51–60 of 123 posts
Google's business was to stick itself between you and link you wanted to get to. Verizon is sticking itself between you and Google. I wonder whats next?
I wonder, if Verizon would step into Googles game, could we get actually good infrastructure, when the empire retaliates?
They tried this with Google Fiber. Problem is that municipal governments are in Verizon's pocket. To build any infrastructure requires the permission of the local government, who are cozy with entrenched infrastructure providers. So we, as consumers, continue to get fucked, while existing infrastructure providers continue to enjoy a substandard monopoly.
Google Fiber was a fluffy bunny sort of thing.
Verizon trying to drain the river of gold before it reaches Google is existential-threat stuff. In their position I would go to the mattresses.
We all hate ads, no doubt about it. But I don't like the way media is going about accusing Comcast and Verizon for what the consumers brought upon themselves. Comcast/Verizon simply want exactly what Google does. AFAIK, Google does not "prompt" me saying that they mine my data and use it to show ads. In fact, I just tried creating a gmail account and there is no such explicit popup dialog that tell me this informatio…
Let's say you decide Google is bad and you want to stop using it. What do you do?
1. Instead of typing "google.com" into your browser, you type in "duckduckgo.com", "bing.com", or any of a bazillion other sites.
There you go, done.
Now let's say you decide you don't like Comcast and want to switch to a different ISP, what do you do?
1. Nothing. Comcast is probably the only ISP in your area. Sorry. No new ISP for you!
Or (Advanced users only):
1. Convince another ISP to open in your area. This may involve investing hundreds of millions of dollars in running physical cable and stuff like that.
2. Wait several years for the relevant infrastructure to be installed.
3. Switch to that one other ISP.
4. Discover that it isn't noticeably better because it turns out a duopoly isn't much more effective at encouraging efficiency than a monopoly is.
5. A year or two later, Comcast buys out the other ISP.
Markets are only efficient (read: "work") when barriers to entry for producers and switching costs for consumers are low. Both of those are very very true for web sites. They are very very not true for ISPs.
Framing this as "who gets this pot of advertising money?" is the honest way to frame it. Privacy is just a proxy war between companies seeking advertising revenues. But who gets the advertising revenue isn't the relevant policy concern. The government shouldn't care whether Google gets that revenue or someone else. The relevant policy concerns are what level of privacy protections do people want, and what practical c…
The differences are: 1. If Google tracks me, they have maybe 50-70% coverage of my whereabouts. My ISP gets 100%. 2. I mistrust Telcos more than Google, based on historical example. Google hasn't quite remained true to "Don't Be Evil" (dollars are corrosive, billions of dollars doubly so), but at least they sorta try .
I wonder, if Verizon would step into Googles game, could we get actually good infrastructure, when the empire retaliates?
They tried this with Google Fiber. Problem is that municipal governments are in Verizon's pocket. To build any infrastructure requires the permission of the local government, who are cozy with entrenched infrastructure providers. So we, as consumers, continue to get fucked, while existing infrastructure providers continue to enjoy a substandard monopoly.
And of course, your theory would imply Google has less pull with municipal governments in Silicon Valley than an incumbent based on the opposite coast. It's an utterly ridiculous theory akin to complaining that WalMart can't get a fair shake in Benton, Arkansas.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Don't blame corporations for working within the system they're presented. Blame an apathetic voter base. I can blame both. Ethical companies will not abuse a bad law, nor will they pay millions to lobby to break laws, or use the Citizen's United ruling to pour money into electing people who will pass laws they want. It's hard to even see how it is possible to vote against them now that they've got billions of dolla…
There's plenty of blame to go around. Pick a political target, and sink your teeth into it, whether that's data privacy, immigration rights, single payer, whatever. Pick a candidate running for office who is congruent with your values, support them mercilessly, move on to the next challenge after the election. Squabbling on Hacker News? Does zero. Let's get something done.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
They tried this with Google Fiber. Problem is that municipal governments are in Verizon's pocket. To build any infrastructure requires the permission of the local government, who are cozy with entrenched infrastructure providers. So we, as consumers, continue to get fucked, while existing infrastructure providers continue to enjoy a substandard monopoly.
I'm not a lawyer, but wouldn't that local authority be delegated by statute from state governments? Google Fiber was a fluffy bunny sort of thing. Verizon trying to drain the river of gold before it reaches Google is existential-threat stuff. In their position I would go to the mattresses.
Google Fiber was Larry realizing that Google was vulnerable to competition from its infrastructure providers and trying to get ahead of it before those companies realized too. I worked on it when it launched in 2012. It was very much a defensive play then as now: the idea was that if Google won, they would get revenue and a defensive moat, while even if they lost, they would improve broadband speeds, spur competition, and build a defensive moat. They just didn't figure on a bureaucratic quagmire. I suspect that Larry still recognizes the threat, but thinks that Loon, Fi, and WebPass are more promising approaches to head it off.
In my opinion this is the problem of monopoly. US ISP don't have to compete among themselves to offer a better service as I learned recently. You/they get one ISP per area with no option to use a different one. Then they become huge and start to compete for other things, which in this case is the content. This turns out is bad for: - the user for getting subpar Internet access with a fixed conditions and no option. -…
Oligopoly may be a natural state for last-mile high-speed Internet service. I believe Sweden has avoided this in high population density areas with ISP access to city provided FTTH. In low population density areas it seems really difficult to avoid a monopoly or oligopoly situation.
However, I think other factors are to blame for the privacy issues: Primarily, public ownership of corporate stock, which has caused a focus shift from the value of the provided product or service to maximizing short-term returns. This was the driving force between the telecom providers claiming to be enhanced services (so they can do nasty things), when they had formerly aggressively claimed to be common carriers (because they didn't want to be liable for the content of customer traffic). The state PUCs have also been asleep at the wheel while the telcos used sleight-of-hand to recategorize tariffed services as non-tariffed.
Another factor may simply be the state of computer networking as a mass-market, consumer product and the ensuing race to the bottom.
apple does it all the time. shit, walgreens does it when you buy the waldrug instead of whatever else.
Framing this as "who gets this pot of advertising money?" is the honest way to frame it. Privacy is just a proxy war between companies seeking advertising revenues. But who gets the advertising revenue isn't the relevant policy concern. The government shouldn't care whether Google gets that revenue or someone else. The relevant policy concerns are what level of privacy protections do people want, and what practical c…
How does deregulating ISPs get us any closer to regulating search engines?