Net Neutrality...
 

Feelings? Anyone?

figures....

Actually - I do have feelings about it - and am very surprised more people around here are unfamiliar with it as it could destroy their income faster than 2257 or any other bill that has reached congress had a chance of - the government/regulators need to keep their fingers out of this pie - but with the telcos and cable companies lobbying as hard as they are for regulation I dont think its gonna go away soon - it will die in this congress(actually I think it already has in one of the two houses) but will re-emerge soon sure enough

what do you mean???

BTW - for people that dont have a handle on what this is - heres a real good rundown on it - and some good people fighting the telcos
http://www.savetheinternet.com/=threat

Basically - if you run a blog - the telcos will control all media streaming and charge you for the ability to place streams,video etc on your websites - just one small example - if you dont pay - they will just redirect the surfer to a site that does pay

And just a quick explanation - net neutrality is the term used to describe the way the net started out - 1st amendment rights take precedence over all else - you are free to put what you want out there.
The challenges to that principle have been mounting - from AOL screening emails for certain terms to companies like BellSouth recently coming out and saying that whatever Search Engine pays them the most will get their search results loaded quicker on the net - they used Google and Yahoo as examples when describing their aspirations http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...002109_pf.html

They won't necessarily redirect it, but your streams will run slow as shit as you will be put on the "best effort"( hahahaha, yeah "best". ) Thus you visitors will be more inclined to go to those sites that did pay.

Those that are against net neutrality claim that sites like Google and all should pay for infrastructure increases because they use up so much bandwidth. Their motto is "Let Google pay, not the ISPs or the consumer" Yet they fail to bring up 3 points.

A) Google already pays for bandwidth it uses.

B) People use an ISP because there is CONTENT on the internet. Without CONTENT no one would use the internet. The ISPs should be THANKING companies like Google that there is much content on the net that people are willing to pay $40-$50 or more a month for internet service.

C) Even if Google and all these other sites did pay Google and others aren't going to eat that costs. That cost will be passed on to US the consumer. And it will be MORE money than if the ISPs just said "Hey sorry, but we need to build more pipes so your internet bill is going up $10 a month" At least that be a more honest way of getting my money.

It's just capitalism at work, hardly surprising...