I called the FCC Chairman's office today to let them know what I thought and ask a few questions. They wouldn't comment on how or why the change happened, nor would they comment on how this would affect consumers and startups either financially/competitively, or equitably. Apparently the proposed rules will be voted on in May. Fuck Obama. Seriously.
Exactly. That fact that they use the term 'unreasonable' speaks volumes. The point of net neutrality is that bandwidth is service agnostic for the great value to society that such an approach provides. Any preferential appropriation and throttling of bandwidth is unreasonable because capital is not the determinant by which we want to value what passes on those networks. Money is something that is associated with value, but its success as a proxy for value varies greatly. Sometimes supply and demand economics encourages behavior that you want to avoid. The value of net neutrality is akin to the value of basic research: you cannot get return without an investment, but the specific appropriation of that investment will guarantee less return when compared to a general funding approach. This is because the best return on investment comes from supporting a competitive ecosystem from the outside. We cannot pick the most valuable evolution of the ecosystem and simply fund that path, because it is unknowable. What is the functional difference between State-owned monopolies and monopolies that own the State?The agency promised that after it hears public comments over the summer, it will come up with more specific guidelines on what it views as “unreasonable” practices by Internet service providers.
This is the classic catch-22 of the Proles of 1984. No revolution can succeed without the support of the working class. But the working class will never revolt while they have bread and circuses. In this particular instance, the internet is being destroyed as a communication medium and transformed into a distribution medium for large corporations. But the working class will continue to get their Netflix and Cable TV. Why should they care? We care. But there aren't enough of us.
There's no chance of that because, by and large, most Americans don't realize they have skin in this game. In fact, the majority of Americans believe that CNN, MSNBC, and/or FoxNews are genuine news outlets. The current system has become insulated by the consolidation of media and the formulaic sanitation of political discourse. This Net Neutrality debate is a case in point. It has been oversimplified and framed as a debate between socialist and free-market economics, when in fact, monopolies like these ISPs have such leverage on the legislative (and in turn, executive and judicial) processes, that neither a benevolent government nor a free market can hope to be found within their sphere of influence. As long as the majority are having the debates they want us to have, no one is going to be grabbing a pitchfork.
I understand the sentiment, but believe that such frame-breaking or consciousness-raising actions do harm to people that lack power, and can often play into the narrative of those in power instead of breaking it. IMHO if you are trying to dispel an illusion, you've got to provide something of value in its place. If you can succeed in that, you not only can win people over, but create new agents of change.
...except it won't. I'm as much for net neutrality as anybody, but the fact of the matter is, "startups and entrepreneurs" do not host their own iron. They're on Akamai or Amazon, the guys that benefit the most from a tiered internet. Tinfoil hat time: This ruling was ramrodded through right about the time everyone started thinking that maybe they shouldn't host on S3 or the like because the NSA owns them. Now? Now the fast pipes belong to companies that are already in bed with the NSA. My guess? My guess is this nudges the world ever closer to torrents, TOR, and distributed storage. I'm about ready to give up on DropBox and roll my own. Synology makes it easy-peasy. I'm just not entirely convinced on its syncing, but I'm gettin' real close.