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Wikipedia’s ‘complicated’ relationship with net neutrality

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Wikipedia’s ‘complicated’ relationship with net neutrality

#11

Post by icebraining »

ianlevesque wrote: post #8
mrbabbage wrote: post #3

This 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.

Sorry to pick on you, but the responses of net neutrality advocates vis-à-vis competition sound like the standard strategy of the Foreign Office when dealing with crisis from Yes, Prime Minister.

"maybe we should do something about it, but there's nothing we can do", it's a natural monopoly.

"maybe there was something we could have done, but it's too late now", they already have a stronghold.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0751831/quotes?item=qt0190692

Re: Wikipedia’s ‘complicated’ relationship with net neutrality

#12

Post by GabrielF00 »

snowwrestler wrote: post #2

Wikipedians 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 F…

> Wikipedians take it on faith that their website is better, more useful, more ethical, more informative, etc., than other websites.

I've been a Wikipedia editor for about 10 years. I don't think that your perception of the community has any basis in reality. Lot's of Wikimedians are pretty vocal about their disagreements with the Wikimedia Foundation on a wide range of issues (including this one). There are lots of discussions within the community about the limitations of Wikipedia's model.

Re: Wikipedia’s ‘complicated’ relationship with net neutrality

#13

Post by SomeCallMeTim »

mrbabbage wrote: post #3

This 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…

To me, the thing that I don't want to see is some web sites being throttled (or blocked!) on broadband.

Considering most (wired) broadband is bandwidth-limited at this point, varying that bandwidth limit based on what site I'm talking with just feels wrong, and I'd love to see the practice banned, because as you mention, a lot of users have no choice in what broadband they can subscribe to.

Wireless broadband is almost all capped in the quantity that you can use, however, and the T-Mobile "free streaming" options mentioned give you something extra for "free." This is in stark contrast to blocking/limiting something you're paying for, and I would be fine with this limited exception in the wireless space.

But what I would like to see, since this is effectively a utility, is for that "free streaming" to be available on an equal opportunity basis: And T-Mobile seems to be doing exactly that by allowing customers to vote on what services to include.

What feels like unfair competition is (as you mention) Comcast shaking down its competition by way of not providing customers equal access. And until that last-mile competition problem has been otherwise resolved (Google Fiber everywhere?), I think we do need those regulations to prevent monopolistic behaviors.

Re: Wikipedia’s ‘complicated’ relationship with net neutrality

#14

Post by mnx »

daveloyall wrote: post #9

There was no concept of 'zero-rating' before telecoms/ISPs established the concept of a 'rate-per-byte'.

well, early residential connections were paid per minute, so I don't see how that was any better. There's nothing wrong with rate-per-byte, because some of the costs actually are per-byte.

Re: Wikipedia’s ‘complicated’ relationship with net neutrality

#15

Post by woah »

GabrielF00 wrote: post #12
snowwrestler wrote: post #2

Wikipedians 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 F…

> Wikipedians take it on faith that their website is better, more useful, more ethical, more informative, etc., than other websites. I've been a Wikipedia editor for about 10 years. I don't think that your perception of the community has any basis in reality. Lot's of Wikimedians are pretty vocal about their disagreements with the Wikimedia Foundation on a wide range of issues (including this one). There are lots of…

How do you feel about non-neutral treatment of Wikipedia traffic? Does this differ from your feelings on non-neutral treatment of Netflix traffic?

Re: Wikipedia’s ‘complicated’ relationship with net neutrality

#16

Post by guelo »

This is a bullshit stance by Wikipedia. If when Wikipedia started there had been some popular ad supported encyclopedia that received preferential ISP treatment Wikipedia would not exist today.

Maybe it makes sense for the established internet companies to oppose net neutrality because they're the ones that would get packaged up by the ISPs. But it's bad for everyone else.

Re: Wikipedia’s ‘complicated’ relationship with net neutrality

#17

Post by legohead »

This isn't a dilemma. You can have net neutrality and also have Wikipedia Zero -- it isn't mutually exclusive. It might make it a little harder and Wikipedia may need to ask for more donations, but this is their goal, not anyone else's. Wikipedia isn't the internet.

Re: Wikipedia’s ‘complicated’ relationship with net neutrality

#18

Post by yzzxy »

Serious question, as I don't really have a strong opinion on zero rating either way:

In a scenario where zero-rating is available to all actors at equivalent prices, is there still a problem? It would raise the barrier to entry for internet companies perhaps, but probably not by too much. I guess you could argue it encourages bandwidth capping?

I'd like to hear arguments from both sides.

Re: Wikipedia’s ‘complicated’ relationship with net neutrality

#19

Post by guelo »

philipn wrote: post #5

This 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 violat…

Good point. Here are the constraints:

> No exchange of payment. The Wikimedia Foundation does not pay carriers to zero-rate access to the Wikimedia sites and does not receive payments from carriers through Wikipedia Zero.

> Wikipedia Zero cannot be sold as part of a bundle. Access to the Wikimedia sites through Wikipedia Zero cannot be sold through limited service bundles.

> No exclusive rights. We try to partner with as many carriers as possible to maximize the number of users that can benefit from the initiative.

> Open to collaborating with other public interest sites. Our main goal is to promote free access to knowledge and we want to help other similar services interested in doing the same.

Re: Wikipedia’s ‘complicated’ relationship with net neutrality

#20

Post by mlinksva »

hga wrote: post #6
pasta_2 wrote: post #4

Net 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. The end points are paying money to the ISPs in the middle.

There's also content providers, content owners, or other ugly term. They aren't participating in network traffic, but deeply shape structure and demands of at least network services and consumers above, consumer ISP in some cases.
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