

2012: The Year The Internet Ends - dragonquest
http://ipower.ning.com/netneutrality

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m0nty
"Internet providers have realized that the only way to not lose massive
amounts of customers over [Internet balkanization] is to make sure there are
no alternatives"

Or compete by offering full access for a low price, a bit like right now. Bad
argument.

~~~
schtog
yeah i dont see why a company couldnt compete by offering everything, if one
company does that how would the others prevail?

how could that company be shut out?

~~~
almost
Presumably there are quite high barriers to entry, especially these days with
broadband.

And if all providers went that route at once they'd probably all make more
money.

This all seems a bit tin-foil-hatish to me, but I can see how it COULD happen.

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dkokelley
Let's give these guys the benefit of the doubt. Let's go ahead and assume that
what they claim is going to happen. Let's look at what is necessary for that
to happen:

1: Bandwidth providers will discover that their costs are rising (thanks to
that evil Google machine).

2: and so they consider throttling or otherwise restricting access to various
high bandwidth sites (Keep in mind that Google and other high bandwidth sites
pay these companies for their end of the bandwidth usage).

2b: We'll assume that for whatever reason, the bandwidth providers don't mind
the loss of their biggest customers. We'll also assume that regular users
don't mind the fact that their favorite search engine, social networking site,
and torrent sites are unavailable.

3: For step 2 to occur as planned, all (or most) bandwidth providers will have
to collude to make this a simultaneous change, and to agree not to go back and
un-restrict the access to steal customers (here is where you should read up on
the Prisoner's dilemma <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner's_dilemma>)

The market alternative to this is to simply raise prices on the bandwidth hogs
and charge maybe on a per GB basis. While I don't like that idea (I do use a
lot of bandwidth), I doubt that our bandwidth supply is anywhere near to its
full capacity, or that bandwidth costs to suppliers are going to go anywhere
but down, as all technology has pretty much ever since the inception of the
microchip.

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TrevorJ
This will never happen and here is why: the more companies sign onto an
agreement like this, the greater the economic incentive for the remaining
companies to not sign.

The scheme would depend on every company signing and yet economics makes that
a near impossibility.

I doubt very much that companies such as Youtube, google or Facebook would
allow ISPs to effectively 'block' them without some legal challenges.

Add to that the first amendment lawsuits that are sure to crop up en mass and
I think we can put the likelihood of this happen down to near-zero.

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Leon
Wouldn't this fly in the face of common carrier regulations and subject the
telecoms to massive taxes/fees/penalties and congressional litigation for
stymieing small IT/software businesses? The government would probably put a
stop to this, if only for the purpose of competing economically against
China/other countries (I'm talking about the US here). We'd be at a severe
technological disadvantage, lose potential taxes on new business, and go
against all of wall-street (internet ipo's would essentially cease).

~~~
wmf
Common carrier regulations do not apply to ISPs; in fact they buy whatever
regulations they want.

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aggieben
They need some pictures of tin-foil hats around the borders of their main
<div>.

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edw519
Sensational title. Check.

Misleading title. Check.

Wild speculation. Check.

Lack of references. Check.

Ignoring all the data right in front of us. Check.

Activist call to action. Check.

Reddit, Digg, or National Enquirier. No Check.

Hacker News. Check.

Just "checking".

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sethg
In the 1980s, there were a bunch of online service providers like AOL and
CompuServe that only allowed their customers to contact one another and only
access services that those companies were hosting. All these companies (well,
the ones that haven't gone out of business) have given up on the "walled
garden" model of online access and let their customers use the real Internet.

Why will consumers in 2012 settle for any more restricted Internet access than
consumers did in 2002?

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ComputerGuru
December 22nd, 2012 is the day the day the Aliens come and the whole world
ends - I think the internet is the least of our worries. Hopefully Mulder has
a plan.

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josefresco
Did anyone watch the video?

I'm just saying ;)

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schtog
_pat on the back for these guys_

are they belgian?

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volida
i am just laughing!

even if that speculation was true? you trully expect actually Google will
allow this to happen?!

except that everyone will be running their own server by then! the Internet is
only becoming more open. The rest is rindicilus fantasy.

the only thing i see happening by then is the cloud becoming a more
user/consumer friendly concept/product, and ISPs grasping that concept and
providing it.

therefore the only thing ISPs that are going to do is give cloud services to
people.

