

ComVeriCast: Internet Freedom - orthecreedence
https://comvericast.com/

======
aidenn0
This isn't how it will happen. The basic package will give you access to these
sites, but crappy access. Youtube, Netflix, et. al. will skip, webpages will
load more slowly, etc. Meanwhile sites owned by the parent company of the ISP
will be as smooth as butter.

That way it's not people calling up their ISPs saying "Why can't I access
youtube?" instead it's people saying "I watch comvericastTube since it's so
much faster than youtube"

~~~
justizin
ah you kind of said similar things to me while i was typing another comment.

I think it's dangerous to be too sweeping with things like, "sites owned by
the parent company of the ISP will be as smooth as butter."

Let me explain by talking about a net neutrality problem my clients and I had
when I operated a small business, supporting small businesses.

We installed VoIP systems, hosted at Rackspace, communicating over services
like Time-Warner Cable. We were pretty sure that TWC had specially prioritized
their packets, but we also could not get the most reliable performance without
installing a router at our customer site, and dedicating a portion of
bandwidth to communicating with a single IP address. QoS sounds great when
you're talking about it, but not when you are talking VoIP over it, in my
experience.

So, stick with me here for a sec, pls - I still oppose TWC prioritizing their
own traffic, but only in a way that I can't do for mine. So here comes my
disagreement with the word 'neutral'. I do not want a neutral network. I want
a fair one. It's subtle, but a valuable distinction IMO.

So, people keep telling me that "A good neutrality implementation won't outlaw
prioritization", but is that true? If I'm a voter, and I am not an engineer,
does that make any fucking sense to me?

Confusion is extremely bad for democracy.

Anti-competetive capitalism certainly also is.

~~~
orthecreedence
> A good neutrality implementation won't outlaw prioritization

I think to have true net neutrality, the provider needs to make no distinction
about the traffic that's going through it. People pay for access to 1s and 0s
at a certain bandwidth and that is provided without prioritizing one type of
traffic over another (save for upload/download speeds). At least, this is how
I hope it works. If you want QoS, you'd do so on your own network with your
own router.

> Anti-competetive capitalism certainly also is.

Free market and democracy are two separate issues, although it would be my
argument that they are in constant disagreement with each other...at least in
the case of American Capitalism. In the US, you have large corporations
lobbying for less and less regulation generally at the _expense_ of the
citizens (and thus the republic).

When something becomes so pervasive that society as it exists _cannot live
without it_ (like the internet), it's my belief that it's in the hands of
government to regulate it ferociously so that it's not at the whim of a
company which doesn't have your best interests in mind. This is especially
true, in the case of internet, in places where only one ISP exists and the
usual ridiculous argument of "Just switch providers!" doesn't work. Even if
there _are_ two providers, they are generally both terrible anyway.

There comes a point where people in the US need to realize that yes, free
market is great, but it doesn't mean that the citizen's best interests (or
customer's interests, even) are represented by <insert corporation here> and
this is where regulation comes in.

There's a balance. Anti-competitive capitalism can, in moderation, be
absolutely _great_ for democracy. The free market is not the ultimate oracle
of truth, it is yet another weight on the scale of a free, open, and
intelligent society where common good is the ultimate goal.

------
ChuckMcM
The best gallows humor has the hint of truth in it.

~~~
justizin
totes.

I really think this perfectly illustrates why I have issues with the coinage
"Net Neutrality".

I currently pay Comcast an additional amount for an additional amount of
bandwidth, over the minimum they offer. Before I go further, let's clarify
that I am not defending Comcast, and that Net Neutrality is not the "Fuck
Comcast" law. My old AT&T account that PG&E, oddly, sold me when I moved to
Oakland was only 1.5mbit, and it was enough for Netflix, but you could expect
Netflix to perform as it performs with 1.5mbit of bandwidth.

Certainly, I agree that on a lower-cost plan, services that may be hungry for
bandwidth should not be allowed to be blocked, that's silly, and while noone
has really ever substantially done anything like this, I agree that there is a
very real risk of business interests being presented with such an opportunity.

What this humor kind of fails to address is the fact that, some people will
use more internet, maybe a house with 5 roommates needs more internet than an
individual - this is actually a way that tiered power billing hurts poorer
folks, because 1 rich person gets the same alottment as ten poor people at one
address, so using even 5 times as much power costs, oh, ten or twenty times as
much. The law that forces power costs to be tiered is good, and it is
motivated by the right reasons, but the way it is implemented puts no pressure
on the actual people who waste the most power.

I think a more interesting argument would be to say, the free plan has
facebook, and facebook subsidizes your internet (something AT&T is already
doing with ads), and the median plan has twitter, and you can only use VPN to
connect to your office on the highest plan, even if you use almost no
bandwidth.

If we're going to have a conversation, let's talk about something of
substance.

~~~
AlexandrB
> I think a more interesting argument would be to say, the free plan has
> facebook, and facebook subsidizes your internet (something AT&T is already
> doing with ads), and the median plan has twitter, and you can only use VPN
> to connect to your office on the highest plan, even if you use almost no
> bandwidth.

Here's the problem. Any such regime will be structured with _incumbent_ use
cases in mind. What if a new VPN-like protocol emerges that can be used to
ensure more privacy (e.g. TOR). Now only those who can afford the highest
tiers of service will be able to access it. Basically the internet rich get
richer because they have access to technology that a family subscribing to
mid-tier do not.

The other problem is that ISPs are not interested in the cutting edge of the
internet. If this was 2005, your plan would have the mid-tier selling us
MySpace access and Facebook would only be on whatever tier above that gives
"neutral" web access - how does that not skew the market forces that pushed
Facebook to the top of the heap and why should an ISP be allowed to skew them
in this way?

~~~
gandalfu
Telcel in Mexico allows unlimited access to Facebook and Twitter while the
rest of the internet is bounded by whatever data plan you have.

Not sure if Facebook and Twitter pay Telcel for the bandwidth you consume.

~~~
artenix
It's known that Zuckerberg is approaching some not developed countries to do
that. India is on the top of my head. And this has been categorized as a
practice againts Net Neutrality. Chile, IIRC, banned it.

------
GhotiFish
wow. A hammy over the top dystopian style website on a technology rights topic
that ISN'T made by the EFF!

Amazing!

