Browsing Digg yesterday, I came across this video on net neutrality and their doomsday prediction for the Internet. Conspiracy theory much?
They’re trying to sell the idea that without net neutrality, major ISPs will do like cable companies and start charging for packages of sites we can visit, limiting our browsing to only a small packet of big websites like Ebay and Google. This will NEVER happen.
Why? Think about it. If there’s only a handful of sites to visit, there would be no Google. Google would go out of business. Would Google really let this happen? They’d start their own ISP or help out smaller ISPs and give everyone accesses to all websites, probably at a lower cost too.
But really, do you think the government would ever let this happen? As much as they enjoy screwing us over, I don’t think they would endorse something that has the potential to destroy our economy. How many businesses rely on the internet?
Yes, net neutrality is important, ISPs could certainly block certain websites, but millions? That’s a huge exaggeration.
Best comment on Digg goes to chromerium:
I’m an IT guy, an ISP engineer for a large ISP, and this is complete FUD.
2012 is when IPv4 address space is slated to run out and we’re supposed to have IPv6 ready by then. I don’t think it’s any co-incidence these conspiracy nut-jobs are using the same date as the date for the big internet steal.
IPv6 doesn’t work in any largely different way to IPv4 works, except you’ll see largely a removal of NAT from the ecosystem which will be good for consumers as things like VoIP will work without UPnP and NAT traversal hacks. Obviously there is a huge implementation overhead there, and most ISPs have large projects on the go to start working on shifting their infrastructure over by 2012. These projects are probably being misinterpreted by non-technical people within these companies and communicated as ‘leaks’ to these conspiracy fools.
Every now and then, Marketing people come down to us and ask “hey, so, can we sell a premium product that provides better service to all our shit and our partner’s shit than the normal access product does?”. The answer is always “No”, for several reasons, mostly technical.
The few companies that are willing to degrade their customers access in hopes they can extort customers to upgrade to a ‘higher quality’ link will find that people will shift over to ISPs that don’t do that, and the money they’ve spent in all those shaping boxes and for the changes in their AAA platforms will be wasted.
Back in the day, AOL, MSN, all these companies tried to ‘own’ the internet. But it has a way of squirming out of the reach of any single entity, even a consortium.
I’d be more worried about the world ending ;) Also probably a load of rubbish, but still interesting to read about. Ya never know.
–edit– Hey, where is everyone??? I’ve gotten like, what, five comments this past week?? Where’d you all go??? You all waiting until tomorrow to wish my a happy birthday? I normally don’t like begging for comments, but it’s been getting a bit ridiculous. I miss you guys! –/edit–
Call me cynical, but I really do think it’s possible for the government to do such a thing. It really all depends who we get into office, and how much money they are willing to break for and how much people are willing to spend. The way it looks now (because I think Obama, Clinton, and McCain are all for net neutrality) it doesn’t appear like it’s going to happen. Although it is unlikely, I wouldn’t be surprised if it did happen. It’s not so much the government enjoys screwing us over (as much as we’d all like to think, they like to see someone benefit, especially themselves (i.e. comcast giving them shitloads of money).
I do believe this is possible either way, and still don’t have my doubts about it. Even if it wasn’t to happen in 2012 I can still see this maybe happening in the future.
I always thought 2012 was the end of the world as predicted by the Mayans. Or maybe this is what they’re talking about. Well, I don’t now what to say regarding this issue, but I hope it doesn’t happen.
Happy birthday, by the way.
Methinks it’s exam season, or summer vacation, and people are spending more time outside rather than in front of the computer. =P Fret not, I’m still here. =P
Bah! That sounds like a ridiculous idea! I doubt it will ever happen though!
Happy early birthday for tomorrow if I don’t remember to leave you a comment then! :)