DISQUS

Let's be clear about one thing, that lawsuits are not a market mechanism. They are a means of using government to enforce preferences.




If nothing much happens as a result of this incident, that can be read as a valid market outcome as well -- that customers don't place much importance on such tempests in teapots. I suspect that 99% of customers value their Comcast service based on whether they can do email and YouTube, and what their monthly bill looks like.





The PR argument is a valid market mechanism as well. I suspect this will prove to be the most potent, and that Comcast will quietly refine their policies to avoid these blowups.

Hi Tim, perhaps the financial value of open source/peer production should be measured in terms of consumer benefit. It could be argued that the results of their labor add wealth to the society, in the form of low-cost products. Linux might be an example -- it serves a market need and provides competition. Both of those things increase prosperity.




Libertarians, I think, would have little complaint about peer production in and of itself, since it's a voluntary exchange. It's still a free market in action, though not especially traditional.





Funny thing is, I am not personally excited by most OSS that I see. But I do recognize is as a cog in the market, and that consumers have voted to sustain it.

The fact that Kahney asks frames the question:

It sounds great � for the successful schools. But what about the failing ones?

...demonstrates that he doesn't understand the issue. The failing school may well fail, but that doesn't mean the students are hurt. It simply means their business goes elsewhere, to schools that perform better. The resources of the failing school are redirected toward better-performaning ones.




The intimation that we should be protecting schools first, and students second, is absurd in the extreme.

Hi Richard, I agree with you (and the hardware manufacturers) on this. We do need to keep all technological and business options on the table. Making these subject to legislation is likely to foreclose a lot of consumer choice.

But, the hardware manufacturers are not neutral. They stand to be suppliers of the infrastructure for the next wave of the net. Enforced neutrality would require them to keep their products dumb and undifferentiated. I don't mind that they are self-interested...econ 101.

The net neuts need to get over the idea that the Internet is owned by the public. It's not. It exists as a set of agreements between private parties, and this has worked extremely well so far.

How strange. Photocopying currency? Wha?

Without Tim's great work we wouldn't be where we are today. But we need to imagine a future that might depart from the past. And, we need to be clear what the "Internet" is. Richard points out, importantly, that it is a set of agreements between private networks. That's a lot of pipes and they didn't appear out of the ether.

I do believe Tim's heart is in the right place and he believes in the importance of a best-effort network. Nothing wrong with that, I don't doubt it will continue so long as folks want it. But we can't pass laws against alternatives.

Hi Richard, very interesting stuff. The pro-neutrality folks love to claim "astroturf" about anyone who's being paid to advocate a position. I've got no problem with the practice (it's no different than retaining an attorney), though disclosure is helpful and increases credibility. My anti-neutrality arguments are free of charge. :)

Anyway, do you have some documentation on Stoller and Karr on this?

Let's take it one step further. Wyden is already wrong on the facts -- the Cox/Craigslist kerfuffle is unrelated to neutrality. It's unrelated to Cox, really, except for the bad luck of their customers being the victims.

Wyden's neutrality amendment (and most others) provides exceptions for security software, such as Authentium, one of the culprits in this case. So even if this were a neutrality issue, and even if Wyden got his way, this case would still be off-topic.

We call it FUD in the tech world. When non-techies engage in it, they really expose themselves.

Well, regarding the Jobs comparison, I get the impression that Microsoft is probably a healthier organization behind the scenes. Bill G has never encouraged a cult of personality around him, unlike Jobs.

But, being as successful as Gates means he will always get attention, whether or not he wants it. Apple is Jobs. Microsoft is a lot of people.

Forgot to mention George Ou's take, here: http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?p=242. He's the networking blogger over at ZDNet, often an MS defender, but realizes that neutrality is way off.

Hi Robert, with due respect, the neutrality legislation you mention is much more dangerous than an absence of legislation.

What the telcos want to do is build a higher-performance network and charge for it. I think that's fine, and if you've ever signed an SLA, you've already paid for network prioritization.

Simply economics dictates that some traffic should be prioritized. We should be able to say that video bits should have priority of email bits. It is fundamental to a good user experience.

Neutrality legislation sounds benign, but it actually makes this sort of experimentation illegal. The quest for "sameness" is hard to comport with innovation.

The truth is, the FCC already has authority to punish abuses, and they've used it. There is very little business case for blocking traffic, and telcos that do it will find themselves losing customers. We don't have to like the telcos, but let's not pass blanket laws that primarily help lawyers.

In any case, Congress is vastly underqualified to make the call. Do you think any of the bill's sponsors even know what a packet is? Good intentions are a poor substitute for good technology...

Hey Robert, don't despair. Yes, there is a lot of mob mentality out there. Take a look at the political half of memeorandum to get an idea.

But don't give up on the medium. The ad hominem stuff won't go away but it also doesn't have a lot of lasting value. Do what Microsoft generally does -- focus more on customers and products than detractors.

Diversity and chaos are two sides of the same coin. People like me will spend our "attention dollars" on the blogs that actually add value.