the Internet Open

blog.samaltman.com

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Re: Keep the Internet Open

#341

Post by mikx007 »

sama wrote: post #19
brothercolor wrote: post #14

The internet is what makes Silicon Valley go round. Everyone, including Sam Altman, needs to be an activist. Asking for someone else to take point on something so fundamental is like asking Natives to take point on water prot-- wait.

I am happy to help, and honestly if I had more time right now I'd take this on directly--right now is an unusually busy time for me. I agree with you it's critical to Silicon Valley.

I propose to organize and for 1 week limit bandwidth to all of our websites to 56k to FCC IP block. I believe it will send much stronger message than any other form of protests. Google, wikipedia, netflix, amazon, facebook, linkedin and everyone else join and show everyone where you stand.

Re: Keep the Internet Open

#342

Post by laughinghan »

blhack wrote: post #130

This is a difficult question. Emotionally, I am a net neutrality absolutist, but I think I can talk myself out of it, which to me means that the conversation is complex. Should the power company be able to offer you a discounted rate if you host equipment that offsets their cost (for instance: a powerwall)[1]? I think that the answer to that question is yes. Well okay, then should your ISP be able to offer you a disc…

> should your ISP be able to offer you a discounted rate to use services that offset their cost (youtube, which has an cache near you, vs vimeo, which doesn't)?

I think this could be reasonable as long as it's not by having YouTube do a deal with the ISP, but is by a company-neutral measure of how much costs are actually lowered for the ISP (which is passed onto you). If Vimeo can do some engineering to reduce cost to the ISP and automatically have the lowered cost passed onto you without Vimeo having to negotiate some special deal with the ISP, then that becomes another area they can compete and innovate on, and hence harnesses the power of competition rather than foster anticompetitive practices.

By contrast, if special deals are allowed ("YouTube traffic is free"), then it would be mutually beneficial for monopolies to offer ISPs kickbacks in return for helping them maintain their monopoly by suppressing competition, while the rest of us lose out.

Re: Keep the Internet Open

#343

Post by WillPostForFood »

fragmede wrote: post #185
WillPostForFood wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there was a tech workers union, presumably it would cover employees at Comcast, Verizon, AT&T, and many other companies they are not pro net neutrality. So it wouldn't even be in the self interest of the union to get into the battle. It needs to be the consumers who speak up, and the businesses that would be negatively affected.

The Communications Workers of America (CWA), the biggest communications labor union, covers workers at Verizon and AT&T, but last time around they sided with AT&T and Comcast back in 2014. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/21/naacp-union-net-neu...

Isn't that mostly call center workers, and installers?

Re: Keep the Internet Open

#346

Post by crazy1van »

pharrlax wrote: post #134
Alex3917 wrote: post #78

> Doing this allows the government to ensure a level playing field In theory this is a good argument. In practice, my experience is that this argument causes people to write off net neutrality as just being something that's about letting tech bros make lots of money. I've even heard this from folks in the tech industry, who really should know better. An argument that may be more convincing is that the Internet is the…

The best argument I've found for convincing conservatives is to stress that the internet is a platform for commerce, and healthy commerce requires equality of opportunity -- specifically, the opportunity for consumers to access your business. ISPs literally "own the road", to create an analogy for internet businesses. If the only road company in town installs a toll booth or a series of speed bumps in front of McDona…

> If the only road company in town installs a toll booth or a series of speed bumps in front of McDonald's because Burger King paid them to

This kind of thinking will lead to a big debate about what exactly is a speed bump -- how high can they be? Do rumble-strips count? What about potholes?

A better solution would be to just let more companies build roads in your town. Then all the people who want to go to McDonalds will take their business to the other road companies.

Re: Keep the Internet Open

#347

Post by crazy1van »

asher_ wrote: post #339
vvanders wrote: post #75

I love the electricity company/appliance analogy. That seems fairly accurate and something that's easily relatable to the layman who doesn't understand the details of the internet.

Can you explain? The analogy seems like a terrible one to me. We are not talking about charging different amounts of money depending on the brand of device you are consuming the data on. NN is about not differentiating the cost or quality of bits based on their source. In the US, can you not opt to pay a slightly higher rate for renewable energy? (This happens in Australia). I'm all for NN, but the analogy Sam used d…

> Is the lack of competition the real issue here?

Yes. Governments -- from federal to small towns -- created rules giving de facto local monopolies to certain ISPs and making market entry of competition very difficult. And yet, people want to solve this created problem with more rules about how ISPs are allowed to compete.

Re: Keep the Internet Open

#348

Post by pcnix »

rdl wrote: post #58

While I like the Internet being open, I don't like "net neutrality" extremism. 1) While I dislike monopoly carrier antics, I'm even more unhappy about the idea of government bureaucrats dictating network engineering standards to carriers and ISPs. If you build a network with caches/content servers close to users, and expensive backhaul back to your network core, you can offer essentially unlimited traffic to users hi…

Zero rating in India was never a move that helped anyone in India afford services, it was just designed to get them into a locked network that had access to nothing but Facebook. And it was very clear that India had no patience for that sort of thing with the way it went down.

This is not the argument you make against net neutrality.

Re: Keep the Internet Open

#349

Post by blhack »

grotsnot wrote: post #263
blhack wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really want the electricity analogy to be good, but the reality is that it isn't. A bit is not a bit. Some bits actually are cheaper to deliver than others.

How so?

Because net neutrality already doesn't exist for ISPs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_transit

Also, because of things like edge caches, there are bits that have to travel a shorter distance, and interact with less hardware, than other bits.

Your GE microwave doesn't require that it gets electricity from a GE power turbine. All watts are the same in that sense. The watts can come from a GE generator (in the town over) or a westinghouse generator (in the local town). It doesn't matter.

But a youtube application does require that the bits come from youtube servers. Youtube cannot use bits from vimeo, and because of network topology, the vimeo bits might be more costly for the ISP to deliver than the youtube bits.

Re: Keep the Internet Open

#350

Post by ori_b »

confounded wrote: post #49

Because of the massive amount of consolidation over the last few years, the death of Net Neutrality would be the best competitive moat imaginable for Google, Facebook, Amazon, etc. While all their CEOs will make faint noises in favor of Net Neutrality, SV outspends Wall Street 2:1 on lobbying[1], the goal of which is to cement monopoly status, not to make the world a better place. Most of it goes to Republicans. Thin…

> While all their CEOs will make faint noises in favor of Net Neutrality, SV outspends Wall Street 2:1 on lobbying[1], the goal of which is to cement monopoly status, not to make the world a better place. Most of it goes to Republicans.

Trying to sway people who already agree with you with is a waste of time and money. Of course most of the money and lobbying effort goes towards convincing people on the 'other side'.

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