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India bans discriminatory pricing based on source/destination/app/content

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Re: India bans discriminatory pricing based on source/destination/app/content

#111

Post by sa1 »

devdas wrote: post #95
anoncow wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely a step in the right direction, but there are plenty of ISPs who provide preferential treatment to Google by peering with their servers. YouTube HD videos stream without buffering on 512kbps connections. https://www.quora.com/I-am-from-Mumbai-I-have-an-Internet-co...

Nothing stops anyone else from peering. There's no differential pricing involved here, just regular infrastructure.

While peering enables this, the real problem is that all these ISPs provide YouTube at a much higher speed than the rest of the web, which means that your bandwidth is not enough to stream videos without buffering for any other video site, while YouTube is always smooth.

Peering should just be a step towards enabling ISPs to fulfill their bandwidth promises, not a justification for fast lane/slow lane.

Re: India bans discriminatory pricing based on source/destination/app/content

#112

Post by udibai »

splintercell wrote: post #93
tmerr wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting point but I'm not sure how it applies to the argument. If websites are low quality, is that justification for an ISP to block them?

Never said that. Also Net Neutrality regulation isn't the only thing preventing ISPs from blocking all the websites they want willy-nilly. What ISPs want is ability to charge more for priority services (which includes but not limited to 'express lanes'). What NN supporters think this would mean is that ISPs will block websites. Anyone has a right to block any content on their private property. Newspapers can censor a…

Your argument about mangoes has a very big assumption involved and that is the supplier wants everyone to have mangoes and isn't in the market just for the profit. This is similar to what Reagan tried to argue with the Trickle-Down economics, he said if you tax the rich less they'll create more jobs and hence it'll benefit everyone. This didn't happen, 'cuz the rich found other better ways (investment funds etc) to use that extra money than create jobs. So, NEVER assume intrinsic goodness. If discriminatory policies are allowed people will misuse them.

Re: India bans discriminatory pricing based on source/destination/app/content

#113

Post by skewart »

splintercell wrote: post #93
tmerr wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting point but I'm not sure how it applies to the argument. If websites are low quality, is that justification for an ISP to block them?

Never said that. Also Net Neutrality regulation isn't the only thing preventing ISPs from blocking all the websites they want willy-nilly. What ISPs want is ability to charge more for priority services (which includes but not limited to 'express lanes'). What NN supporters think this would mean is that ISPs will block websites. Anyone has a right to block any content on their private property. Newspapers can censor a…

"Anyone has a right to block any content on their private property."

A lot of people would argue that broadband infrastructure shouldn't be considered plain old private property. It's an essential component of a well-functioning society, so it should be among the few things that are collectively managed and supported - like water, fire departments, and the criminal justice system.

I don't think anyone knows whether or not allowing telecom companies more freedom to set prices and provide services however they want would ultimately be better for society than the kind of compromise a lot of places have now. I think it could be worth some experiments.

That said, net neutrality is a known system that more or less works. It's reasonable to be very cautious about any massive change to the current internet ecosystem.

Fire departments in many cities in the US used to be private companies that offered subscription services. They maintained their own infrastructure and sought profits and growth. Eventually cities decided that the fire service market was special in a number of ways that made it better treated as a public good. People were pretty happy about municipal fire departments. [1]

[1] I read about this a while back in a book on the history of New York. I do t have time to look up the details now. Please correct me if I'm wrong about any of this.

Re: India bans discriminatory pricing based on source/destination/app/content

#114

Post by titomc »

Mark "tried to solve a non existent problem" and fell over.

India is not a country where everyone rides on bullocarts or tuk tuks. Its a fast developing nation. Its not what you see in Hollywood movies or western medias. India do not need help on the internet side of things.

Re: India bans discriminatory pricing based on source/destination/app/content

#115

Post by guelo »

sremani wrote: post #91
senthil_rajasek wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"... is a cliche at this point and should be considered racist in India... " How is that racist? Expressing nationalism is not racist unless in specific other circumstances. In the U.S, Japanese and Korean auto makers were accused of stealing jobs and Latino Americans still are... I see it as a form of nationalism. [edited: to remove Europe and fix punctuation]

Nationalism ? No Sir, this is protectionism and dare I say, Xenophobia.

Whatever you call it it works really well and India is stupid to play by the colonialist's rules. Look at China, they banned or restricted all the western web companies now they're home to thriving new web giants. With all of India's world class programmers where is India's Baidu or Wechat or Weibo or Alibaba?

Re: India bans discriminatory pricing based on source/destination/app/content

#116

Post by unprepare »

splintercell wrote: post #73
electriclove wrote: post #55

Great quote on a different article covering the same story: http://money.cnn.com/2016/02/08/technology/india-facebook-fr... ---------- Mahesh Murthy, a prominent Indian venture capitalist, last year described the program as "imperialism and the East India Company all over again," carried out under the guise of "digital equality." "What Facebook wants is our less fortunate brothers and sisters should be able to poke e…

> "What Facebook wants is our less fortunate brothers and sisters should be able to poke each other and play Candy Crush, but not be able to look up a fact on Google, or learn something on Khan Academy or sell their produce on a commodity market or even search for a job," he said. Indians use connectivity very differently than the rest of the world(or at least different from the developed countries). To Indians, phon…

>it's just that Hindi Wikipedia and Google suck

And you think enabling tens of millions of people to access these resources will make them....worse?

Wikipedia is a community encyclopedia, by its very nature it gets better the more people access and use it, the more editors there are translating articles from other languages, etc.

You have not listed a single thing that would make it a net positive for a corporation to decide which sites millions of people should and should not be able to visit.

This is to say nothing of the next whatsapp or facebook - this plan is obviously about preventing competition.

You say they use the internet for communication first, is it any wonder Facebook/WhatsApp wants to ensure they control what mediums of communication are accessible throughout India?

What do you say to the Indian coder who today is working on his WhatsApp competitor? tough shit, facebook already bought the internet in this country?

Re: India bans discriminatory pricing based on source/destination/app/content

#118

Post by tzs »

anon1385 wrote: post #81
NoPiece wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For example Facebook explicitly does want to support job searches. (Babajob)

Facebook has a list of all current and future job search sites that anybody in India might want to use? What about job adverts that are just posted on the employers own website? Unless you meant "Facebook wants to monopolise the entire Indian job search market with their own job search site while preventing people from accessing any competitors". That's more believable but hardly undermines the original quote.

Babajob is not Facebook's job search site (nor is the other job search site I just noticed on the list, Times Jobs). Only a couple things on the list of sites included in the program are Facebook's. Here is the list (as of a few months ago):

  Aaj Tak
  AccuWeather
  Amarujala.com
  AP Speaks
  Babajob
  BabyCenter & MAMA
  BBC News
  Bing Search
  Cleartrip
  Daily Bhaskar
  Dictionary.com
  ESPN Cricinfo
  Facebook
  Facebook Messenger
  Facts for life
  Girl Effect
  HungamaPlay
  IBNLive
  iLearn
  India Today
  Internet Basics
  Jagran
  Jagran Josh
  Maalai Malar
  Maharastra Times
  Malaria No More
  manoramanews.com
  NDTV
  News Hunt
  OLX
  Reliance Astrology
  Reuters Market Lite
  Socialblood
  Times Jobs
  Times of India
  Translator
  wikiHow
  Wikipedia

Re: India bans discriminatory pricing based on source/destination/app/content

#119

Post by Perixoog »

splintercell wrote: post #73
electriclove wrote: post #55

Great quote on a different article covering the same story: http://money.cnn.com/2016/02/08/technology/india-facebook-fr... ---------- Mahesh Murthy, a prominent Indian venture capitalist, last year described the program as "imperialism and the East India Company all over again," carried out under the guise of "digital equality." "What Facebook wants is our less fortunate brothers and sisters should be able to poke e…

> "What Facebook wants is our less fortunate brothers and sisters should be able to poke each other and play Candy Crush, but not be able to look up a fact on Google, or learn something on Khan Academy or sell their produce on a commodity market or even search for a job," he said. Indians use connectivity very differently than the rest of the world(or at least different from the developed countries). To Indians, phon…

Does she use email?
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