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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

#81

Post by JoeAltmaier »

hamai wrote: post #79
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.

Not that simple. Queues can manage the latency of packets, not just by priority but by time-stamping packets and sorting them.

Priority is a sucky way to do anything - queues, threads, even email. What we usually want is control over latency.

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

#82

Post by zacinbusiness »

coldcode wrote: post #68
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…

You forget that the customer would be forced to choose what sites they could access as pay per site. The ISPs (generally a future Comcast monopoly) want to charge both ends to connect. You want Facebook at all - pay $5 per month. Facebook, pay us $1 per customer. You want some random blog, sorry they didn't pay us. Or maybe they will connect you at such a low rate as the site is unusable. The end result is that only…

I wonder if this will have an effect on web design? Less JS, fewer images, no web fonts. I can see a website going back to plain text. I realize that even plain text can be throttled to the point of uselessness, but would it help at all?

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

#83

Post by nandhp »

addisonj wrote: post #6

How about something simpler - Make images load slowly using JS. A ton of popular consumer sites - facebook, instagram, reddit/imgur are hugely image based. A few lines of JS to make them slowly load (perhaps PNG artifacts for bonus points) and you could very effectively get the point across all while quickly serving a nice large banner. Offtopic: As a google fiber customer myself, his mention of not remembering the u…

In case anyone else is wondering, Google Fiber is symmetric: Up to 1 Gbps download, up to 1Gbps upload.

https://fiber.google.com/cities/kansascity/plans/

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

#84

Post by [deleted] »

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?

[deleted]

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

#85

Post by JoeAltmaier »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #74
chimeracoder wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Right. Paying per-packet when there are only connection costs is a way for carriers to create a cash cow.

That's why I fear pay-per-view models on the internet. Once I'm connected it isn't about the packets, yet lobbyists trained by cable TV are trying to inject that model where it makes no sense. Except of course to the scalping bastards trying to get rich selling packets.

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

#86

Post by bitJericho »

CocaKoala wrote: post #78
bitJericho wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So you see no/little difference between an unethical ISP that's cheaper than a more expensive ethical one? I'm not sure what you think this debate is about.

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

#87

Post by bitJericho »

fooqux wrote: post #48
bitJericho wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I heartily disagree with this approach. Not only does it harken back to the days of Prodigy, AOL, CompuServe and the like where each service had its own content, but it's very anti-internet. Anti-internet to ban an ISP that is trying to decimate the internet? How does that logically make any sense?

Lets say each website / server admin blacklisted various ISPs from their servers because they did something the admin didn't like. Maybe they noticed throttling to/from their site, or spam, or just had such a bad experience once as their customer that they now considered that ISP to be "bad for the internet". What would we end up with? Most of the internet not working for anybody. Friends sending you links that you c…

I'm talking about a protest movement, not a permanent solution.

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

#88

Post by symmetricsaurus »

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…

> The global reach of the internet is at risk here.

The Internet has up til now had a global reach and that may be at risk with recent developments.

Individual services such as Netflix, Youtube or Spotify have not had a global reach and may never have as long as the current structure for licensing and distribution of content persists.

Internet based distribution of content has always been under attack or limited by the traditional content distributors such as record labels, movie and tv studios and publishers. What is new is the attack from the ISPs from the other side.

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

#89

Post by davidbarker »

hmottestad wrote: post #80
davidbarker wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It also looks similar (like it's scaled-up) on my retina MBP, but the text is selectable.
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