
Cuba's Netflix, Hulu, and Spotify, all without the internet - comrh
http://www.vox.com/2015/9/21/9352095/netflix-cuba-paquete-internet
======
craig552uk
"Most people I spoke to in Cuba work for the state and have zero incentive to
deliver anything above the bare minimum. They get paid the same either way.
Even the private restaurants lack the fervor of a competitive business, since
the economic environment they work in is still completely controlled even if
they themselves are private."

Interesting article, but this statement is completely opposed to my own
experience. I went to Cuba 4 years ago and nearly everyone I met had something
running on the side. One guy said that "everyone has two jobs, they job you're
given and the job you love" (he was a tour guide who did photography on the
side).

I a country where many (admittedly not all) basic needs are taken care of by
the state, the people are able to pursue their own aspirations, as the guy
featured in the article has done.

"zero incentive" = neo-liberal bollocks.

~~~
ChicagoBoy11
>One guy said that "everyone has two jobs, they job you're given and the job
you love" (he was a tour guide who did photography on the side).

That is because that's the only way to survive. The top positions in Cuba are
those which face foreigners, as there is always a non-trivial chance of
receiving dollar-based tips, which are far, far more valuable than the
official Cuban currency. When I went to a Cuban resort town, my barman had
been trained in Physics in Moscow, and considered himself very fortunate to be
in the job he was in.

Cubans are, undoubtedly, some of the most resourceful and entrepreneurial
people I've met -- but by necessity. The statement that they have "zero
incentive to deliver anything above the bare minimum" is absolutely right,
because everyone knows that their well-being will depend on what else they can
come up with on the side.

------
oska
_Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling
down the highway._

—Tanenbaum, Andrew S. (1989). _Computer Networks._

~~~
nickpsecurity
A blast from the past. I mailed DVD-R's and flash storage because the price
per GB was pretty good. No hackers, either. I later found that this wasn't a
unique idea: supercomputing and big corporate players often mailed whole HD's
of data to cut cost of WAN links. A trick that it pays to never forget in case
one of the benefits appear.

~~~
digi_owl
First off, i recall reading a blog entry or article about someone who owned an
Amiga 500 in the UK in the 90s.

Back then you had various glossy magazines around, complete with a classifieds
section in the back.

Apparently one use of those was to offer a like for like copying service.
Meaning that you put up an ad and people would mail you floppies of various
games and software, along with a list of same they hoped to get in return.

Apparently it eventually snowballed to the point where he had invested in a
second floppy drive just to speed up the copying process, and ended up
spending whole weekends switching floppies and stuffing envelopes.

Eventually he got so fed up he started returning envelopes unopened.

Secondly, i think Amazon accept Fedex-ed HDDs for their cloud services. In
case the amount of data to be uploaded would take unreasonably long otherwise.

~~~
evook
It's very common for a dco to accept physically shipped storage. There are a
lot cases, where it is either cheaper, or securer to hand deliver data when it
is not possible due to peering issues to establish a non MitM-able connection.

------
danteembermage
Just for fun!

My thought was how about a HFT microwave style network:
[https://sniperinmahwah.wordpress.com/2014/09/22/hft-in-my-
ba...](https://sniperinmahwah.wordpress.com/2014/09/22/hft-in-my-backyard-
part-i/)

So I checked the distance from the Keys to Havanna:
[https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-
instant&ion=1&e...](https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-
instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=havanna+to+florida+keys+distance)

Which turned out to be 2500 meters via this:
[http://www.hamuniverse.com/lineofsightcalculator.html](http://www.hamuniverse.com/lineofsightcalculator.html)

It's four times larger than the largest non-skyscraper (a TV tower in North
Dakota):
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_buildings_and_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_buildings_and_structures_in_the_world)

So sadly we cannot beam Netflix or anything else to our entrepreneurial hacker
Mr. Weekly Packet. Added incentive to fund space elevator research?

~~~
comrh
Repeater boat in international waters?

~~~
toomuchtodo
High bandwidth satellite spot beam down links would work.

------
nickpsecurity
I imagine this has implications for the debate where certain people think
backdoors and censorship will stop covert communication among criminals or
terrorists. Now, we can add to our list of replies, "Hows that working out for
Cuba?"

~~~
guard-of-terra
Then "certain people" are happy - at least they'll make you live in
totalitarian dictatorship, it's a good achivement already.

I came to conclusion that those "certain people" just hate everybody and want
to harm us, and then hope to escape proposed punishment themself.

Limiting your rights is not a "price to pay" for them, it's their target.
Fighting crime and terrorism is just a front-end to get to their real target,
namely to humiliate citizens.

~~~
nickpsecurity
I mostly agree. Except, I think their target is stability and control. Fits
well into one of the better Theories of Everything I've seen:

[http://www.projectcensored.org/the-global-1-exposing-the-
tra...](http://www.projectcensored.org/the-global-1-exposing-the-
transnational-ruling-class/)

------
joubert
I didn't see the article point it out, but earlier this year Netflix started
streaming for Cuban customers:
[https://pr.netflix.com/WebClient/getNewsSummary.do?newsId=18...](https://pr.netflix.com/WebClient/getNewsSummary.do?newsId=1896)

------
noonespecial
I'd say there is an internet going on here, it just happens to have really,
really crappy latency.

~~~
pepijndevos
Latency or bandwidth, or both? If it's just latency you could still stream
things.

------
karmakaze
It's funny he said 'Suits'. Just before that I was thinking Junior looked like
the Harvey character on the show.

------
transfire
What media are they using? DVD, tape?

------
guard-of-terra
I wonder why we're still having fans of communism, socialism and otherwise far
left people if that's what the best communist states have to offer its
population?

I mean, it's pathetic to live like this.

Also invalidates most of French thinkers of XX century.

~~~
digi_owl
At the same time the place as better general health care than USA...

~~~
guard-of-terra
I would take internets over health care 99 times of 100.

~~~
sanoli
BS. If you meant 'quality' health care, I doubt you' take internet over
terrible, third world health care.

~~~
guard-of-terra
Why not? I needed health care about 0.5 times to this moment.

Without internet, I'll go and kill myself anyway, why would me need me?

~~~
sanoli
Let me know if you ever get some serious, treatable disease, and you refuse to
go to the hospital because they have crappy wi-fi.

