
Google's Growing Silence on Saving Open Internet Leaves Fight to Startups - doctorshady
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-07-08/google-waning-on-net-neturality-leaves-fight-to-startups.html
======
dm2
Why does everyone assume it's Google's responsibility to save the internet?

Yes, they do extremely great things for the world, the internet, and to
protect privacy and people's rights, but rather than criticize them when they
don't step up to the plate every single time, why not criticize other
companies for not even considering it and failing to ever act.

I've seen over 75% of the people I know give thousands of dollars to Apple,
but Apple gives back nothing to the world, they should be the ones criticized.

How can a company such as Apple have hundreds of billions of dollars and not
even consider helping the world with all of that extra money? Imagine the
amazingly great things they could do if they weren't so focused on hoarding
cash and ensuring nobody "steals" their rounded corner idea.

The original article title is just link-bait anyways, it even says at the
bottom, "Google hasn't gone completely silent. It and Facebook are members of
the Internet Association, which in April urged the FCC to adopt open-Internet
rules." So then what's the point of the article? To say that Google has been
fighting for open-internet for 8+ years and that it helped form a group to
help achieve that goal?

Edit: If you disagree then please comment. I knew this wasn't going to be a
popular thing to post but I think the discussion is more important than the
karma points.

~~~
tcelfer
It is Google's responsibility to be a positive actor in the Internet ecosystem
on behalf of end-consumers. If not because it is the "right" thing to do and
also essential to the long term vision and success of the company.

Let me be expository on this for a moment, please.

Right now there are three competing visions for the future of the internet:

1\. The GNU vision: the internet becomes decentralized and every individual
has the tools to replicate and manage small, individual infrastructural tasks.

2\. The Google/Microsoft vision, where a series of non-government economic
entities create centralized and competing infrastructure while being
supervised by governments in the jurisdictions they operate in.

3\. The Centrist vision where the internet is essentially a public utility and
operated by a quasi-governmental agency or a series of joint governmental
agencies.

Currently our Internet is somewhere between 2 and 3, with a lot of talented
individuals trying to write software and doing research to make #1 more
feasible.

But #1 is inherently never going to work. Moore's law should tip us off, if
not the current state of affairs in the world. As software and computing get
better, its rate of improvement (or just change, take your pick) increases.
This means that it's progressively harder to stay abreast of security, devops,
and software products. With the best of intentions but a quintessentially
first-world outlook, #1 simply creates a series of digital under-classes and
rewards the people with the huge time investment and economic support
structure implied by people who are currently good at computers.

#3 could work, but it assumes that Governments ultimately start to shape up
and actually reflect the collective will of their population (as contradictory
as that can be). It's possible, but I'm a sceptical.

#2 is the closest to working, providing a tension between government and
corporation that resembles the tensions present in the American constitution.
What's more, economic and technical concerns reward this approach. It's
cheaper to centralize computer infrastructure and when done correctly it's a
huge cost and materials savings. Competition between said environments also
works to keep Corporations focused on the people abandoned by approach #1,
keeping their products approachable and with low overhead for starting up.

But if Google is seen to constantly violate their user trust and not act as a
sufficiently strong user advocate, eventually the populace will demand
scenario #3 be enacted (or something with so much governmental input that it
is indistinguishable from #3) and we'll be in a terrible situation.

The biggest benefit to the current system is that Google, Microsoft, and even
Baidu all have so much to lose. They need to be receptive to government
arguments while all competing with each other.

So yes. Google needs to be a white knight in shining armour because they
benefit from user trust in a big way. The benefit in the short term with
better engagement and margins. They benefit in the long term with superior
positioning and longevity for their corporate rights.

~~~
scourge
First, I disagree that the "GNU vision" (although that is stereotyping, there
are a lot of non-gnu or anti-gnu communities and individuals who would like
the internet to fullfill it's original premise of decentralized
communications) will fail. Because the race to complexity is not inherent,
it's contrived. Either a) corporations use technology in increasingly complex
ways, which is a reflection of a bloated equities market and societal excess,
OR b) technology providers intentionally make things obfuscated. I work as a
devops contractor and I've seen this my whole life. Half the complexity in the
world is because someone decided to re-write unix, "only different" (meaning,
poorly). The "GNU" vision shares thoughts with the unix philosophy of do
something, do it well. One shouldn't needlessly rewrite and re-create in the
hopes that you'll get lucky and pull a zuckerberg before the next crash.
Instead, invest in well-done, simple technology. As you said, many talented
individuals are already working to this end.

They will join the heritage of Donald Knuth, Ritchie, Ken Thompson, RMS, ESR
etc etc. They existed in a time when there were thousands of engineers writing
very complex systems for large companies. All those systems are gone, never to
be seen again. Useless. gcc, emacs, vim have their source code in thousands of
git repos around the world and are used daily all the time. The next step will
be possible!

~~~
tcelfer
> Half the complexity in the world is because someone decided to re-write
> unix, "only different" (meaning, poorly). The "GNU" vision shares thoughts
> with the unix philosophy of do something, do it well. One shouldn't
> needlessly rewrite and re-create in the hopes that you'll get lucky and pull
> a zuckerberg before the next crash. Instead, invest in well-done, simple
> technology. As you said, many talented individuals are already working to
> this end.

I'm sorry, but the problem is not the talented individuals or their efforts.
Its that fundamentally new and different ways of computing and approaching
computing problems arise as technology continues to progress.

We can sit here and grouchily state that reimplementing UNIX is the problem,
but even within the ebb and flow of Linux we see substantial change and
reformation over the arc of 5 years. And that's ignoring the actual GUI
toolkits which have been in a constant state of flux and only partial levels
of functionality.

These are challenges that the community has been happy to dismiss even as they
create increasingly obvious and increasingly difficult barriers to entry in
the community. They do so because they do not inherently feel the problem as
acutely, they're the beneficiaries of education and opportunity (or more
succinctly, privilege) that they are happy to dismiss as something that anyone
could have. It is not so, but try telling them that.

~~~
scourge
I'm curious, as you've mentioned barriers of privilege twice now: are you
referring to 3rd world disadvantaged individuals who don't have access to
electricity and a PC and internet, or are you referring to millions in first
world countries with ADSL 3 tablets, 2 smartphones and a PC gathering dust in
the garage? I think it's simplistic to say "there aren't enough people on
board because of poverty". I don't know why one suberbia can produce both an
RMS and also facebook drones.

~~~
tcelfer
> I think it's simplistic to say "there aren't enough people on board because
> of poverty".

I think that is a part of it, for sure. But even in first world countries like
America you see lots of kids with inadequate nutrition, no access to modern
education, and no cultural inculcation. And of course, that sort of pretends
IQs themselves don't fall along a normal distribution and that there aren't
gender and racial issues discouraging a large class of people from pursuing an
education in this field.

Even if these issues were addressed socially, I think economic barriers are
hard to ignore.

------
tzs
> The rules have attracted more than 600,000 comments to the FCC’s website,
> including some filed after HBO’s John Oliver told his television audience
> “the Internet in its current form is not broken, and the FCC is currently
> taking steps to fix that.”

That could backfire. The courts struck down the FCC's net neutrality rules. We
are currently operating without net neutrality. The FCC is trying to restore
net neutrality, using the same regulatory authority it used before, but this
time consistent with the limits placed on it by the courts.

The complaint of some net neutrality advocates is that this regulatory
authority is not powerful enough after the limitations placed by the courts
(it can prohibit "slow lanes", but cannot prohibit "fast lanes", only require
that they be offered on a commercially reasonable, non-discriminatory basis).
They want the FCC to switch to a different, more powerful, regulatory
authority.

If people submit comments to the FCC modeled after what John Oliver said,
saying that the internet is fine as is, and the FCC should not make changes,
they are in effect saying that they do NOT want net neutrality.

~~~
smutticus
We should all basically just get behind what the EFF is saying here.
[https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/06/fcc-and-net-
neutrality...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/06/fcc-and-net-neutrality-
way-forward)

It's tough for people like John Oliver to communicate to his audience anything
other than, "Don't break the Internet." Indeed, part of the problem with net
neutrality is confusion regarding what we mean by it. It's tough, but most
people who are pro 'net neutrality' generally have the same idea of what they
mean. They just might not understand how the Internet works, or how that
relates to the FCC.

------
apozem
I can't help but worry this is because Google knows how much a "fast lane"
could help it. They've got the cash to deliver their product at super speeds
and get a leg up on everybody else who doesn't.

~~~
diminoten
What exactly is a slow lane? Does the Internet work in a slowlane? What speeds
are we supposed to envision when we think of a slow lane? Dial-up? 10mbps? 20?

~~~
rhino369
FCC proponents will say what you have now. The rule says “sufficiently robust,
fast, and dynamic for effective use by end users and edge providers.”

Opponents say that it will kill innovation.

I think the opponents have a point, but I'm actually okay with a "fast lane"
approach.

Some degree of traffic shaping is probably a good thing. It doesn't make sense
to equally prioritize by dropbox update and my VOIP traffic. I want that VOIP
to have low latency and high enough bandwidth. Dropbox update can wait. I'd
rather have my FPS game have a low latency connection than my neighbors
bittorrent connection.

I'd propose a fast lane but also ensure the slow lane isn't intentionally
slowed down for no reason. Punitive throttling shouldn't be allowed.

It might be more effective if the tech community made thoughtful input in the
rulemaking process instead of pure rage and outlandish demands.

~~~
a_c_s
The issue with allowing net non-neutrality isn't packet shaping: it is that an
entrenched player (say, Vonage) will be able to pay for a fast lane that a
startup (in this case a VOIP competitor) wouldn't be able to afford, thus
preventing incumbents from being disrupted.

What if the telecoms (who still make money on phone calls) had charged Skype
more for bandwidth than other companies? They could have easily put Skype out
of business and consumers would be much worse off for it.

~~~
rhino369
I'm not saying the telecoms should be allowed to block or punitively degrade a
company like Skype. I'd be okay with a "no discrimination policy." The telecom
shouldn't be able to charge Skype more than it charges Conde Nast. And of
course Antitrust law would still exist. Blocking Skype for anti-competitive
actions is already illegal.

But I don't have a problem with them paying for priority.

That happens in virtually all industries. Amazon pays for faster shipping than
a small webstore can afford. McDonalds can afford a better location than a mom
and pop burger store.

It's just part of competition.

Sure its not ideal for start ups, but why should you have the right to make a
law to tell Comcast how to use their network just so it benefits your start
up?

Start up culture doesn't seem like regulation itself (Air B&B, Uber).

And it might actually benefit web start ups. If Netflix and Amazon pump in
more cash to telecoms in exchange for faster service, that means the telecoms
will build faster networks to make more money.

~~~
a_c_s
Net neutrality is the non-discrimination policy you want. It is also what has
existed since the internet began.

Anti-trust doesn't help small companies when they go out of business before
they can afford a decade-long court battle with a telecom. It also doesn't
help if whole industries (VOIP, video streaming) are targeted.

"And it might actually benefit web start ups. If Netflix and Amazon pump in
more cash to telecoms in exchange for faster service, that means the telecoms
will build faster networks to make more money."

Or, given past US telecom behavior, they just shift more of their existing
infrastructure to supporting the 'fast lanes', degrading performance for
everyone else (which further incentivizes companies to pay for fast lanes) and
enjoy larger profit margins. (Remember, most telecoms are in non-competitive
markets, so they have little incentive to compete.)

------
Zigurd
I would mark the turning point for Microsoft from the great disrupter of the
mainframe and minicomputer age to sclerotic incumbent at the point where they
fully embraced DRM and announced Palladium. At that point, "disruption" was
limited to what content publishers would approve of.

A Google that kowtows to Comcast will be similarly uninteresting.

~~~
higherpurpose
Google was already a big pusher of HTML5/OS DRM, which I thought was quite
similar to the Palladium debacle.

~~~
wfjackson
Not to mention that Chromebooks are one of the most heavy handed uses of DRM
in the wild without even native apps with an App Store like iOS or Windows RT
has.

A Google sign in is needed even to login and the only native apps are Google's
own. How is this different or better than Palladium?

They also include the WideVine DRM that they acquired and use for Netflix
which is not compatible with desktop Linux which is still forced to use a
Silverlight port.

The only redeeming feature is that you can jump through hoops and install
Linux(while suffering through an annoying prompt at every boot), which can be
done on any Windows PC anyway, but >95% of Chromebook buyers are going to be
locked in.

IE, Chrome and Safari teaming up to implement HTML5 DRM forced Firefox(which
can't afford to be bundled in with every Java, Flash and Acrobat
update/install like Chrome is) to follow suit.

And they only recently stopped parsing e-mail in Google Apps for Schools(which
they give away for free) and Business(paid) to build ad profiles to show in
other Google properties after they couldn't continue telling the lies they
were telling to the public in federal court.

They also have a program where they track Android and iOS users to detect when
they enter a store for ads tracking.

Which part of all this is about the open internet again?

~~~
tcelfer
> A Google sign in is needed even to login and the only native apps are
> Google's own. How is this different or better than Palladium?

In a technical sense, it's very different from Palladium. Given the machine is
sold as a device to better connect to Google's services and you can in fact
get things done without a Google sign on, it seems qualitatively different as
well.

But why inject fact into a marvellous diatribe?

> They also include the WideVine DRM that they acquired and use for Netflix
> which is not compatible with desktop Linux which is still forced to use a
> Silverlight port.

This is Netflix's decision and stipulation. Google has their own suite of
technologies they'd surely prefer (or even better, for Netflix to integrate
with Google's cloud platform).

As for Firefox's dilemma, I'm not sure anyone cares how they feel or what they
do. They've systematically failed the consumer marketplace as a force for
openness for years now. Any cred they may have had here was spent long ago.

> The only redeeming feature is that you can jump through hoops and install
> Linux(while suffering through an annoying prompt at every boot), which can
> be done on any Windows PC anyway, but >95% of Chromebook buyers are going to
> be locked in.

Again that's not entirely true, although in this case it depends on the model
number. What's more, you can also run ubuntu's environment alongside the
chrome OS without requiring a full reinstall.

> And they only recently stopped parsing e-mail in Google Apps for
> Schools(which they give away for free) and Business(paid) to build ad
> profiles to show in other Google properties after they couldn't continue
> telling the lies they were telling to the public in federal court.

That's a curious interpretation of the case. It mostly stems from this
interesting legal idea that using the corpus of a text for ad processing is
somehow akin to the full violation of privacy that a human scanning the
document would have.

I am not sure any of us are entirely comfortable with either interpretation,
but ad targeting for gapps has never not happened nor has it ever been
anything but an obvious monetization model for an otherwise free service.
So... yeah. Death of freedom I guess.

> Which part of this is about the open internet again?

When did we start conflating "the Open Internet" with "using analytics for
advertising?" by the way. I don't see a contradiction between the two. The
internet can be "open" and vendors can watch their wifi routers for when known
device ids try to connect and build profiles and sell that data. They're
orthogonal.

~~~
ntakasaki
>, but ad targeting for gapps has never not happened nor has it ever been
anything but an obvious monetization model for an otherwise free service.

I'm very surprised that you think it's obvious for people who use the paid
Gapps for business that their business emails were being datamined for ad
keywords to show on other Google sites even if the admin unchecked the "Show
ads" checkbox(unless I am reading you wrong). It's not a "free service" like
you claim. Perhaps some Gapps users can chime in? Can you tell us whether docs
on Drive are scanned as well? How do we know?

Edit:

I'd be okay with scanning if it was properly disclosed like in the free Gmail.
There is such a thing as informed consent, but looks like was a lot of
misleading statements going on about GApps.

The below is about Apps for Education, but looks like it applies to Google
Apps for business as well, since they stopped the practice recently for both.

From
[http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2014/03/13/26google.h33.ht...](http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2014/03/13/26google.h33.html)
:

"As part of a potentially explosive lawsuit making its way through federal
court, the giant online-services provider Google has acknowledged scanning the
contents of millions of email messages sent and received by student users of
the company’s Apps for Education tool suite for schools. In the suit, the
Mountain View, Calif.-based company also faces accusations from plaintiffs
that it went further, crossing a “creepy line” by using information gleaned
from the scans to build “surreptitious” profiles of Apps for Education users
that could be used for such purposes as targeted advertising."

"A Google spokeswoman confirmed to Education Week that the company “scans and
indexes” the emails of all Apps for Education users for a variety of purposes,
including potential advertising, via automated processes that cannot be turned
off—even for Apps for Education customers who elect not to receive ads. The
company would not say whether those email scans are used to help build
profiles of students or other Apps for Education users, but said the results
of its data mining are not used to actually target ads to Apps for Education
users unless they choose to receive them."

...

"Student-data-privacy experts contend that the latter claim is contradicted by
Google’s own court filings in the California suit. They describe the case as
highly troubling and likely to further inflame rising national concern that
protection of children’s private educational information is too lax."

"Mr. Thiele said his district has used Google Apps for Education since 2008.
Officials there have always been aware that the company does “back-end
processing” of students’ email messages, he said, but the district’s agreement
with Google precludes such data from being used to serve ads to students or
staff members. As long as the company abides by those terms, Mr. Thiele said,
“I don’t have any problem with it.” In an emailed statement provided to
Education Week, Bram Bout, the director of Google Apps for Education, said
that “ads in Gmail are turned off by default for Google Apps for Education and
we have no plans to change that in the future.”"

...

"Those plaintiffs in the California lawsuit allege that Google treats Google
Apps for Education email users virtually the same as it treats consumer Gmail
users. That means not only mining students’ email messages for key words and
other information, but also using resulting data—including newly created
derivative information, or “metadata”—for “secret user profiling” that could
serve as the basis for such activities as delivering targeted ads in Google
products other than Apps for Education, such as Google Search, Google+, and
YouTube."

"The plaintiffs allege that Google has employed such practices since around
2010, when it began using a new technology, known as Content Onebox, that
allows the company to intercept and scan emails before they reach their
intended recipients, rather than after messages are delivered to users’
inboxes, regardless of whether ads are turned off."

"While the allegations by the plaintiffs are explosive, it’s the sworn
declarations of Google representatives in response to their claims that have
truly raised the eyebrows of observers and privacy experts. Contrary to the
company’s earlier public statements, Google representatives acknowledged in a
September motion to dismiss the plaintiffs’ request for class certification
that the company’s consumer-privacy policy applies to Apps for Education
users. Thus, Google argues, it has students’ (and other Apps for Education
users’) consent to scan and process their emails."

"In November, Kyle C. Wong, a lawyer representing Google, also argued in a
formal declaration submitted to the court in opposition to the plaintiffs’
motion for class certification that the company’s data-mining practices are
widely known, and that the plaintiffs’ complaints that the scanning and
processing of their emails was done secretly are thus invalid. Mr. Wong cited
extensive media coverage about Google’s data mining of Gmail consumer users’
messages, as well as the disclosures made by numerous universities to their
students about how Google Apps for Education functions."

~~~
tcelfer
I'm not sure if I care about people's surprise as much as I care about the
inoffensiveness of it. People are and will continue to be surprised by
technology. It's an inevitable consequence of technological acceleration.

Lots of companies have lots of data about me that is sensitive. So long as
they do not betray said trust or suffer a security breach then I'm content
with that state of affairs.

~~~
ntakasaki
Not sure I am understanding you, but are you implying that it'd be okay for
Microsoft to upload all your keystrokes and all your data on your
laptop(without letting you know about it) on their servers and show you ads
based on them as "long as they do not betray said trust or suffer a security
breach" ? Where do you draw the line(if you draw one i.e) ? Or is MS somehow
more evil than Google, so the same happening in Chromebooks is okay? Or is
that "the inevitable consequence of technological acceleration" ?

Security breaches have already happened. [http://gawker.com/5637234/gcreep-
google-engineer-stalked-tee...](http://gawker.com/5637234/gcreep-google-
engineer-stalked-teens-spied-on-chats)

The funny thing is that they're not even obligated to tell you if someone who
wasn't supposed to look at your data did so. It's likely that you wouldn't
even know if Schmidt or Nadella read your email this morning and traded stocks
based on the information in it and you'd have no legal claims.

~~~
tcelfer
> Not sure I am understanding you, but are you implying that it'd be okay for
> Microsoft to upload all your keystrokes and all your data on your
> laptop(without letting you know about it) on their servers and show you ads
> based on them as "long as they do not betray said trust or suffer a security
> breach" ?

This is a false equivalence. This is not what Google did, nor is it even on
the same order of conceptual magnitude as what Google was accused of doing.

> The funny thing is that they're not even obligated to tell you if someone
> who wasn't supposed to look at your data did so.

We are in agreement that this is wrong.

> It's likely that you wouldn't even know if Schmidt or Nadella read your
> email this morning and traded stocks based on the information in it and
> you'd have no legal claims.

I suspect given the current political climate in America and the degree of
difficulty Google is having with retention, this is not the case.

The problem with the song and dance of a principled company is that you tend
to piss off employees that signed up based on that. And inevitably, that kind
of activity will be exposed to employees at some point.

------
greggman
WAT?

[https://www.google.com/takeaction/](https://www.google.com/takeaction/)

~~~
walterbell
Is AOL is spending more on net neutrality lobbying than Google?

[http://www.dailydot.com/politics/lobbyists-net-neutrality-
fc...](http://www.dailydot.com/politics/lobbyists-net-neutrality-fcc/)

If only there was a convenient place where Google could show advertisements in
favor of net neutrality..

~~~
angersock
How would we ever find such a site? The internet is a big place...

~~~
walterbell
Google shows ads for other companies, on their own properties (including
YouTube) and on partner sites. Could they run ads about net neutrality on
their large ad network?

------
yeukhon
I actually want to propose a slightly different reading on Google's "silence."
Google isn't that silent to be honest. It did and still running campaign on
their social media accounts to urge people to fight for net neutrality. At the
same time, they are not the most notable foreground fighter either.

Google is now called evil these days after many accusations (most recently the
Google map accusation, previously NSA allegations).

So here is a catch. They will spend money lobby Washington and engaging online
campaign, but they won't do too violently. They can still claim they did
something (which in reality they do) and at the same time they can get away
with the image that big corporation always wins. In the end, they can still
benefit from net neutrality. If people lose, Google may still be able to gain
something out of the lost (for example, some business gain, or pointing finger
at D.C). If people win, so does Google.

It's somewhat dumb to suggest this reading, but it may be true. On the other
hand, one can argue that it is OKAY for a big corporation like Google to step
in in a time like this and spend millions to lobby D.C (as opposed to other
time, say, urging to pass a "monopoly protection bill" or "tax reduction
bill").

I think it's worthwhile to remember that Google isn't dumb (it hires so many
"top" and talented people). The policy team isn't made up of a bunch of 18
years old.

------
ArtDev
This makes me concerned about the future of the internet.

I get it why big companies want to stifle innovation and competition, but its
just plain wrong.

------
djyaz1200
Google is responding by building it's own physical network infrastructure
nationwide. Google Fiber is a big middle finger to the telecom industry. If
Google is good at anything it's protecting Google.

------
trhway
Google with its 60B cash - $500 per US household - can build its own internet.
Given Apple's 140B, MS's 80B cash, etc... and the likes of China and Russia
building their own "Internet continents" \- the "Open Internet" is pretty much
gone (tomorrow definitely). Instead we need to prepare to how to live and do
business in that new environment or build a new one - crypto, Tor, mesh,
satellites, etc...

------
ejain
To be fair, Goggle's motto isn't "be a force for the good", but "don't be
evil".

~~~
justin66
When you're that big, inaction is a force in and of itself.

~~~
diminoten
It's not Google's responsibility to save the Internet.

------
IBM
Net neutrality proponents regularly couch their rhetoric in being an issue for
the public's interest. To me it seems like one industry (tech/web companies)
jockeying over another industry (telcos/cable) to accrue the benefits/cost
savings to themselves. Start ups and other businesses that exist on the web
don't like the idea of sponsored data because it could possibly raise their
costs of doing business, but it isn't something the public should care about
and that government should step in to prevent. No one is providing Jolla with
protections or subsidies to better compete with Apple or Samsung, but yet the
web companies in pushing for net neutrality (and waging a great PR campaign
that enlists the greater public to their side) are essentially asking for one.
Maybe your music start up will have to pay carriers to better compete with
Spotify or Apple, that's really your problem and perhaps you'll have to suck
up the additional operating expense.

As for Google, they're staying out of this fight not just because they could
benefit from sponsored data, but also because they seem intent on getting into
the ISP business themselves. They recently added a new executive in charge of
"Access and Energy"[0]. This could be their first real business outside of
advertising. I think it's befitting that a company, that is essentially a
utility on the net, is getting into another utility-like business.

[0]
[https://www.google.com/about/company/facts/management/](https://www.google.com/about/company/facts/management/)

~~~
nostrademons
The problem is that companies _don 't_ suck up the operating expense. They
pass it along to consumers. Most Internet companies have enough competitive
leverage that they'll just raise prices or show my ads - tech is winner-take-
all, so it's not like consumers have a lot of choices. And those industries
that don't have this leverage (like Internet radio or podcasting) will simply
cease to exist, which is also bad for consumers.

