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Keep the Internet Open

blog.samaltman.com

381–390 of 415 posts

Re: Keep the Internet Open

#381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was a financial analyst, and I had the chance to cover the telecom sector. I know how the market works, NN is not new, it is how the world worked. Anti NN is new. It's hugely anti competitive and anti consumer. If it gets close to getting passed, I'll be really happy for the segment. Wouldn't be happy being a consumer. Edit: IMO, the American telecom industry is shafting its consumers regularly and has been underin…

Which Internet rule is it which states that we can all claim we have been any occupation that suits the discussion, and without any additional evidence to support such claims?

The assumption of honesty on HN. I really don't get anything out of this place, and afaik I'm not even contactable.

But yeah, if you don't believe me, feel free to look at a bunch of financial statements and lavish over as many models as you like. Check ARPU numbers or read up on the history of your own markets. In true finance fashion, do your diligence and reach your own conclusions.

It's a lot less morality based once you look at the numbers. It's just business.

Re: Keep the Internet Open

#382
post #58

While I like the Internet being open, I don't like "net neutrality" extremism. 1) While I dislike monopoly carrier antics, I'm even more unhappy about the idea of government bureaucrats dictating network engineering standards to carriers and ISPs. If you build a network with caches/content servers close to users, and expensive backhaul back to your network core, you can offer essentially unlimited traffic to users hi…

Yet another person who views "the market" as the end all be all decision maker. Learn to think beyond money, the universe is much bigger than a pile of paper

Re: Keep the Internet Open

#383
I love the political and ethical debate surrounding this, both in this thread and elsewhere. As a technologist and a software developer I think we should use every means available to stop these sorts of laws from taking effect and harming what should be a completely neutral internet.

With that being said, I would like to ask from a technical perspective, what can we do if this does go into effect? I remember a quote, I want to say it was by Sit Timothy Berners-Lee, but I can't find it. So I will just state it myself.

Any lack of neutrality within the internet network is not a feature or a regulation but is in fact a bug within the system. When a bug is found, software engineers find ways around those bugs.

So, if ISPs finally succeed in causing our internet to no longer be neutral, how will we be moving around that bug?

Re: Keep the Internet Open

#384
post #277
post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a pretty broad brush you are painting with. Do you have some hard data that says things break down so clearly along party lines? I'd particularly like to see data about non-politicians, if it is available, since the way Congress votes on such things is not necessarily driven by the way their constituents view the issue (if they are even aware of it).

I don't know how constituents in either party view things, but it seems pretty clear how members of Congress view things. There is a bill in Congress now to strip away the rules the FCC passed last year that prevent ISPs from selling your browsing history and other personal information without your permission. In the House, here is the list of sponsors: Rep. Flores, Bill [R-TX-17], Rep. Blackburn, Marsha [R-TN-7], Re…

Hm, maybe we should use those netprospex records to call the family members of these Congress people and see what they think about data protections...

Re: Keep the Internet Open

#385

I love the political and ethical debate surrounding this, both in this thread and elsewhere. As a technologist and a software developer I think we should use every means available to stop these sorts of laws from taking effect and harming what should be a completely neutral internet. With that being said, I would like to ask from a technical perspective, what can we do if this does go into effect? I remember a quote,…

>So, if ISPs finally succeed in causing our internet to no longer be neutral, how will we be moving around that bug?

It wouldnt be easy, but mesh networks are the best option I'm aware of.

Re: Keep the Internet Open

#386

> Doing this allows the government to ensure a level playing field In theory this is a good argument. In practice, my experience is that this argument causes people to write off net neutrality as just being something that's about letting tech bros make lots of money. I've even heard this from folks in the tech industry, who really should know better. An argument that may be more convincing is that the Internet is the…

The internet is not free and open because some companies are complying with regulations. The internet is free and open because that's what the internet is. If ISP's, content providers, whoever else wants to provide services which aren't free and open then they're not part of the internet. It's sad if lots of people lose internet access because Comcast stops offering it, but the internet won't go away. Other companies…

I kind of agree with you, but the free and open internet in your scenario would be a pretty niche thing, kind of like gopher or Usenet is today. I've been thinking about running a gopher server lately, but that doesn't mean that I want the free and open internet to be gopher-only.

Re: Keep the Internet Open

#387
post #35
post #20

> But this idea is under attack, and I'm surprised the tech community isn't speaking out more forcefully. Although many leading tech companies are now the incumbents, I hope we'll all remember that openness helped them achieve their great success. It could be disastrous for future startups if this were to change--openness is what made the recent wave of innovation happen. Is it surprising? What organization is suppos…

> Tech workers don't have a union Yes we do, just not on US. https://www.igmetall.de/engineering-8357.htm

There's the IWW's iu560 (Communications, Computer, and Software Workers Industrial Union).

http://www.iww.org/unions/dept500/iu560

Re: Keep the Internet Open

#388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's already a central authority for most places - it's called Comcast/AT&T/Verizon and you don't even get a say in this authority's leadership (unlike government). By eliminating net neutrality these local monopolies now want to extend their control not only to what customers will pay but also to what internet services they wish to provide/favour.

> There's already a central authority for most places - it's called Comcast/AT&T/Verizon and you don't even get a say in this authority's leadership (unlike government). Not to contradict your basic point with a this, but, technically, you do: through government. Corporations are creatures of law, and their governance is ultimately itself governed by rules set by the chartering government, and further constrained by…

> Not to contradict your basic point with a this, but, technically, you do: through government.

Yes, that's the point of net neutrality. Whereas an internet with no net neutrality regulation means that corporations have final say.

Re: Keep the Internet Open

#389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He is laughing at your loaded word choice - no one is 'pro-abortion', they are 'pro-choice'.

Why is it loaded? It's the choice to have an abortion. It's like claiming 'pro-gun' is a loaded word when the supporters want people to have the choice to own a gun.

I think 'pro-gun' is a bit different.... in fact, I think a better analogy would be people who want citizens to have the right to use a gun in self-defense against an intruder. You wouldn't say the person who is in favor of legal self-defense is 'pro-shooting-people', they just want people to have the right to do it if they need to. Someone who is 'pro-choice' doesn't want everyone to go out and have abortions every day, they want a woman to have the right to one if they need it.

Re: Keep the Internet Open

#390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the near future: "To provide optimum security and privacy for your internet browsing, you must now install our Comcastic™ Special Magic Certificate®. Failure to install our certificate will result in browsing being restricted. If you don't like it, go to a competitor."

That's very possible. It's probably better you dont even say it publicly to avoid given them the idea. Only a few companies have to implement it for it to become a national problem.

That cat is already out of the bag. Companies already sell MitM services to companies that want to monitor and filter the web traffic of their employees.

I suspect there are already niche ISPs out there that cater to the content-blocking impulses of certain customers by doing deep-packet inspection and firewalling at the gateway.

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