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Dear Internet: Let’s Demo The Slow Lane

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Re: Dear Internet: Let’s Demo The Slow Lane

#31

Post by CocaKoala »

bitJericho wrote: post #3

Much more effective would be for operators to ban ISPs. Imagine the internet telling specific users that they have to get off comcast or whatever in order to use their service for a particular day out of every month. Do it maddox style with a nice middle finger. Make users want to switch instead of just pretend like there's no alternatives.

I take this to mean that you're setting up your own ISP which is going to service my area and provide better rates, faster connections, and better service than Comcast, so that I have an alternative for internet?

That's great, I'm really excited to hear that! Let me know what number I can call to sign up!

Re: Dear Internet: Let’s Demo The Slow Lane

#35

Post by yaur »

colechristensen wrote: post #4
bitJericho wrote: post #3

Much more effective would be for operators to ban ISPs. Imagine the internet telling specific users that they have to get off comcast or whatever in order to use their service for a particular day out of every month. Do it maddox style with a nice middle finger. Make users want to switch instead of just pretend like there's no alternatives.

Where I live I have three choices, 1.5 mbit DSL, whatever small number of GB/mo I can get for $50 on 4G, or Comcast. There's no pretending, there are no alternatives. ISP access has weight when I'm considering moving which is sad.

T-Mobile is selling unlimited data plans for $80/month.

Re: Dear Internet: Let’s Demo The Slow Lane

#36

Post by shubb »

Can anyone think of any advantages to a non-neutral internet?

I can think of a few - Netflix and Skype would work better.

Most likely, we'd be able to pay for priority traffic, just like we pay for a large AWS instance. Non-priority traffic might be cheaper than current bandwidth.

It would be crazy to suggest all sites be forced to use the same size AWS instance...

Some types of traffic are bandwidth sensitive, like video. Others are cost sensitive, like Linux DVD images.

If you think that an end to neutrality will 'ruin the internet', don't you expect consumers to choose ISPs and services that don't do it?

Re: Dear Internet: Let’s Demo The Slow Lane

#37

Post by chimeracoder »

ihsw wrote: post #27

Why stop at the slow lane? There is nothing preventing ISP gatekeepers from wholeheartedly denying access. Slowness is just the beginning -- the end-goal is making the internet into multiple competing walled gardens where users are treated as silos that require permission to access. The global reach of the internet is at risk here. Imagine if Netflix wasn't accessible to Comcast users from the beginning because they…

That would be politically trickier to pull off. It's much easier to say, "We're not censoring anything - we're just not giving them 'premium' speed.", and then redefine the status quo as the new 'premium'[0].

For Netflix, it doesn't matter - having the equivalent of dial-up speed is essentially the same as being blocked entirely, since their service depends on reasonably fast download speed.

To illustrate another scenario, imagine two political candidates, one whose platform includes treating ISPs as a public utility, and one who doesn't. It would be very easy to slow the former's campaign website to a crawl (e.g., 30s or more load time per page). While this wouldn't prevent people from accessing the website, or him from getting his message out, it would seriously hamper it in very noticeable ways.

This way, the ISP isn't censoring any political candidates (that would be bad!). They're "just" not giving him the "premium" speed.

[0] This kind of redefinition happens all the time - notice that five years ago, mobile data plans were unlimited and texting was expensive for the carriers to offer. Suddenly, texting "became cheap" for them to offer, and data became limited. It's not that the costs dramatically changed (SMS always had literally zero marginal cost, since it piggybacks off of the packets already being sent), but fee structures and cost structures are oftentimes very different.

Re: Dear Internet: Let’s Demo The Slow Lane

#38

Post by jackmaney »

ihsw wrote: post #27

Why stop at the slow lane? There is nothing preventing ISP gatekeepers from wholeheartedly denying access. Slowness is just the beginning -- the end-goal is making the internet into multiple competing walled gardens where users are treated as silos that require permission to access. The global reach of the internet is at risk here. Imagine if Netflix wasn't accessible to Comcast users from the beginning because they…

Hell, why stop at Netflix? It would be a ballsy move, but I'd applaud Google if they took one day and directed all searches from, say, Comcast to a static page explaining the dangers of "slow lanes" and "fast lanes" in the internet.

Re: Dear Internet: Let’s Demo The Slow Lane

#39

Post by pas »

scrabble wrote: post #28
keerthiko wrote: post #15

This would be great and informative and effective, except that the most visible sites* have no incentive to play along with this little song and dance, as they are the ones proliferating anti-net-neutrality for their own private gain. So it will basically just look to people like I'm running a shitty technical job serving my site, most people will think I'm stupid, they won't learn a damn thing about net neutrality o…

Netflix is "proliferating anti-net-neutrality"? They seem to be actively and publicly pushing for net neutrality.

They want to maximize profits. So keeping costs down is important, but it's even more important to keep competitors out of the game.

Currently they have no serious competitors, so they see the Comcast-tax as a pure added cost. But if this practice goes big and becomes an added cost to the market, barriers to enter it become higher, which keeps their position entrenched.

Of course this would require a lot of formalisation (and quantization, estimating numbers, times and potential competition and market evolution) but still, most of the same questions are going through Netflix executives' heads.

Re: Dear Internet: Let’s Demo The Slow Lane

#40

Post by hrjet »

err4nt wrote: post #30
privong wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How about something simpler - Make images load slowly using JS. I do like this idea. However, as one of the minority of people who have disabled js by default, I'd hope this could be done in a way that doesn't break websites.

I don't know how to say it without being blunt, but I mean no offense, I'm just curious. I've heard of this mythical type of user (no-JS) but never heard their side of the coin before. I dislike ad tracking, information culling, and I think that JavaScript underpins and makes possible many of the things I dislike about the modern web. We agree on that I'm sure. But so does a web browser. So does the operating system…

It comes down to this equation: security & privacy versus fancy look and feel. The non-JS crowd picks the former.

There are many blogs that don't work at all without JS. I don't bother reading them. Those blogs might be very informative; but my security is worth more than that.

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