Wikipedia’s ‘complicated’ relationship with net neutrality
washingtonpost.com
Wikipedia’s ‘complicated’ relationship with net neutrality
1–10 of 87 posts
Re: Wikipedia’s ‘complicated’ relationship with net neutrality
#2Wikipedians take it on faith that their website is better, more useful, more ethical, more informative, etc., than other websites. Thus they are able to believe that it is right that their website should receive special (non-neutral) treatment from ISPs.
The problem is, most website operators feel this way. I'm sure Google's executives believe that everyone would be better off if they had more access to Google; and Facebook folks think that about Facebook; Apple folks about iCloud; etc.
So, this is not actually a consistent framework for how ISPs should treat traffic. What if some team develops a better source of information than Wikipedia? They'll be hamstrung from the beginning because Wikipedia is "free" and they are not.
It takes the decision-making out of the hands of the consumer, and puts it into the hands of big ISPs and websites. Whether the website is run by a non-profit or not doesn't matter much...either way it is like the foxes guarding the hen house.
Re: Wikipedia’s ‘complicated’ relationship with net neutrality
#3This is super interesting! Thanks for sharing.
I believe this is a good illustration of how most net neutrality advocacy is misguided. The (very real) problem net neutrality advocates are trying to solve isn't paid prioritization; rather, it's a lack of meaningful competition in the "last-mile" broadband market, and this market failure produces aberrant scenarios like NBC Comcast shaking down its competitors (eg Netflix). I'm hesitant to strongly support most mainstream net neutrality proposals because of situations like this, where network discrimination is net positive.
Anyway, I'd be curious to hear your thoughts.
Re: Wikipedia’s ‘complicated’ relationship with net neutrality
#4Net Neutrality is really a fight between two industries about shifting their costs onto one another, with really good PR from the tech industry that has enlisted normal people onto their side.
T-Mobile's zero-rating of data from certain music services supposedly violates "net neutrality", but customers like it and it allows them to compete with ATT and Verizon. It may be unfair to some other music service start up, but who cares? It's unfair in the same way that an incumbent has more resources to advertise their product than a start up.
Re: Wikipedia’s ‘complicated’ relationship with net neutrality
#5This is an interesting topic, but kind of a weird article. Wikipedia wrote a long article addressing the topic of Net Neutrality and Wikipedia Zero a few months back. This is worth reading if you're interested in the topic:
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/08/01/wikipedia-zero-and-net...
Kind of odd that the Washington Post doesn't mention any of these points. Personally, I still feel the Wikipedia Zero program violates net neutrality, but mentioning Wikipedia's self-imposed constraints here seems important.
Re: Wikipedia’s ‘complicated’ relationship with net neutrality
#6Net Neutrality is really a fight between two industries about shifting their costs onto one another, with really good PR from the tech industry that has enlisted normal people onto their side. T-Mobile's zero-rating of data from certain music services supposedly violates "net neutrality", but customers like it and it allows them to compete with ATT and Verizon. It may be unfair to some other music service start up, b…
There are generally 4 economic players at minimum:
Network service like Netflix.
Their ISP, like L3.
Consumer's ISP, like Comcast (also a Netflix competitor).
Consumer.
Re: Wikipedia’s ‘complicated’ relationship with net neutrality
#7The authors didn't address the point that all the current use cases for zero rating are on wireless, not on traditional broadband.
The Google-Verizon proposal from 2010 had this "wireless exclusion". I was opposed to it in principle, but now as a T-mobile customer I really love the fact that Spotify doesn't count to my usage limits. I can completely see how zero rating could benefit the developing world and even the elderly in developed countries - these demographics are very likely to own a cellphone even though they might not use home broadband.
I don't see anything wrong in providing a throttled experience for free as long as all paid traffic (including non-zero rated versions of Wikipedia that include pictures/video) is treated equally.
Re: Wikipedia’s ‘complicated’ relationship with net neutrality
#8This is super interesting! Thanks for sharing. I believe this is a good illustration of how most net neutrality advocacy is misguided. The (very real) problem net neutrality advocates are trying to solve isn't paid prioritization; rather, it's a lack of meaningful competition in the "last-mile" broadband market, and this market failure produces aberrant scenarios like NBC Comcast shaking down its competitors (eg Netf…
You're absolutely right. However, the probability that meaningful competition will break through the enormous barriers to entry that Comcast, et al have erected before they manage to irreparably damage one of the few remaining growth industries in the US (tech) is near zero.
Re: Wikipedia’s ‘complicated’ relationship with net neutrality
#9There was no concept of 'zero-rating' before telecoms/ISPs established the concept of a 'rate-per-byte'.
Re: Wikipedia’s ‘complicated’ relationship with net neutrality
#10The authors didn't address the point that all the current use cases for zero rating are on wireless, not on traditional broadband. The Google-Verizon proposal from 2010 had this "wireless exclusion". I was opposed to it in principle, but now as a T-mobile customer I really love the fact that Spotify doesn't count to my usage limits. I can completely see how zero rating could benefit the developing world and even the…
Wondering why you don't see an issue with zero-rating - it's essentially making an unlevel playing field, with the big players like Facebook/Spotify buying an anticompetitive moat against any new entrants.
I don't see how zero-rating is going to help network congestion either - won't zero-rated Spotify for my neighbors causes my calls to drop or my maps to not update?
Is zero-rating some bandwidth somehow magically evading Shannon's Law?