
"Net Neutrality": Destroyer of Internet Freedom - gibsonf1
http://www.aynrand.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=16921&news_iv_ctrl=1021
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cawel
_It is the freedom of participants on the Internet to offer and profit from
whatever products, services, or content they choose that has made it such a
phenomenal source of content and innovation._

The author includes what I would call the rules of the network's traffic in
his 'services' and it is a problem in the argumentation. On one side, there
are user services (e.g. e-commerce, search, etc.) and on the other side, there
are network services (e.g. quality of service, priority of packets, guaranteed
bandwidth).

I would say it is _because_ the attempts to tinker with traffic rules on the
network have been restricted that we had so much innovation during the
internet history and therefore such a wide spectrum of network applications
today.

Thus, while I do not refute what he says above, I would say it is primarily
because of net-neutrality that internet has been so successful (a "phenomenal
source of content and innovation").

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Goronmon
I'm sorry if I don't trust these "innovative" ISPs to not take advantage of
any control they have over the data that passes through their lines.

Take bandwidth limits for example. With Netflix and XBox Live, on-demand movie
viewing is becoming more popular. With Hi-Def content that is a massive amount
of data being passed through the network (and entirely legal, I'd like to
mention). Now, at first glance it might not be unreasonable to think that, for
instance, Time Warner would impose a download limit for subscribers to prevent
issues with certain users stressing the lines.

However, what happens when Time Warner that introduces their own video-on-
demand service that, surprise, isn't effected by these download limits?
Suddenly

I just think that the downsides with Net-Neutrality come down to annoyances,
while the downsides to allowing ISPs control over the data to be much worse.

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cawel
I would say his example with UPS is wrong.

UPS added a network _parallel_ to the existing mail post network, whereas in
the case of internet, private ventures offering "quality of service" services
contend with others for bandwidth on _the same_ network.

