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Verizon is killing Tumblr’s fight for net neutrality

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Re: Verizon is killing Tumblr’s fight for net neutrality

#73
post #40
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, there can be contractual terms which allow for the original owners to regain control under certain contingencies

How often is this pursued by original owners and accepted by the prospective new owners?

An options clause, usually - giving the founder the right to buy back the company/brand at a fixed price - it's enticing to new owners too because it mitigates their risk (e.g. if they run it into th ground while the old owner is interested in it, then it will limit their losses) - the difficulty then is not making the buyback price too high that the original owner can't afford it, or if the new owner screws it up so badly that the original owner loses interest.

Re: Verizon is killing Tumblr’s fight for net neutrality

#74
post #62
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not opposed to NN, but your phrasing piqued my curiosity: Why is it bad that ISPs charge us based on type/source of data? Should grocery stores charge us by volume (mass?) of food instead of by type/source/etc? If aggregating costs is indeed more moral, why should it be enforced by law (as opposed to the food example)? Providing robust answers to these questions should strengthen the NN position.

It is not bad per se, but it is not what the internet is. The moment they start charging based on content is the moment that it becomes something different. Right now is like a public road, with free and equal access for every body, and thus, an economy can be built around it. If you change it to the store model, it morphs from an economy to a business, and businesses are not capable of supporting an entire economy b…

Ahem. I think public roads sometimes have, e.g., limits for heavy vehicles or various dedicated lanes. ;)

My actual point is, analogies just don't work.

Re: Verizon is killing Tumblr’s fight for net neutrality

#75
post #32
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no basis for your contention that "internet" would be cheaper without NN.

Given that reduced upstream costs typically translate into reduced downstream costs, and that regulation typically increases downstream costs, I think the onus is on NN-proponents to prove why the reverse is true.

> regulation typically increases downstream costs

This is a common claim that is rarely supported with data. Why does enforcing net neutrality increase downstream costs?

If you mean that it shifts costs (you pay more for Netflix because they have to pay Comcast for fair service), then sure. I don't see any evidence that net neutrality actually changes the underlying cost of net service, though.

There's a great counterpoint to your claim in the USPS. Their prices are regulated by congress. Those prices are pushed down artificially to the point that it's slowly bankrupting the USPS. So service is definitely cheaper than it would be without regulation. (Send a letter via FedEx and see what the free market charges for this service.)

Re: Verizon is killing Tumblr’s fight for net neutrality

#76

They're also forcing all adult-oriented content on Tumblr (which isn't limited to porn, although porn makes up the majority of their userbase) behind a logged-in-users-only wall, blocking it from non-Tumblr users and in turn, external search engine results. https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/20/tumblr-rolls-out-new-conte...

Oi, I suppose archiving Tumblr is this weekend's project.

They currently have 150B posts (https://www.tumblr.com/about) so I expect that to be quite challenging. If you seriously make any progress though, it'd be cool to see.

Re: Verizon is killing Tumblr’s fight for net neutrality

#77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://github.com/fake-name/xA-Scraper already supports tumblr. Their API has annoying limits, though. Note: It's a project of mine.

I use grab site, which is a spiritual successor to ArchiveTeam's ArchiveBot. I have to be careful to give my scraping methods away, as I've had digital targets attempt countermeasures.

I've had similar problems. At this point, I basically run a botnet, albeit one I pay for. I have a rolling swarm of DigitalOcean and Vultr VMs that act as RPC clients for a custom system I wrote.

Re: Verizon is killing Tumblr’s fight for net neutrality

#78
post #44
post #5

Net neutrality makes internet more expensive for everybody so Torrent and Netflix users can be subsidized. It looks right, but it is WRONG to "defend" it using law and force.

Net Neutrality doesn't say ISPs can't charge customers for data usage. Which is what my answer would be: charge customers for data usage. Some ISPs do this if you go beyond a certain amount per month. But if a tiny portion of users are hogging a massive amount of bandwidth (as is oftentimes claimed), it seems like an ISP could make a killing by offering cheaper bandwidth but charging for data usage, which would drive…

I'm guessing that Netflix and video generally have somewhat democratized high data usage. At least they've probably shifted it from torrenting to hours and hours a day of video and music streaming. Haven't seen a breakdown recently though.

Re: Verizon is killing Tumblr’s fight for net neutrality

#79
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How often is this pursued by original owners and accepted by the prospective new owners?

An options clause, usually - giving the founder the right to buy back the company/brand at a fixed price - it's enticing to new owners too because it mitigates their risk (e.g. if they run it into th ground while the old owner is interested in it, then it will limit their losses) - the difficulty then is not making the buyback price too high that the original owner can't afford it, or if the new owner screws it up so…

>giving the founder the right to buy back the company/brand at a fixed price

Selling a call does not allow the buyer to hedge. Buying a put would but not selling a call. You are describing selling a call.

Re: Verizon is killing Tumblr’s fight for net neutrality

#80
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we need diversity of opinion, perhaps you could up-vote someone that believes that the earth is flat or black is white. There are out there some readily determinable facts, and it is perfectly fine for all of our opinions to be the same as it concerns those facts. For example, almost everyone on earth will be of the opinion that fire is hotter than ice. Do we all suffer from group think? If someone believes that f…

Do you consider your position so weak that it can't withstand a debate? I've phrased this bluntly for effect. If you say an idea is mistaken, then you've said the worst thing you can say about it. Censoring it only pushes inquisitive minds further into their camp. If HN has become a place where mistaken ideas are no longer tolerated (in the sense that you can't lay out your reasoning without being attacked) then we'v…

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