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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

#71

Post by Jtsummers »

knappe wrote: post #46
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…

We see this already with blackout outs in cable TV for various sports games ect. In fact, it took 4 months to resolve a dispute between DirecTV and the Weather Channel [0], which affected 20 Million people. There was some outrage, but not enough to for DirecTV to relent. Instead, the content provider was forced to change [1]. There are lessons to be learned here for other content providers, like Netflix. My worry is…

And not just sports. In the mid-90s I lived in south Georgia and was a Star Trek fan, at the time that meant watching UPN. The local UPN station was blocked during prime time for our area (literally local, it was broadcast from that town) in order for the FL (Talahassee?) station to retain its viewership. Only one problem, our cable offered only the local UPN station, not the FL one, so the blackout meant a 100% blackout of UPN during primetime for our town (short of rabbit ears, I wasn't that big a fan). Later, the two ABC affiliates ended up at odds with each other when the closer one ended up blocked by the one out of Atlanta, again during prime time.

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

#72

Post by CamperBob2 »

edoloughlin wrote: post #51
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…

Imagine if Netflix wasn't accessible to Comcast users from the beginning because they wouldn't pay the toll. Would it have thrived and grown as quickly as it did, or would it have died in it's infancy? If I was building a bandwidth-intensive startup in the US at the moment, I'd be seriously looking at using port-hopping p2p as my distribution mechanism with some randomisation of the payload to make profiling/identifi…

Then Comcast will simply charge out the nose for the ability to send more than a trivial amount of data.

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

#73

Post by marcosdumay »

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…

Once in a while Firefox has a bug, and I have to reset its data in one environment. Almost without exception, I forget to install NoScript after that, and experiment the "fully functional" web. That experience is so disastrous that I always put NoScript back, and make notes to not forget it again (that I obviously do not follow next time).

The web with Javascript enabled is simply broken. Sites take ages to load, refuse to show you content, throw overlays all around the screen, or just stop working.

And then, there are security considerations. But as I said, I never remember them.

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

#74

Post by CamperBob2 »

chimeracoder wrote: post #37
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 sce…

Texting never cost anything at all for the carriers to offer. It uses a sideband data stream that's always present whether it carries a payload or not.

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

#75

Post by xdissent »

wiremine wrote: post #29
alandarev wrote: post #11

Issue is severe, but the proposed solution does not sound efficient in any way. In comparison to blackout day: 1. Turning site off is a lot easier than installing apache module and configuring it. What if site admin does not even have root access? 2. Customer getting the slow site load might not get the message, but instead turn around for a competitor. [1] [1] 40% of people abandon a website that takes more than 3 s…

I don't think slowing the site down really helps convey the speed difference anyways, because they aren't seeing it apples-to-apples. Instead, I think you want to load two version of the site in to iFrames (or something) and throttle one. This would also be a good way to show a user how crappy their connection is compared to a _real_ high speed connection: The problem isn't just that they are creating a "fast" lane a…

Or you could allow certain elements like ads to load instantly for comparison.

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

#76

Post by CamperBob2 »

shubb wrote: post #36

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…

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

This question seems to be equivalent to "Can anyone think of any advantages to a centrally-planned economy?"

Yes, you can think of certain specific advantages, but the opportunity costs are enough to utterly dominate the long-term picture.

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

#77

Post by marcosdumay »

shubb wrote: post #36

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…

> Netflix and Skype would work better.

They'll have a monopoly on "working better", thus thake "better" with a huge grain of salt.

> Most likely, we'd be able to pay for priority traffic

You (the customer of the ISP) can do that today. The difference is that they want to sell priority to the customer, and then only deliver it if the data provider pays it too.

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

#78

Post by CocaKoala »

bitJericho wrote: post #43
CocaKoala wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

Why should a competitor charge better rates and have faster connections in order for it to be an alternative? Are you looking for the cheapest provider or the most ethical?

Well, I don't feel like getting to choose between two terrible options is really that much better than being stuck with one terrible option.

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

#79

Post by hamai »

shubb wrote: post #36

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…

Wouldn't prioritizing packets at routers create slower queues for low priority packets?

Murphy's Law tells me there's a good chance these low priority queues will slow down exponentially at random times. Routing nightmare if you consider DDoS and what not.

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

#80

Post by hmottestad »

davidbarker wrote: post #21
hmottestad wrote: post #7

This blog has now made it to my global blocking file for serving the entire post as an image file instead of as text.

I'm also seeing something strange on my iPhone. It looks like there's something off with the antialiasing, and the text isn't selectable. It looks like a scaled up image, though I don't think it is.

Yeah, seems to be something stupid they are doing when serving to mobile devices.
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