What is Digg?162 Comments
- Devastator, on 10/12/2007, -7/+96A two tier Internet is not acceptable under ANY circumstance. The idea of the Internet is to be free and open for everyone. What's next? Having to pay to use certain protocols?
- Alphabet, on 10/12/2007, -4/+69ugh, that's the stupidest reason yet on why anyone should used tiered internet. EVERYONE PAYS, whether you realize it or not. If a business pays for a faster internet connection, he will pass the cost on to the consumers who buys their products.
If a faster connection cost an extra $100,000 a month, do you think a business will eat that? Of course not, they'll increase the cost of all their products to make up for the extra bandwidth costs. And you will pay more because of it. A tiered internet is the dumbest thing I've heard.
Bram is a sellout anyway. Last I heard, he's working for anti-p2p companies. - signal15, on 10/12/2007, -3/+58You are wrong, it WILL impact your experience as providers carve out bandwidth from existing link to reserve for those that pay. They will not care if the "free" links become saturated.
I've done a lot of work for service providers such as ATT and MCI, and this is simply a really bad idea. If people want guaranteed bandwidth between sites, they they should look into a private WAN link. Additionally, sites like Youtube and Google Video currently do not pay extra for their bandwidth, but, this spurs innovation on both the content provider side, and the service provider side. If we go to a two-tier internet, there is less reason to innovate.
Your government funded the internet with your tax dollars, and now a bunch of evil corporations are attempting to take it over. And now, guess what... You're going to pay for it even more. Someone's gotta pay these extortion fees, and surely content providers aren't going to eat all of that cost, they are going to pass it on to you. What happens when Joe Blow invents some innovative new thing on the net and puts it out there to start making money? A ton of people start using it, he has to pay a ransom to provide his content to users, and he doesn't have the money. It's going to KILL the little guy.
Anyone who thinks a two-tiered system is a good idea is a fool, a greedy bastard, or both. - shiftt, on 10/12/2007, -3/+52"It postulates that the internet will remain the same for people who don't pay, but will be faster for those who do."
And that's exactly what makes it unfair. - stoanhart, on 10/12/2007, -4/+23What good do you think posting your HOTI ***** on digg is going to do? It was only a day or two ago when there was a front page story about the big telecom players creating fake "grassroots" organizations like yours. Get a real job.
- gekkokid, on 10/12/2007, -0/+18"Bram Cohen is simply pissed that it may interfere in some way with his plans to make a mint from Bittorrent related technology." correct
- jodokast, on 10/12/2007, -5/+22Since when do consumers decide anything?
The only thing why will decide on is whether or not to cancel their connection plan. - lnxaddct, on 10/12/2007, -0/+16Bram Cohen, while being a smart guy, has been wrong plenty of times before, and is wrong this time. He has conflicting interests in this matter because he stands to make good money from no net neutrality.
- jarcoal, on 10/12/2007, -3/+18the providers will decide to continually ***** everyone over like they have been doing since the beginning of time. this just gives them a whole new set of tools to use.
- vertinox, on 10/12/2007, -1/+15TelcoShill said "Let the providers and consumers decide how to run the internet, not the politicians."
I think you meant to say "Let the providers decide how to run the internet, not the consumers." - lonnieh, on 10/12/2007, -1/+14Where is Al Gore when you need him?
- OutcastJiob, on 10/12/2007, -1/+14Very true. Mr. Cohen sold out once already--should we respect his opinion on another issue or just assume that he's selling out once again?
- aroot, on 10/12/2007, -1/+13Might I remind you that ticketmaster and BMW were not given government subsidies to build up their respective businesses? Also, those businesses have many competitors. In most cases, the telephone companies hold a monopoly. Monopolies are not good for capitalism.
- pabster, on 10/12/2007, -2/+14Bram has become Hollywood's Bitch.
- deadfones, on 10/12/2007, -12/+22"Hands Off The Internet"
Did the Bush administration help you with that title?
Keep your spam and propoganda out of digg, thx. - chad78, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11Cohen has sold out.
http://digg.com/movies/Warner_Bros._to_sell_films_via_BitTorrent
(Not Digg Spam - this story was on the front page a while back, and I didn't submit it - I just wanted to show *WHY* Cohen is trying to sell out the Internet.) - PoptartKing, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9"You are a bunch of socialists masquerading as people who care about freedom."
When there's a trust-monopoly involved, it's in the interest of *everyone* that legislation hammers the industry into submission from their mad oligarchial dreams. Don't say they don't have such aspirations, when the sky's the limit and there are stockholders to report to, companies will do anything feasible to gain more income. - UprightJoe, on 10/12/2007, -0/+91) This has nothing to do with socialism. The government isn't attempting to take ownership of ISP's or any such nonsense. The ISP's are still free to gouge customers and get as filthy rich as they possibly can.
2) Telecommunications has always been highly regulated because it's on the cusp of being a market failure.
3) From your post, you clearly don't even understand the issue at hand. This has nothing to do with preventing ISP's from charging you different amounts for different levels of service. That would still be perfectly legal. This has to do with ISP's wanting to charge you for your internet connection, and then turn around and tell google they won't allow google traffic to your home unless google gives them money - even though google is already paying for their pipes. The bigwigs at AT&T have been making loud noises about pulling this kind of stunt recently...
It also has to do with preventing a company like Time Warner who owns both media content and cable networks from doing something like making it slower to download non Time Warner owned songs via the iTunes music store via roadrunner. - Farmer77, on 10/12/2007, -3/+12How much are they paying you? I'll double it.
- largobargo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9When did Bram Cohen become the internet village idiot? And why is anyone listening!
- apetrie, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10From otherland:
apetrie if socialism think makes your life better and you are okay with that you just admitted that you have no problem with stealing wealth from others because you are incompetent.
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Faulty. That assumes that I am someone who could afford less than what I have now if I did not have any help. Not only do you have no way of knowing whether that is the case, but it actually isn't true. I believe some things (health care, government services) should be equal for everyone. I do not believe everything should be equal for everyone, hence favouring a hybrid of socialism and capitalism.
More from otherland:
You need the government to take care of you. And there are many problems with allowing the government to decide what is best for the public.
That's not what America or democracy is about. Governments have no right to take wealth away by force from one person and redistribute it to another, that's called stealing.
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I don't need the government to take care of me, however I do believe that a countries worth can only be measured by the life of its worst-off citizen. Certain things should be outside of the influence of wealth and power. America does NOT equal democracy nor is everyone who participates in this site OR whose opinion matters either from or live there. Your view is painfully narrow.
More from otherland:
It's a "dirty word' because socialism undermines all the freedoms that Americans have fought and died for. Now more than ever this country needs to sweep out any vestigal influences of socialism.
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Anyone who believes that the entire influence of people who believe something different than them should be swept away clearly must not have much faith in their views. If you are right, most people will agree with you and there is little need to eliminate the opposing view. In fact, people believing the opposite of you can only help you to understand and possibly strengthen your belief. - Niek, on 10/12/2007, -4/+12Huh? Instead of linking directly to the podcast, the BBC links to this digg entry. Like the 21st most popular site in the world needs more advertisement...
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9It's time for an internet revolution.
- PAStheLoD, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7You can vote the current gov off, but you couldn't your telco..
- Gundam, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9The whole problem with liberalism is that it assumes that the market will ALWAYS provide competition and that it will ALWAYS be equal. America already tried liberalism, in the late 1800's and early 1900's, we saw how well letting the free market decide everything, we ended up with a few ultra rich and many many more poor people, All the businesses eventually became monopolies. There was no competition, the government had to step in and solve the problem. (Uh-oh the big evil governments messing with the free market!) Assuming the that free market is a good thing is a fundamentally flawed argument. Plus many of the loop holes that are there are because there are powerful lobbies set up by *gasp* big business, who pay senators enough to keep them in their pocket. If anything the people fighting against net neutrality are trying to CREATE another loop hole which hurts the public and allows a select few companies rake in the money.
- raid517, on 10/12/2007, -5/+12"You are wrong, it WILL impact your experience as providers carve out bandwidth from existing link to reserve for those that pay. They will not care if the "free" links become saturated.
I've done a lot of work for service providers such as ATT and MCI, and this is simply a really bad idea. If people want guaranteed bandwidth between sites, they they should look into a private WAN link. Additionally, sites like Youtube and Google Video currently do not pay extra for their bandwidth, but, this spurs innovation on both the content provider side, and the service provider side. If we go to a two-tier Internet, there is less reason to innovate.
Your government funded the Internet with your tax dollars, and now a bunch of evil corporations are attempting to take it over. And now, guess what... You're going to pay for it even more. Someone's gotta pay these extortion fees, and surely content providers aren't going to eat all of that cost, they are going to pass it on to you. What happens when Joe Blow invents some innovative new thing on the net and puts it out there to start making money? A ton of people start using it, he has to pay a ransom to provide his content to users, and he doesn't have the money. It's going to KILL the little guy.
Anyone who thinks a two-tiered system is a good idea is a fool, a greedy bastard, or both."
I am so with you there man.... What is the most likely scenario? The telcos build massive new infrastructure to support their system of tiered access - or they try to squeeze as much out of the existing infrastructure that they can - even if that means squeezing out those who don't pay? Option a) would cost them billions. Option b) is (in their eyes) a completely free lunch.
Which one of these options do you think they will take?
Bram Cohen is simply pissed that it may interfere in some way with his plans to make a mint from Bittorrent related technology. - RobotCitizen, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6"Let the providers and consumers decide how to run the internet, not the politicians."
Rrrriight. As if the bargaining power of consumers even remotely compares to the power of the telcos. If legislators don't act, the only choice consumers will have is to either pay the Packet Sabotage Avoidance Fee or make do with a crippled internet. - OBKenobi, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Let's go back to BBSes like in the good old days.
- apetrie, on 10/12/2007, -4/+10OMG Socialism NOOOOO dirty word!! EEK!! Oh shut up about socialism already, I happen to live in a socialist-capitalist hybrid of a democracy and my life is much better for it. Stop using the word like it has the same connotations as fascism or is some kind of evil concept. Everything is bad taken to an extreme. Grow up.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Who created the internet? American universities and american military.. on our tax dollars.
Who created the world wide web? CERN, who is largely government funded (by many governments).
Who gave the big corporations millions and millions so they would run fiber across this country? Our government.
Who pays the bills of the internet? the millions of content providers, big corporations and individual consumers like you and me.
So who owns it? We built it, our money supports it. We'll do with it what we damned well please. - ZamboniDriver, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6AT&T wants the big content providers to pay extra because they put a lot of content out on the internet. AT&T thinks that they should get charged for their big access pipe to the internet, AND to deliver that content to the subscriber. AND THEN the subscriber should have to pay for their link also? And Bram thinks this is a good idea?
If you want to put big content on the internet, you put a big pipe out there. If you want to offer tiered services, charging customers for content, that's great. ESPN.com has their "INsider" content. They charge for it. They offer a lot neat stuff. I don't want to pay for it. I use the regular old ESPN.com, check a few scores, and that's it. I don't think ESPN should have to pay to deliver content to me AND pay for a big pipe to the internet. Likewise, I shouldn't have to pay for a big pipe AND content.
Yet that is what AT&T would have you believe. AT&T thinks that they are getting the short end of the stick because Google is the leading search engine, and they make money doing it.
The truth is, AT&T, if they had the balls, would compete by starting to sell their own content. And they could charge for it.
AT&T is trying to hold the content providers hostage. AT&T is selling access to the internet. Nothing more, nothing less. The fact that AT&T has as much power as they do is a bad thing... they own the pipes to the subscribers, AND they own the backbone connections.
How many people think that the backbone providers and the subscriber connectsion should be split? I don't like that much power in AT&T's hands. Or Verizon, or any other single provider. Let's carve them up. AT&T has an economic advantage, and we need to make sure that the business is stable and the average consumer or content provider can't be held ransom.
And lastly, who cares what Bram Cohen thinks? There are far more important people that I'd much rather hear from on this topic than Bram Cohen. I'd rather hear from leading economists than some clown in California that developed a program for sharing downloads.
Tell Bram to go back to his desk and get to work. - RobotCitizen, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Exactly Gundam. Why do these megacapitalist types like to deny that unchecked corporate power can be every bit as abusive and unjust as unchecked government power? Why do we pretend that corporate and government power are even seperable? They aren't.
Without some gentle regulation any completely free market will tend towards monopoly. It's a metastable phenomenon. - aroot, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6> who created the Internet for common consumers? The big corporations!
actually, it would be academic institutions. a university != a corporation.
> who built the networks to allow home users to acess it? The big corporations!
right. with government subsidies, out of taxpayers' pockets.
> who could take it all away if they wanted to? The big corparations!
so let's all bend over and pay our New Internet Tax? no thanks. I already pay enough for broadband. BTW, this reasoning makes you sound like a corporate shill.
> so shut up and enjoy watching you little pissants get raped...
OK, now I don't even know why i bothered replying to your comment.. - sroerick, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5What no one misses is the source of the telco's power -- a government sponsored monopoly. Remove that monopoly, create competition, and services will improve vastly
- aroot, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6"Our network speeds will not go slower. But those who choose to pay for faster downloads will get faster downloads. If you could pay an extra $10 a month for a 15 down/5 up connection, wouldn't you do it? I would! How is this any different?"
Great, so let's take our free Internet and introduce the concept of class into it! While we're at it, let's all vote for a king!
And next thing you know, you'll still be able to get 768k DSL for $30 a month. You want 6MBit? That'll be $120 extra, please. - UprightJoe, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5The airline seating analogy is flawed. This is not the same thing at all. They are still free to charge you $20 per month for 500k, $40 per month for 4mbit, or $10,000 per month for a gigabit if they choose. Here's a better analogy:
You have Sprint long distance service. Your grandma who lives elsewhere in the country has AT&T. One day Sprint calls your grandma and says "Ya know, I see you get a lot of phone calls from your grandson. If you don't pay us $15 per month, we're not going to connect those calls anymore.".
This is not socialism. Many different industries are regulated to various degrees for public benefit and safety. Are FDA regulations regarding the safety of food and medicine socialism? Are having speed limits and traffic rules socialism? As far as I know, privately owned toll roads are still subject to traffic laws. Are FCC regulations regarding the transmission of radio waves on different frequencies socialism?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_failure
Anyhow, you're clearly trolling so unless you come up with an actual compelling argument instead of reiterating the same obviously flawed ideas over and over again, I'm done with this thread. - aroot, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7It's not about giving the government control over the internet, it's about keeping the greedy telcos fair.
- raid517, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Now now, don't be impolite. We welcome people from all walks of life on digg - and an organisation as presigeous as the BBC are certainly welcome to comment here - whether you always agree with their editorial policy or not...
- Ribald_Jester, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Bram Cohen sealed his fate when he sold out to the Hollywood/music cartels. Of *course* he wants a 2 teired internet - it would benefit his "masters" and through them his paycheck. Ignore this sleazebag and the slimey Holllywood scum vote FOR network neutrality!!
- SubWolf, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4The Cachelogic method sounds like a great idea, and doesn't affect net neutrality that badly IMHO. As an example, so long as Microsoft isn't able to pay CableOne to make *.ubuntu.org load slow for me, I'll be happy.
- threepio, on 10/12/2007, -5/+9Newsflash Dateline May 27th 2006
Bram Cohen Jumps the Shark. Internet fails to give a *****.
Well done on the whole bit torrent thing Bram, your 15 minutes have passed. Move along. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4This is a guy who's sided with the MPAA.
I don't think i'm going to listen to him on this issue either. Technically.. he's a smart guy. But in terms of business and politics, he's a moron. - Presentlight, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Um...if memory serves me correctly, isn't Cohen a sellout with the MPAA?
- mirzmaster, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4@ rm999: Socialist structure? That's utterly ridiculous. The guy who only wants to check his email already doesn't have to pay as much, as he can make do with a $5/month dial-up connection.
The question isn't that of what happens when someone only wants to check mail, but what happens when they want to check their mail with a new start-up email provider in a market where the big guys have already paid to prioritize their traffic?
The fact of the matter remains, the telcos are simply trying to create new income opportunities since their existing market stranglehold isn't enough, but at the expense of the principles that made the internet what it is today. If you're against socialist principles, then you should already have a big problem with today's Internet -- the Internet that gives EVERY content provider equal opportunity, and EVERY new idea a chance.
Remember, the only way your internet experience doesn't get worse in a non-neutral network, is if the telcos start adding to the existing network capacity rather than squeeze out lower-priority traffic. I'm betting that won't mind squeezing out lower priority traffic.
And another issue no one has addressed yet... how will the telcos prioritize unclassified data? What if my data packets are encrypted? Will the telcos automatically priotize those packets lower? - CarzorStelatis, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4What do we expect from an Mhttp://digg.com/technology/Bram_Cohen_warns_against_net_neutrality_absurdity_#c1818281PAA lackey? Bram Cohen is an irrelevant nonentity. Also reported as spam - the BBC are soliciting diggs on the article itself.
- drawkbox, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3He must have gotten some big payola to say this especially since a tiered internet would ruin BitTorrent.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Bram Cohen is a retard. First he's sucking on the MPAA member corporations' dicks, and now this.
- RobotCitizen, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Where do you plan to find these neutral ISPs?
- apetrie, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3How can it be a "misconception" which would mean that I don't understand the concept or have an incorrect idea of it. Its a matter of opinion and personal philosophy. I can't misunderstand how I personally believe it should be measured. Funny to be calling me ignorant for having a different view than you, when you are not even making sense.
Once again, if you feel the need to insult or ridicule someone who has a different view than you, you can't be very secure in your beliefs. - RCourtney, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3@Geterix
Seriously, please get a clue. Every story regarding net neutrality I see you comment on you have the same tired old argument that has been proven faulty time and time again. If there were actually real competition in broadband offerings this would not even be an issue because as you say, they wouldn't commit suicide! Unfortunatly, there is no real competition. Most people have two realistic options (many only have one) for broadband: telco or cableco, and both want to do away with net neutrality.
Please stop being a lemming and actually learn how things work here in the real world as opposed to whatever lala land you seem to reside in where consumers actually have a realistic choice right now.
Fact #1: A single telephone company owns the telephone line to your home.
Fact #2: A single cable company owns the coaxial line to your home.
Fact #3: Internet-over-power-lines, WiMax, etc are not presently viable options in at least 95% of the US, if not more. -
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