Friday, May 26, 2006

Net Neutrality

Saw in the news the other day that our fearless leaders have made the first step toward net neutrality. The real problem though is that they don't own "these roads". At some point, the net is going to be a part of the public infrastructure (similar to phones?) just like our roadway system. But until then, the internet and the means to connect to it are all private. I say let the ISPs try to charge companies to display content across. With that you will see the first decline in internet usage since its inception.

If MCI/Worldcomm tried to charge companies $0.0002 for ever meg of transfer, and the Amazon's, Google's, Microsoft's, etc decided not to pay it, I think consumers would rebel. But the providers are trying to milk the cow from two ends. (What a horrible analogy)

The phone system is private, but regulated and, in my opinion, nothing but trouble. Stupid little fees, horrible support, but it is ubiquitous. The net connections are already on their way to that same sorts of problems. What is worse, is that there is no analogy to websites in a phone world. Both sides of a "conversation" pay for that connection. In the case of the web, sites pay for both sides of the connection, but I guess that isn't good enough. We are headed straight to ATM connection fee hell in a messy handbasket.

Get the gov out and let's see what falls out from consumer choices. Maybe I am just too curious.

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