Thanks to the solid efforts of the FDL community, we have some excellent analogies encapsulating what’s at stake in the fight for Net Neutrality. Now it’s time to narrow them down to the ones we think are the simplest and clearest. We have very little time to inspire people in our local communities to persuade the Senate to vote for the Snowe-Dorgan bill.
When Mike McCurry published his insulting critique of bloggers and Net Neutrality on the Huffington Post last month, his atrocious spelling (Pultizer Prize?) was enough to make me worry about him. But I really thought he lost his marbles when I noted the spectacular irony of a man making generalizations about his readers, when the very thing he was arguing against made his audience as diverse as humanly possible.
But he’s actually quite shrewd, or at least his organization is, because they understand the power of a simple analogy. It is his misleading cartoon ad appearing on sites like this, but it paints a simple picture for anybody open to its false conclusions.
Our analogies/explanations will have the advantage of being truthful, but they have to be just as easy to comprehend. Pick your favorites in the comments. Here they are, summarized by yours truly.
Toll booth: Without Net Neutrality, it could turn pieces of the Internet into toll roads. But they’ll be even worse because there’s nothing to stop the telecoms from making the regular lanes worse as opposed to the toll roads better. And you have to hope the places you want to go paid the toll, too.
Fast food: Without Net Neutrality, it could be as if you were on your way to your favorite burger joint, only to find that McDonald’s paid for all the roads in your neighborhood to come to them. Whoever has the most money decides what you get to see.
Cable choices: Without Net Neutrality, the Internet could be like cable television. They decide what you get to see. Even if you’re willing to pay for all the channels, the channels have to pay, too. Some channels simply aren’t available to you. How many cable companies can you choose from in your neighborhood?
Web phones: Without Net Neutrality, there is no reason the phone companies won’t make it harder for your web phone to work so you’ll choose their alternative. And they have no incentive to make theirs better since yours will always be worse.
Competitive information: Without Net Neutrality, there’s no reason the companies controlling your web access won’t deny access to information they don’t like. It already has happened in other countries (Telis).
Level playing field: Without Net Neutrality, your small business has a hard enough time competing with big companies or stores like Wal-Mart. How can you compete when even fewer people can access your business online? Isn’t there enough of a burden on America’s small businesses?
You will pay: Without Net Neutrality, the web sites you visit for shopping will have to pay to have you as an audience. Who do you think will ultimately pay for that? Prices will go up. It’s just another tax, but this time it’s corporate welfare.
UPS (Jeff Kuhn): Without Net Neutrality, they can make all the drivers pull over, not just to let an ambulance go by, but to let anybody with enough money zoom by while everybody else waits.
Productivity: Without Net Neutrality, American companies that rely on the Internet could see drops in productivity. They could be charged for things or denied services they now take for granted. We don’t need even more reasons to lose jobs to other countries, countries that have faster broadband and didn’t have to lose Net Neutrality to get it.
Tony Soprano: Without Net Neutrality, the companies that control the pipes can bully organizations into paying for better access. Access to an Internet that was built in part by taxpayer dollars.
Post Office: Without Net Neutrality, the Internet could be like a post office that charges you not for the weight of your mail, but for what you are sending and how much it’s worth to you. Or a post office that won’t deliver unless the recipient pays, too.
Municipality Myth: Without Net Neutrality, you can hold out hope for public Internet access in your hometown, right? The same Telecom bill being considered in the Senate makes it more difficult to do it and would give the companies the right to use the same publicly-funded infrastructure.
Better services: The telecoms say regulations make it difficult to offer great services, but if the government didn’t tell them to make it happen, you wouldn’t be able to keep your phone number even when changing companies or moving. Some communities in America might not even have phone lines. They want us to make a down-payment for the "future of the Internet" without any guarantees they’ll actually build it.
HMO: Without Net Neutrality, your Internet account could be like an HMO. Sometimes the things you need aren’t in the "preferred network." You don’t want corporations telling you what doctors to see. Why would you want them to tell you what services you can buy?
AOL, Compuserve: Closed online communities had their chance and could not compete with an open Internet. Do you want to go back to the old days?
No free lunch: The companies that own the fiber optic cable knew what they were getting into. Net Neutrality isn’t new; it’s been there from the beginning. They say content providers just want a free lunch, but they are paying, just like you, to get on the Internet.
Dark fiber is another issue that came up in the message thread several times, but this issue is complicated by the "last mile" aspect and wasn’t articulated in a way that anybody can understand. Feel free to elucidate this topic, or continue to add anything I might have missed in this thread.
Related posts:
- FCC’s Genachowski Supports Net Neutrality
- A Very Odd Letter from Democrats and Telecom Lobbyists on Net Neutrality
- Activism Works: Hagan to Support HELP Committee Bill
- McCain Rediscovers His Passion for Screwing Us with Bad Telecom Policy
- Fred Hiatt Wants to Know How Well Torture Works, But We Need a Volunteer
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Some very good analogies here. Instead of picking and choosing, let’s appropriate and disseminate as many as possible. As you said, time is of the essence.
Whoops! Fitz!
This is a fight we can win with honor, so if any of these appear fundamentally dishonest or highly misleading, please note that.
Dover: I like the Fast Food theme for net neutrality. It is a simple analogy that Americans, young and old, can relate to. Great Post!
Fitz Rootz Ned and don’t forget Poland!
Thanks Dover Bitch and all, this is great stuff, many bits of which I’m already using.
Goddammit, yet again we the People are up against the most finely honed down-is-up Lie Machine ever devised by man. We’ve got our work cut out for us.
AOL/Compuserve.
Everybody remembers how frustrating that was, how clunky, how Disneyfied. It’s something they, personally, have experienced. I think that the AOL hegemony actually retarded the development of the web by about four years because so many people tried to use it and decided it sucked. I was one of those people. I had to be pressured into giving the web another shot.
I like the fast food theme too. Just today I went to the park with my sister and her two sons. They didn’t want submarine sandwiches my sister and I got at one place, so we hit a MickyDees also. If there was only one place to go to eat today, some of us woulda just stayed home!
I just noticed the text below the “hands off the internet” ad:
“Want a Smart Network or Dumb Pipe?”
More dumb pipe, please. The dumber the better.
What’s your cable/telephone like now? This is the business model they’re going to use when they get their way.
I mean, every phone sends its phone number when it makes a call, yet your phone company charges about $60 a year so you can read this information. It probably costs them more to block the info….
I never liked the virtual gated communities like AOL, but there are still a lot of folks who do. (Don’t know why, but that’s another story.) I don’t know anyone who likes having their HMO tell them “No, can’t do that” when they or their loved ones are sick.
And as a side issue, before slamming Mike McCurry for his speling, we might want to remember some of out own (cough) creative (cough) attempts at stringing letters together around here. Pound him for being out to lunch by all means – really, all of them – but spelling errors are just too eassy a target.
since these analogies will ring true differently for different folk or locations, i think that multiple analogies would provide the best strategy. i am partial to the toll booth, cable choices and also level playing field. they are all great. thanks for compiling the list
but spelling errors are just too eassy a target.
I have to confess that I disagree, Peterr. In the age of spell checking software that is quick and easy to use, there is NO EXCUSE! NONE!
Sorry.
I am a grammar fascist.
Predictably EPU’d: News flash, DSCC retrieves head from nether regions and actually does something positive:
The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has just announced that Virginia will be their eighth targeted Senate seat this year and pundits across the country agree that Jim Webb is a real threat to George Allen.
Like we been sayin’, Webb can defeat Allen. [This race wasn’t even ON anybody’s radar two months ago. Go roots!]
Ya no thanks to you national guys who jumped in only in the last WEEK before the primary. This isn’t a Hackett job, they just realized we were gonna win BIG and they wanted some reflected roots glory :)
Dark Fiber –
The reason why internet packet delivery is so cheap is because telcos have so much excess fiber optic capacity, they can’t begin to charge enough to offset their infrastructure cost.
Remember the Enron California Power Scam? The transmission lines were overloaded, and it allowed the power companies to manipulate the market.
Same thing is happening with gasoline prices — the problem is not a crude shortage, it’s an artificial scarcity created by limited refining capacity. The oil companies saw the opportunity 10 years ago, and now it has delivered obscene monopolistic profits.
That won’t happen for at least 50 years with the internet — the telcos built out a huge fiber optic system, that won’t be full for decades to come.
it seems like different analogies might work better for different audiences. perhaps having a list (like the one you did, a chinese menu of options, if you will…) is the way to go?
they all seem good to me…
Da Tony Soprano bidness model
EVERYONE understands the mob game
“…The growth of state power is neither a caprice of history nor the fruit of “paganism.” It is the consequence of the community’s effort to protect itself against irresponsible economic power.” – Reinhold Niebuhr
All have merit, and the idea of disseminating each makes sense. I do sense a Fast Food/Cable Choice/Post Office trifecta: they resonate, and across regions and demographics (for instance, in the western US, outside California, toll roads are really rare). So, force-fed McDonald’s, no SciFi Channel but 137 expensive variations of HBO, and surly blackmailing civil servants all have a good ring.
Excellent work, by the way – Dover Bitch (¿significar qué?) and all the suggestions. Humbling smarts (and speed!) here.
Good evening. I didn’t post anything on this last night….and I have a bit of hesitation now. Never-the-less, I’ll try. You see, I STILL don’t know what in the hell net neutrality is all about. Thus, all the analogies zoom right by me.
Ms. Taylor Marsh first wrote about this subject. And, I think so to have Ms. Hamsher and maybe Pach. The problem with all their articles is that the explanations are still waaay too technical. And this is probably why there is not yet a groundswell of support on this issue.
In wading thru it all, about the ONLY thing I could decipher was that under the proposal, telcos could charge money for loading time. Right? Thus, cnn might be willing to pay, but fdl refuses. Soooo….does that mean cnn would load in a nano-second….but it might take fdl 5 seconds to load? 5 minutes? Or what?
What I think is lacking is some real nuts and bolts explanations. Forget words like “bandwidth” and all that internet jargon. A weak spot for most of you guys out there is that you’re all pretty adept at internet/computer jargon and stuff. Thus, you communicate as you know things. Guys like me get lost in a hurry.
So, for me and a kajillion other folks out there, more nuts and bolts explanations might be better than analogies. Other than “slow loading times”, and I have no idea how folks define “slow”…I am at a loss as to the “evils” of this legislation.
Just offered in the way of friendly advice.
Ghostman
Want a Smart Network or Dumb Pipe?
Smart Network / Dumb Pipe — ixnay.
IT pros understand dumb pipe value; average voter will opt for the smart pipe.
Smart Pipe is Telco Grand Theft — if anyone brings it up, that’s how you should respond.
HMO: Without Net Neutrality, your Internet account could be like an HMO. Sometimes the things you need aren’t in the “preferred network.” You don’t want corporations telling you what doctors to see. Why would you want them to tell you what services you can buy?
Last Word. Replace buy with use.
And that is my last word.
Jesus loves net neutrality. Don’t let Hitler run the internet.
Maybe a bit over the top.
That’s the crux of it all. We wouldn’t be in this situation if people could switch cable companies whenever they get crappy service.
TRex- hmmm…. typos occasionally appear in articles at FDL. Oh, I finally learned that it was occasion and not ocassion, by remembering “you don’t want an ass at your occasion”. So, don’t be too hard on the ladies here. All one has to do is say: there is a typo- Cocks should be Cox. It will be corrected if the gracious ladies, or any of the moderators are on board.
For my money I like the fast food and HMO analogies. Those are visceral, everyday concepts for everyone.
I also like the small business angle, but I think it needs to be phrased more sharply. We need to hit on small companies having to pay extra to let customers get to them instead of just the big businesses. Maybe call it an access tax on small businesses?
Another analogy that I’m not sure was covered is comparing the telecom idea to air travel. Right now everyone gets the same service. If net neutrality is killed, some will ride in first class and others will ride in coach (or even the cargo hold). The more you play the more comfortable your seat and the better your food.
This is bigger than you think. It’s about political philosophy, about economics, about the nature of the future.
http://www.danablankenhorn.com…..open_.html
Net neutrality is also Old School.
It the same principle that allowed the then-new telephone industry to grow in unimagined ways. Phones were imagined as a substitute for telegraphs. But the principle of ‘common carriage’ rule which ensured AT&T provided the same quality of service to all, and could not favor one customer over another allowed for new uses like calling an old friend on a whim or a distant relative in an emergency. ‘Common carriage’ enabled every American to have access to the greatest communication network in the world from the beginning of the 1900s onward. Equality is an enduring principle. Common carriage was about equality of opportunity. Net neutrality is about equality of opportunity.
Segregating America was wrong in the ’60s and segregating the internet is wrong now.
OT, via watertiger:
a passing in the extended blog family
I vote “all roads lead to McDonald’s,” with “all pull over for UPS” a close second. We need the most commonplace image in the WHOLE country, small-town and rural included.
My lunch today: running late, I decide to grab a drive-thru burger (unusual for me). A McD’s and a Checkers’ (smaller chain with much better burgers — red-onion slices!) smack across the street from each other. Checkers’ impossibly-long-&-static line of cars means I gotta give up and glom down a McD’s cardboard burger.
BINGO, sez I (also blech).
Webb is now within 10% of Allen coming off the primary (he was down 20% a few weeks ago).
He still has a huge money deficit so donate if you can.
https://secure.webbforsenate.com/page/contribute
Dave Latchaw –
The other night I offered “Liberty, Equality, Neutrality” as a battle cry . . .
And TRex – Spelling fascist or grammar fascist? Don’t grammar fascists fret about making sure that subjects and verbs agree, the proper use of semi-colons, and things like that? ;)
And yes, spell checkers are a wonderful thing. I use them a lot myself. There’s no spell check here at FDL, though, so until that feature is added to the site, I just wanted to remind folks of the logs we’ve got poking out of our own eyes before we go off on the specks in Mike’s.
TRex -
You can add the whole ending sentences with prepositions thing to the comment above, too. How could we forget that?
I’m leaning toward the “No free lunch” argument, because it brings in the double-dipping aspect, and not simply content or access control.
Next in line would be the cable TV and toll road analogies.
Best we leave spelling — and mothers — off this agenda.
Who among us gets to cast the first stone in either direction?
The analogies are interesting, and I agree that diverse audiences need different messages. I’d prefer to comment on another angle I don’t think has been addressed by this post: the third charge concept.
Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Bob’s Insurance Company all want to provide content to the internet. For that they’re charged. Google out the wazoo and prorated per traffic, Bob not so much, but still charged. And that is fair.
We want access to Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Bob’s Insurance Company, and for that we pay for internet service, prorated by the speed we request. And that is fair.
The same companies are enjoying revenue twice — through a long chain of resellers yes, but still receiving revenue — from the service they provide. Now they’ve decided to add a third revenue stream. Not just provide the pipe, but mediate the content in the pipe. My phone company doesn’t tell me who I can call, they just provide the pipe. The postal service doesn’t care if my mail comes from CA or NY, it just comes.
This ploy is purely to provide yet another revenue stream, and in my opinion that’s a message we need to package.
Peterr,
“There’s no spell check here at FDL”
Ahhh, if you use IE there is…
http://www.iespell.com/
I’m with the Tony Soprano model. The best way to win a political fight is to define your opponent, which this does by portraying the telco’s as bosses running a racket. They demand payment from businesses to keep things running smoothly. Fail to pay, and your business sleeps with the fishes. Everybody can understand this, and it makes the telco’s look as greedy and crooked as they are for trying it.
for Mike to be so unprofessional as to leave spelling errors in a posting at a major blog is remarkable in itself. I doubt if Mike was given ‘administer privileges’ at HuffPo — he undoubtedly Emailed his story in and that should have been run through a spellchecker by somebody.
Cats on a popsicle stick what’s up with the dingbats in my comment. My apologies.
[WordPress does strange things to ‘unusual’ punctuation — especially M-dashes. It has now been fixed in your original comment but your follow-up comment is too amusing in phrasing to delete {Moderator}]
Ghostman >”…You see, I STILL don`t know what in the hell net neutrality is all about. Thus, all the analogies zoom right by me…”
What don`t you “get” ?
What is “missing” in the Tony Soprano analogy ?
What about mob gangsterism extortion protection rackets is not clear ?
What is “missing” in the McDonalds analogy ?
What about being forced to eat at McDonalds when you would prefer the Dairy Queen across the street doesn`t “compute” ?
I`ll admit I am probably the wrong person for explaining this because I understand it from the electron level up to the mouse click one & I`ve been working with this stuff since probably before you knew the net existed
Help me out here understanding your confusion
“The age of the mass media is just that — an age. It doesn’t have to last forever.” – Jay Rosen
I really liked this paragraph from Sterling Newberry on TPM Cafe:
I’d try to emphasize, Net Neutrality is what we have always had and what we have now – it is not new regulation, it’s how it’s always run. I’ve seen some Senators saying crap like, “Well, this is all hypothetical.” The telcos wouldn’t be pressing to oppose neutrality being written into law unless they had plans to try to do something else.
The joke is that, of course, they will still screw it up and still go bankrupt and it won’t matter at all except that it will also screw up everything for everyone else.
From the folks that brought you Enron! The New Internet! Trust us!
I like the third charge concept. It’s a protection racket. Everyone knows they pay to have internet access. Tell them Google and eBay pay for internet access too. Now telcos want to charge you to use Google and eBay as an extra fee.
I like the fast food and small business analogies but I think a commonality that could be added to any theme to make it more understandable to the nongeekish would be the idea of detours (road construction) – maybe you could get to your destination (or them to yours for business) but are delayed or maybe you just can’t get there period (e.g., if McDonald’s gets to place the detour signs). I think HMO must be a regional thing because I loved the HMO we had in MN – great health great dental – three kids with braces and we didn’t pay a dime.
ck at 6:31 pm -
IT pros understand dumb pipe value; average voter will opt for the smart pipe.
Yeah, you’re probably right. I doubt Congress critters would get it either.
TRex at #12 Warning don’t try and read LEWIS & Clark’s diaries as they wrote them. You will so bent out of shape you will surely pull all your hair out. YES You are right about spelling.
DeCascadian -
here is Ghostman asking a straightforward question many of our friends and family will be asking us
guess what ? I don’t know the answer to this question either
“Thus, cnn might be willing to pay, but fdl refuses. Soooo — does that mean cnn would load in a nano-second — but it might take fdl 5 seconds to load? 5 minutes? Or what? “
lighten up on Ghostie and share your wisdom with us slow kids. Thanks
Trex at #12: Ixnay on the Aucerchay too
TRex – Even though Pulitzer is a proper name, and should have been caught by a spell check, I suspect it was an honest mistake we have all made at one time or another. Sometimes it’s tempting to take an easy shot, but McCurry can be tagged on the (lack of) merits in his arguments rather than an honest typo.
I don’t usually pick on people for bad spelling and I’m far from perfect. But if your resume mentions that you are a “veteran communications strategist and spokesperson with nearly three decades of experience in Washington D.C.” and you were the press secretary for the biggest pulpit in the world, I expect a formal post from you on a highly-trafficked blog to be run through a spell checker. Especially if it’s going to be as utterly condescending and accusatory as his was.
The “Toll Booth” analogy sucks — everyone goes through the same toll booth and gets where they are going. Still, I appreciate that it may work for some people. The Tony Soprano analogy is a good one, and I think people will understand it and it has the added benefit of implying criminal behavior: it’s against the law to force someone to pay for “protection”; it is morally wrong to force people to pay (or pay MORE) for access to their favorite websites. It’s about FAIRNESS versus PROFITS for the telcomm industry.
*ilson- do you happen to remember that comment by LGuy about a misspelling of Whatman?
Misspellings/typos *do* occur here in posted articles. All one has to do is say “this is typo” and it will be corrected, providing there are moderators available.
I am probably not following the conversation with all cylinders, but I just wanted to point out that, by contrast with *other major blogs*, JH and RH do appreciate simple feedback on the issue, and they have said so many times.
I think most people will wonder what the big deal is. Unlike cable, where often there is only one option if you want cable, people are going to say, “Well, I still can choose between all these different ISPs, and they’ll all get me on the net, so what’s the big deal?”
They won’t know what the big deal is until they’re on AOL or Verizon or Comcast, and find that for some really weird reason, they can only access certain sites for free, and others they are going to have to pay extra for.
What if there were an ad that started off by saying, “If the internet is run like cable TV, and the telecoms are succesful in getting passage of legislation currently before Congress, this is what internet access might be like in the future…” You’d see someone sitting at a computer, clicking on different sites and getting screen after screen that says: Premium Site, Access Fee $.02 per minute, interspersed with screens that say, “You asked to go to firedoglake.com. That site is not available from your provider, so you are being taken to Instapundit.” Narrator says, “Still think nothing will change if the telecom companies get their way?”
I think you have to make it real; food is one thing, but the frustration of a kid trying to do research for a school paper, for example, is something people can relate to. It could be a kid in one of those ads, saying “Mom, I keep trying to get information, but the computer won’t let me – why does it telling me I have to pay extra?”
not an analogy, but I continue to tell everyone
“You’ll pay to keep the speed you have now”
and yes, Thanks so much for working this for us Dover Bitch
Ghostman,
This is a good example I think of what could happen if you have NO choice. Somewhat related ; )
“In April, Time Warner’s AOL blocked all emails that mentioned http://www.dearaol.com — an advocacy campaign opposing the company’s pay-to-send e-mail scheme.”
http://www.dearaol.com/
39, dacascadian: well…..what’s the scoop on different loading times? Is this in the bill? Or is this speculation about what might happen? And, how much difference in loading times?
Ghostman
this blog also has covert moderators who are spelling/grammar nazis and try to catch typos and spelling errors fast!
oh crud # 52
“You’ll pay to keep the same access you have now
#19 Ghostman:
Here is a nuts and bolts examnple from my life…
I pay Time Warner $ a month so I can connect to the internet. Google pays $$$$$$ to a variety of companies so they can connect to the Internet. I like Google and Google likes me, so we talk to each other all the time. I don’t particularly like Yahoo, so I don’t talk to them much. This seems to work well.
Without net neutrality, Time Warner can enhance and degrade my Internet connection according to their whims. For example, if Time Warner liked Yahoo more then Google they could fix it so every conversation I had with Yahoo was clear and quick, while every conversation I had with Google was fuzzy and slow. While this would piss me off, many people would just follow the path of least resistance and give up on Google and start using Yahoo – it not like most people in the US have a choice of cable companiea.
One of the problems of the whole net neutrality debate is that everyone is dancing around the issue of whether or not Internet access is a public utility. Cable and telecom companies don’t want the idea to be put in people’s heads, progressives don’t want to mention it because it may be too hard for the average American to digest and will leave them open to vituperative attacks from conservatives.
I hate to slap an analogy down here, but I have to. Imagine one day you open your water bill and in it is a notice that starting next month you will be switched to “foul brown” water unless you decide to pay an additional $50 a month for “good clean” water. How would that make you feel?
OT Anne- there has been a call for housekeeping at the Service Desk.
*ilson hmmmm- do you mean in articles or comments?
I don’t know why I didn’t think of this sooner!
Canada has an example of what happens when net neutrality goes away. Telus (a telecom company) blocked websites that were critical of the company’s fight against unions.
The personalized “stories” are key to persuasion, irrepsetive of your fav ‘net neutrality analogy. The eminent philospher Simon Blackburn, in his cool little book “Being Good,” points out (in talking about religion) that we don’t simply have abstract principles to guide and persuade us, we have “stories.”
“irrepsetive”
OhMyGod…a Cabernet casualty.
cbl >”…lighten up on Ghostie and share your wisdom with us slow kids…”
No rudeness intended cause I AM trying to understand his confusion so as to attempt to craft a “better” analogy
Obviously Tony Soprano works for me
tatere >”…Net Neutrality is what we have always had and what we have now – it is not new regulation, it`s how it`s always run…”
EXACTLY
“We the people…” don`t need no Tony Sopranos buttin in
“…it’s the ideas that count, not the number of trees you kill to print them.” – Phil Carter@Info-dump.com
Re 54: Wull, they’re not as fast as LHP,* *ilson.
*Blessedly OUR type, thankya punaise!
punaise,
I didn’t get a chance but I thought “fiddle casse trop” was brilliant. Also I thought “alligator lizards” was a reference to clouds or possibly something more pharmacologic in origin but which, of course, I do not know from firsthand experience having read about it in a book somewhere once.
53, coz: ok, you’re trying! Good for you. But….what do you mean “if I have NO choice”?? I can’t contract with the ISP of my choice? Is that in the bill? Surely…not?
Confusion, confusion.
Ghostman
BobbyG- I hope you saw my comment and also other comments re: your graphic, on the previous thread. xxoxo
McCurry is a Wanker.
O/T -
Sorry (slight jpeg tweak and re-post).
http://www.bgladd.com/Just_a_Number.jpg
Pay it forward.
DaCascadian, don’t feed the trolls. Ghostman is of the “concern” variety (imho).
Valley Girl, yep. Sent it to Jane & Redd & Pach.
Thanks.
((((((*!*))))))
“Want a Smart Network or Dumb Pipe?”
Yes, i want a dumb pipe! Do you think I’m an idiot?
Some how this makes me think of turning on my faucet and instead of getting plain old potable tap water, never knowing if I’m gonna be forced to get prune juice instead. :p
Ghostman at 6:31 pm @ 18
Net neutrality what we have now: all internet traffic is created equal. You pay for your internet access (56k dialup, DSL, or Cable) to the internet and companies, organizations and people pay for their webhosting on the internet. Everyone has equal access to everyone else. If a part of the network goes down, e.g. a major power outage hits the Eastern coast of the USA, the traffic just gets re-routed.
It’s an unfortunate term for writing into law what already exists. If most Americans weren’t so cavalier about the Constitution or Bill of Rights, or the Magna Carta you could compare the bill to that. It’s not that we don’t already have it, it’s that we’re all going to agree we’re keeping it by writing it down.
The phone companies have been whining that they want to set up classes for the internet (e.g. 1st through 4th class passengers on a ship?) and charge more. They’re trying to say there’s no reason to enshrine net neutrality because they’d never ever try to treat some people’s web access or other people’s websites like 3rd rate citizens based on how much ransom they’re willing to pay.
It’s like saying “you can’t get into this gated community unless you want to slip me a $20!”.
Anyway, nice summary. We also need cartoons.
I do so admire the free-ranging mind that Punaise must have to constantly find such apropos puns! Would that I could be so creative …
*ilson 72 — Yeah buddy!
David E- is that the worst thing you can say about him?
Nope, that (73) didn’t come out right — I meant: me too. No, wait. I meant: he knocks me out too — but so do you.
way OT but: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06…..nted=print
NYTimes, June 17, 2006
2 Arms of Government Wrestle in Court
By KATE PHILLIPS
WASHINGTON, June 16 %u2014 A constitutional showdown between Congress and the Bush administration moved into federal court on Friday, as a federal judge peppered lawyers about the legal and historic significance of the F.B.I.’s search last month for evidence of bribery at the legislative offices of Representative William J. Jefferson.
The court arguments, over whether the search constituted a breach of the separation of powers afforded the three branches of government under the Constitution, occurred on the same day that the House voted by unanimous consent to strip Mr. Jefferson, a Louisiana Democrat, of his seat on the Ways and Means Committee.
Valley Girl – left you something at the service desk.
blush
I think this would be a good issue for Bill Clinton to get vocal about provided he is on our side. Josh made a list recently to find out who is fer it and who is agin it.
Like the bankruptcy bill, this vote will tell a lot about where a politician is.
No I am not from West Virginia.
Spell check didn’t like “fer” but had no problem with “agin”.
ok, hold the phone. 60, puppethead says an ISP could block some website it doesn’t like? Is that correct?? This bill would let an ISP BLOCK OUT any website it didn’t like, or didn’t want me to see? Is that correct? That’s huge, if correct.
Oh, and little LindyH….shove it.
Ghostman
Hee.
Ghostman,
“I can’t contract with the ISP of my choice? Is that in the bill? Surely%u2026not?”
Sure you can but you have to use a telco or cable connection to get there. That’s all we need them for, access to an already existing Internet, and nothing more.
Ghostman at 18 has stumbled onto an important point. Net neutrality has no meaning nor impact to the average voter, or even the average internet user. I think we need to frame the issue in simple terms. What we are trying to prevent is “letting the telecoms ruin your internet by levying new charges for no new services.” What we are for is “equal access to the internet for rich and poor alike.”
Also, if I were the turdblossom, I would label net neutrality “internet welfare.” So we should co-opt the negative “welfare” reference; perhaps call internet regulation “telecom welfare”.
K.I.S.S.
And Lindy H is absolutely correct, but don’t let that shut off the discussion just because the spoof started it.
I did not see it on the list but it was mentioned numerous times: If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it! Works for me.
As for the Tony Soprano analogy, It might not work for everyone: “You want your MFing internet. I got your MFing internet right here. I’ll show you who the MFing Fer is, MFer.”
Hugh 65
*ilson 73
thanks, fellas. I’m a little hesitant to do more than an occasional (note the one “s”!) drive-by comment in non-English. Bad manners, exclusionist, and all that. Then again, an on-the-spot translation could help, but I fear that becomes too pedantic. or just annoying.
for example: “fiddle casse trop” , the second two words French (casse trop breaks too much) and are pronounced like Castro.
I still don’t know what the hell *ilson was talking about. and heaven help me if the capitalization police shows up.
LindyH at 70, ghostman is not a troll, he has been with us I daresay longer than you.
In defense of Ghostman: not a troll in my book. He’s made an earnest effort lately to engage real dialogue.
Re 86: *ilson et moi, we res’ our case.
I vote for the HMO analogy — that is the appeal that will hit people in the gut and tap into all their frustrations with access to healthcare at a deep, personal level.
oh, lordy. *ilson (@ 79) got into the white zinfandel.
Fox News poll on the key gooper election issues:
——————————————————————————–
Law and Civil Rights
See also: Supreme Court | Crime | Education | News media | Online privacy | Race/Ethnicity | Religion | War on Terrorism
——————————————————————————–
Polls listed chronologically. Data are from nationwide surveys of Americans 18 & older.
.
.
.
FOX News/Opinion Dynamics Poll. June 13-14, 2006. N=900 registered voters nationwide. MoE ± 3.
.
“Do you believe gays and lesbians should be allowed to get legally married, allowed a legal partnership similar to but not called marriage, or should there be no legal recognition given to gay and lesbian relationships?”
.
Legally
Married Legal
Partnership No Legal
Recognition Unsure
% % % %
6/13-14/06 27 25 39 8
5/04 25 26 40 9
3/04 20 33 40 7
.
“Do you think the issue of whether gays and lesbians can legally marry should be decided at the state or federal level?”
.
State Federal Unsure
% % %
6/13-14/06 48 38 13
.
“Do you think burning the American flag should be legal or illegal?”
.
Legal Illegal Unsure
% % %
6/13-14/06 21 73 6
——————————————————————————–
FYI: your personal connection to the Internet is 2 different things
A. the “wire” to connect you to the Internet generally (dialup, DSL, cable, satellite)
B. ISP servers that provide you Email, Usenet, DHCP (your temporary IP address), DNS (address lookup)
85, op99….tsk, tsk, tsk. I try to have a conversation, and you just gotta behave like the child. Well, ok. I seem to recall that you bit my head off 10 or so days ago. I hear tell that just last weekend something bit you back.
Strange spirits float around out there. Always keep your eyes open when you decide to attack someone. Good day, opper.
Ghostman
So 73% of americans are of the opinion that burning the american flag (the only way of disposing of it according to flag etiquette) should be illegal. Why is this not surprising?
op99 says:
June 16th, 2006 at 7:24 pm
‘Telecom welfare’ works – but more people would probably get it if you call it ‘cable company welfare’ and ‘phone company welfare’. ‘Telecom’ is a big word to a lot of people (not excluding most elected officials).
Another analogy: You can’t get to a Target or K-mart without going through a Wal-Mart parking lot (the long way through, not the short way).
Ghostman,
I’ll give it a try.
First of all tatere [@ 6:55 pm (#40)] is right, Net Neutrality is the situation as it exists now. I should say, the way it’s supposed to exist. There are occasional exceptions that until now have been correctable. See [puppethead @ 7:10 pm (#60)] for an example. That’s the problem, if the telcos have their way, it will no longer be correctable.
What’s confusing you about whether other traffic is “slow” or “stopped” is that it will really, practically speaking be stopped most of the time. They just say it will be prioritized. You see, there’s a priority for people who pay the “protection” and another one for those who don’t (mob or “Sopranos” analogy). In actual fact, it’s just easier and more efficient to just throw the traffic away rather than slow it down. It’s really not even close. That’s what I was saying last night here:
http://www.firedoglake.com/200…..ent-144552
The telcos talk like the mob would talk: “Nice restaurant. It’d be too bad if it had an accident.” But just like when Guido says “accident”, he means “we come in and trash the place”, the telcos say “prioritize”, but they really mean “block”.
So, what the telcos are really after is a protection racket – they’d be able to charge anyone for the privilege of sending data over their domain. Kapish?
In the late 90s, a whole lot of companies – Cisco, Juniper, Nortel, Avaya, Alcatel, etc. – were selling boxes with huge throughput and port counts (speeds and feeds). They also came up with these cool technologies like MPLS and QoS schemes that gave the boxes huge potential for differentiating services.
Go-go telcoms took on debt to build the network operations centers (NOCs) with all these cool boxes and fiber build out, and the box-pushers took on debt to have them manufactured and hire prima donna 20-something engineers and 30-something overcompensated stock-optioned executives.
The bottom fell out of the speculative market – no one really needed that capacity. Everyone was pretty happy with how fast innovative web services companies used existing bandwidth. The only significant use of bandwidth was teleconferencing, and some companies came up with specific solutions that didn’t really require consistent amounts of huge bandwidth.
So a bunch of bankruptcies, mergers, buyouts and selloffs later, companies are looking to recoup a lot of bad debt, and put assets to some use.
It’s bogus. They made bad investments in property and equipment, and see differentiation into superhighways and cart paths as a workable solution.
Ghostman: to (mis)quote Ronald Reagan: “The most terrifying words any American could ever hear is: ‘We’re the Federal Government, and we’ve come to help.’”
The internet ain’t broke, so it don’t need no fixin’. The whole premise of the telcos position on net neutrality is your real bogeyman: speculation that something will degrade/go wrong/break unless there is (federal) intervention. They come up with a preemptive “solution”, which conveniently improves their bottom line.
MasonMcD, that about nails, awright. Thanks.
rwcole @ 7:33 pm (#96) – The same reason that the anti-flag burning orgies are so popular in Congress, which, not coincidently, are the only time I get the urge to burn one.
a personal note: a few years ago at a local government entity, my boss knew I was perfectly capable in principle of burning a US flag in protest. She wisely assigned me the responsibility of ‘flag flying’ — making sure the flags were flown properly, replacing torn flags, lowering flags to half-mast when appropriate, etc. I felt proud and burned nary a one!
Anne- so apparently I have been EPU’d, because I am a slow typist. But, there is an update for you at the Service Desk.
nails it. Whoops. (Gotta learn to use Preview more!)
Fidel Castro! I thought you were talking about too much of a violin case…
Jesus’ General, in the house!
(upstairs.)
new thread
PJ Evans 97,
I was thinking that as I typed it – yours is definitely better. I’m sure the clever firedogs could refine it even further.
MasonMcD @ 7:36 pm (#99) I think the other problem there is that as long as the majority of homes in this country are limited to 1.5 Mbps or dialup speeds, there’s not going to be as much demand for all that bandwidth in between. If they arrange the boxes and cables right, I get that kind of performance just about all the time, and even got it when I had cable Internet (when the link wasn’t broken, of course).
But I it will take at least an hour to download an hour TV program in any format. As long as that’s true, the next jump in Net utilization isn’t going to happen.
As we observed last night (someone did, anyway), the “last mile” is the really expensive part of the local telco’s networks. They need money to improve that segment, and they just don’t see how to raise it. As someone else observed last night (I believe it was Billmon), that’s probably one of the motivations for this anti-Net Neutrality push.
This place is amazing. And I like having Ghostman around. The best way to win a debate is to have all sides of the argument examined, challenged and dissected.
Unless you have Karl Rove around to win by dirty tricks. That works too, sadly.
*ilson 103, that was brilliant.
Hey Everyone,
One aspect of Net Neutrality that rarely gets mentioned is that the telcos’ rationale is they need funding to upgrade the network/the equipment/the little elves who make the Net Fast and Reliable for You!(tm). They imply that if Congress doesn’t give them this right to implement this business model, the next generation Net won’t get built. Boo-hoo. Why do you hate the Net, Net Neutralists?
One thing everyone should consider is that the model they’re proposing is only ONE model, and that other countries are already implementing OTHER models … and foreign companies in many countries are giving their customers blazing-fast Internet speeds for cheaper than what Americans pay.
In South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan, you can get broadband for a song. I once got 8 meg/min downloads for a total of about $20/month (combined fee to the national telephone company plus the actual broadband ISP). In fact, this was an example of net neutrality (or more accurately, “common carrier”), in that you had to pay the lackluster national telephone company to provide a DSL “pipe” with a DSL modem, but you could choose your actual service provider, who competed for your business by offering different speeds, prices, etc.
In some of the Scandanavian countries, they have speeds that let you download entire movies in minutes. So, they’re already working on the next-generation Internet without giving the telcos permission to control what comes through the pipes.
Obviously, not every model is feasible in the US, but my point is Net Neutrality advocates need to arm themselves with counter-examples to point out that: 1.) Americans are getting screwed by the high broadband prices already, and 2.) there are more options than the telcos or Mike McCurry are telling us.
(Hint: your cell phone service in the US also stinks, but most people pay the extortionist rates because they don’t realize that cell phone service is becoming dirt cheap in the rest of the world. When Malaysia offers cooler and cheaper cell phone service than is available in the US, you should wonder why.)
An even larger issue is what the national policy on upgrading our infrastructure to compete with Asian and European countries is … or maybe it’s not a national policy, but a regional or even local policy, because the countries I’ve mentioned usually have a higher population density than we do. It’s not just defending what we have (Net Neutrality) it’s about building the best architecture for the future.
I can see a “Harry and Louise” series of commercials. She sells cosmetics online, small home business, to make ends meet.
(LOT of Avon ladies out there.) Then the law changes: she can’t access her customers without paying an extra fee, and they can’t get to her. They can get to the big stores for free. She’s outraged. “They get you coming and going.” Show fat greedy congressman in a suit with a fan of bills walking away. Show Harry and Louise getting their home repossessed.
Cujo359 at 7:49 pm (#110),
Another issue is copyright, and DRM (digital rights management). A lot of good content is held back by the rights holders because of fear of piracy.
I think at the moment, Apple is the one doing some proof-of-concept with iTunes, from the songs, to TV shows.
As long as the content is as cheap to download legally (in terms of money, time, or bother), as it is to get off Limewire or whatever, things will be fine.
It’s when people get greedy that things get ugly. But the telcos shouldn’t have the upper hand in a battle of supply and demand. The commodity should be the content, not the delivery system. Who wants to give the Culligan man control of the canteen in the desert?
Let me if I got this right (because I’m confused too).
The internet runs just fine as it is now, even on my lowly dial-up. The cable and phone companies want to “regulate it” so they can make more money. It’s not broke but the cable company and phone company want federal law so they make more money and make the internet “pay per view” in addition to the monthly fees charged by my internet provider.
I like the HMO analogy best. Anybody who’s ever belonged to an HMO hates the way they limit your choices (or make you pay more for what you want).
I pretended I was hearing about net neutrality for the first time and knew nothing about it (not much of a stretch, believe me!) – then went through the choices.
The one that jumped right out at me was:
LEVEL PLAYING FIELD – far and away – so if I’m going by “gut check,” that’s the one!
Also, from Conceptual Guerilla:
Abolishing net neutrality
“You see, we bloggers have become a big pain in the ass to the Republican/corporate power structure. It seems we’re sharing entirely too much information about what they’re up to. Their solution? Create some corporate gate keepers to pull the plug on all this information sharing.
Oh, and I hope you understand that this is exactly what is going on. It isn’t AT&T worrying about not making enough money for what they charge to use their “pipes.” That’s just the facial justification. Because they can’t say “the internet is making it impossible for us to loot the country.” I’m willing to bet a little investigation will reveal that the telecoms did not come to Congress asking to change “net neutrality.” I’ll just bet it was the other way around. Someone inside of the Republican power structure — maybe Karl Rove, himself — went to the telecoms to get them to shill for this change, all in the name of “profit” doncha know. Because after all, the progressive blogosphere is absolutely savaging those bastards — and they need to do something about it.”
Sorry, I know that’s not short and pithy. I guess I’d go for toll booth…but out here in my area we don’t have them.
Actually, I like the UPS driver making people move over. Or the mayor. Outraged driver: “Whaddaya mean I have to move over and wait for the mayor? I’m as good as he is! I paid for this road too!” (Long-suffering wife:) “The Republican congress doesn’t think so, Hank. They passed the law, us ‘little people’ have to stop for the big shots.”
Ghostman, I think of what the telcos are trying to do to internet access for the pipes they “control” is exactly what they are doing for their multimedia phone services.
For example, on the newer phones many of the items are “a la carte”. You want to have ESPN? Pay an extra $7 on top of what you already pay. You want Cartoon channel? Pay an extra $3 a month.
Right now, the internet allows you to go where you want, no matter the destination, at the same speed based on what you signed up for. If you signed up for dial-up you get around 56k, which is slow compared to cable speeds. If you signed for cable, it’s faster, but it costs more (called broadband).
So imagine, you are paying the rate for cable internet access like I am with Time Warner, roughly $50 a month, and Net Neutrality is gone, obliterated by Congress at the behest of the telcos. Time Warner can now degrade the overall speed of my internet access and demand I pay more to visit different “sections” of the internet. I want to visit news sites faster? Pay an extra $7 a month. I want entertainment sites to show video faster? Pay an extra $5 a month, I want premium sports sites? Pay an extra $5…
To make it worse, they could also block access to competitors or sites they deem “unfriendly”. I might wind up not being able to get to favorite blogs at all, because Time Warner doesn’t like them.
Basically, it’s another revenue stream, and I am forced to pay it to have the same speed I had before net neutrality was destroyed. Worse yet, they could actually block certain sites and I couldn’t ever visit them.
I also would not have any choice in the matter, as Time Warner is a monopoly, and I have no choice but to choose them for high speed internet access.
The telcos are greedy, plain and simple, and they are using their muscle, money, and mccurry’s to lobby congress to get their new revenue stream.
They must be stopped and Net Neutrality must be written into the law to protect the way the internet was born, and the way it has grown up.
My votes:
HMO,
Tony Soprano
You will pay
No Free Lunch
Fast food
(roughly in that order, but they’re all good).
–MarkusQ
The point on dark fiber and the last mile is that, first, all this talk about investment in newer, bigger access roads is a lie. The access roads are already in place. The capital expenditures have already been made, discounted and absorbed into the companies who have survived the internet bubble. There is no need to pay extra money to the telcos to get them to lay fiber to deliver the services promised in the most recent ad. The fiber (called “dark fiber” because it is in place but not in use*) has already been laid. They have to make the case that it is not in anybody’s business interest to light that fiber in an environment which does not permit packet discrimination. It is instructive that they have not tried to make that case.
The point on the last mile is that even if you buy service from a non-backbone provider for your local access, as I do from Covad, the owner of the copper that you plug into your router or computer is your local baby bell or your local cable company. These people could engage in packet discrimination in the initial contact with the net. I actually called Covad tech support and confirmed this some time ago. While my packets travel pretty quickly to a Covad DNS server, they do so over Verizon circuits.
—————-
*A personal example. When I decided that having fast internet connectivity was essential to my business, NYNEX (pre-Verizon) showed up with a backhoe and dug a trench from 2nd Avenue to my office, installing fiber to support 45 T-1 lines. They terminated that in my office, in order to provide a 384K fractional T-1 (out 1.5MB). I eventually upgraded to a full T, but that fiber is now all dark. There are 45 T-1s residing on 89th street, all dark. The point is that if they are going to pull fiber, it simply makes business sense to set up a big pipe. And they did. Everywhere.
MasonMcD @ 8:02 pm (#114) – You’re right, the content producers themselves are an obstacle, but cable TV lets you download a TV program in real time, essentially. DSL and cable Internet are too slow in this country to provide a competing service. The 8Mbps Respectful Dissent mentioned (#112) is twice the best data rate I’ve ever gotten in this country, and I paid twice as much to get it.
Don’t get me started on content providers …
Dover Bitch, I’m not even sure I should really have a vote here. I’m too technical. I don’t need this stuff explained to me. I understand it well enough to decide. What I need to know is what resonates with the people who don’t understand it yet.
From a technical point of view, the UPS truck or the HOV lane vs. stuck in traffic analogies work best. They explain why Net Neutrality will work when it’s implemented.
From the web business point of view, the mob or toll road analogies work best. That’s how they’ll probably see this.
From the consumer’s point of view, it’s probably the cable TV analogy or the level playing field argument from the consumer’s point of view. The one downside to the cable TV analogy is that there’s no equivalent to Net Neutrality. In cable TV, the providers get paid to provide the content, not the other way round. Still, that’s an illustration of what the future of the Internet will look like for the guy at his home computer if there’s no more net neutrality. The “level playing field” one probably will work better for that reason. The UPS, HOV, and mob analogies have their value here, also, because they show how it would work and why.
I vote for HMO, because it has the added benefit of being anti-Fristian.
Respectful Dissent at 112 has it right. This an instance of a telecom oligopoly in the US providing dramatically inferior service when compared to other countries. The telcos are trying to institutionalize this oligopolist pricing model.
The latest ad is more effective than the ones before because it comes closer to making the argument that could actually be a valid one–that unless the telcos can discriminate against packets, then they won’t have the financial incentive to build the network. But, as Respectful Dissent points out, that network has been built in other countries. And I’d add that the telcos have spent way more money on trying to create a government-enforced monopoly (at the federal, state and local levels) than they have on innovation. They’ve worked very hard to institute monopoly pricing regimes, which can only be established by government intervention.
What if Rove is behind this anti-net neutrality push? And, if he is, does that mean it will just break along party lines?
From Rawstory:
Rove: Right use Net to ‘broaden our appeal,’ while left use it to ‘mobilize hate and anger’
Rove had harsh words to say about the effectiveness of liberal and democratic blogs.
“Among Democrats, my sense is that the blog world has tended to strengthen the far Left of the Democratic Party at the expense of liberal, but somewhat less liberal, members of their party,” Rove said.
Instead of “focusing on good ideas,” Rove opined that the “Internet for the Left of the Democratic Party” only “mobilize hate and anger.”
“It has tended to sort of drive their party even further to the Left rather than focusing on good ideas that would help unite people around common goals and common purposes,” said Rove.
“Instead, the Internet for the Left of the Democratic Party has served as a way to mobilize hate and anger %u2014 hate and anger, first and foremost, at this President and Conservatives, but then also at people within their own party whom they consider to be less than completely loyal to this very narrow, very out-of-the-mainstream, very far Left-wing ideology that they tend to represent,” Rove continued.
“I think the Democrat focus, or at least the Internet blog world focus, if you will, is, ‘How can we punish our enemies and express our anger?’” Rove added.
More…
http://www.rawstory.com/news/2….._0616.html
As the saying goes, architecture is politics. I don’t know enough about the different telco/broadband models and services in different countries to advocate one, but when Big American Telco says, “we can’t build the next-generation internet unless we change the fundamental architecture of the Internet” we should ask, “then why does Sweden have it already? Or [insert Country X]?” It’s worth researching and broadening (heh) the discussion to include refuting the oligopolists with counter-examples. It might get really wonky, really quickly though.
everhopeful @ 8:58 pm (#126) – The precedents there aren’t pretty. Now that there’s no longer an equal time requirement in television, look how slanted the opinions have become toward the right. In both television and telecommunications, a handful of companies control most of the market. In TV land, it’s just about impossible to hear an idea opposed by the TV corporation bigwigs (when did you last hear or see a commercial advocating looser copyright controls, for instance? Thought so.
I’m certainly concerned that if Net Neutrality is no longer enforced, that the same thing could happen here on the Internet. I certainly see no reason to suppose it won’t.
Cujo #128: It looks pretty grim, huh? I’m trying to stay “everhopeful” but it’s getting ever more difficult.
Which means, of course, that we just have work that much harder and that much smarter NOW to keep our internet.
The issue to me is access of information. I like the HMO analogy, because most people have bad experiences with HMOs, or at least grumble about the loss of choice. It’s a built-in negative. Plus, on down the road, we can use the victory of Net Neutrality in a universal healthcare debate.
Another analogy: Letting your ISP determine content availability is like letting your newpaper delivery person decide which sections of the newspaper you get that day.
I’m wondering – if we lose net neutrality now, due to Karl Rove’s rubber stamp congress, could a newly-elected democratic congress reverse it next year?
An awesome thread – the variety of ideas has changed my opinion in a helpful way. Debate, progress: what government should shoot for.
Anyways. Maybe a consolidated (and idealistic) view would have targeted ads: for consumers – fast food, HMOs, level playing field/small business; regionally – post offices/UPS for rural areas (trust me on this one), toll roads for urban/suburban areas (and Sopranos for Newark and anywhere with HBO, ha); and blunt, internet-savvy explications for, well, a lot of us, including most young people.
So who’s doing the ads, and how do we pay for them? And do we have time?
I’ll help. Let me know.
While I like the HMO analogy, I would also suggest an analogy something along the lines of existing telephone land line communication especially on the local level. What the telcos want to do with the internet can be compared to say not letting you call Aunt Millie’s number because she complained about her telephone service. Or making you wait to connect when you call your parents while a call to Walmart goes through immediately. Or an ad could have you talking on the phone to your parents while your parents voices are slowed waaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyy dowwwwwnnnnnnwn. A call to Walmart could have the Walmart voice speeded up.
Toll booth
HMO
Key: people don’t like to wait or be bossed around.
egregious @88:
No? Mea culpa and apologies to the ghost. The not understanding part just seems disingeneous to me.
What we have here is our elected officials are falling to the mighty corperate lobby, we need to get word out also and send these spineless ones packing in November.
Even though I heard there is about 800,000 probably more now that have signed a petition to Congress I still don’t think it will make a dif. with these so called represenatives of ours, having said this our only option would be to vote in these mid-terms and show them the exit!!!
*****
We all pay for our phone lines and internet service. If what we pay isn’t enough for the communication companies to keep up with technological demands (yeah, right) then the providers should simply work to increase their rates, not become a dictator to internet access. You can get the money you need without sacrificing the integrity of the world wide web. It’s that simple, folks.
*****
Nuts, I wanted to participate in this Net Neutrality discussion, but I’m on the road and it’s tough to get time right now to jump on line for this.
This entire mess reminds me of Monty Python’s Cheese Shop sketch; telcos are supposed to get us something, but they have difficulty getting us what they’re supposed to provide now without hassle. If you’ve had to order phone service from AT&T any time recently, you know what I mean. The real crux of this situation is that the telcos are a dying business model asking for us to pay for their resuscitation; they are challenged by more competition than they’ve ever had and they don’t know how to compete, having been a monopoly or an oligopoly since its inception.
But what we are talking about is our fundamental human right to free speech and free press, both of which are protected in other mediums, like broadcast radio and television; the bandwidth/airwaves are our commons in which we speak and print freely, which we license at our discretion for our ultimate benefit. What I think we need to addres short-term is a discussion of the nature of telecommunications, regardless of the carrier. Should telephone and cable providers be subject to similar kinds of treatment as broadcasters? Are they really providing access to that which is a commons that belongs to the people? If so, shouldn’t we simply tell them that what they are doing must be in the best interest of all Americans and must be? If speaking freely (whether actual speech or other communications format) is a fundamental right, should any corporation(s) have the right to shape that speech through monetary/physical incentives/disincentives?
BTW — I go with the fast food. Even my kids will get it.
I also like the fast food analogy. And pardon me if someone posted this upthread – I searched for “Kos” and didn’t find it – but there’s an excellent diary posted at dKos on the Net Neutrality issue. It starts w/the analogy of going to the gas station to find that you can’t just pump the gas anymore; you have to pay for a special gas cap that pumps just that company’s gas, etc. It has some more good points for all of us to use.
Tony Soprano – Simple, clear, short, memorable (It’s the one I repeated to my wife.) You get it instantly – this is all about extorting protection money.
(1) cable TV; (2) toll roads; (3) HMO. Special jury prize if you can target the audience: level playing field.
Any of these will work if we can come up with a punchy sound bite.
Phone Company:
Phone co. neutrality = net neutrality. I buy phone service, then I decide who I call and when, and I pay for the calls I’ve made.
But if there’s no ‘net neutrality,’ and I want to contact the local pizza shop, then the internet provider can switch my call to Dominoes. And if I still really want to reach my local pizza shop, then I’d have to pay extra for the call or my local pizza shop would have to pay extra. Or they could make my call to the local pizza shop take twice or three times as long to connect through the static.
The un-Google
http://www.economist.com/print…..id=7064434
Just returned from a wonderful day in a canoe. The canoe rental man said today. I am worried about Americans, people call me all of the time assuming the river floats in circles. They don’t understand floating down river.
BIG TELEPHONE WANTS YOU!!!! to pay for free internet…
Big telephone wants 411 fees on all pages of the internet.
Big telephone wants to turn the internet into a vending machine.
Long distance is not enough for big telcos, they now want to charge per word.
Telephone companies want to charge you an entrance fee for at every internet mall.
Big telephone wants to make the entire internet pay per view.
Big telco/cable wants you to visit PayPal every time you view the internet.
Buy your air from big telephone/cable companies. Net neutrality.
Telephone/cable companies want to charge you for a google search. Net Neutrality.
Telephone/cable companies want to tell you who you can call. Net Neutrality.
Telephone/cable companies want to put a governor on your internet carburetor.
Telephone/cable companies want to charge your Mom for receiving e-mailed baby pictures from you. Net Neutrality.
Pay telephone/cable companies to hold your remote control. Net Neutrality.
Telephone/cable companies want to stuff a potato in your internet muffler, for a fee.
Telephone/cable companies now want to charge for how fast you speak.
Telephone/cable companies want you to handle all of your internet connections through your belly button.
Telephone/cable companies want more control than the NSA.
Telephone/cable companies want to sell you internet usage like toilet paper, one square at a time.
Net Neutrality- Want to read your newspaper online and then pay big telephone/cable companies a fee to be able to read it?- Net Neutrality
Big Telephone/cable wants to burn the flag.
The last mile is pretty irrelevent to the problems the Telcos face. Coaxial cable and Multi-plexing have taken care of most of that.
In this regard ‘bandwidth’ and ‘download speeds’ aren’t the same thing.
They have at least 400 to 500 times more capacity to move data right now then they can ever hope to sell.
Back in the 90s CLECs and ILECs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CLEC
spent a lot of money trying to corner their small chunk of the up and coming commodity called “bandwidth”. Hundreds of companies were formed with the sole goal of laying out fiber optic cable and co-axial drops. Most of these companies were given tax incentives and monopoly status to be the ONLY ones who could lay fiber and co-axial drops in a given community. In return they agreed that ANYBODY and EVERYBODY would be able use they fiber for the same unit price.
The technology changed (~2002) and ‘bandwidth’ as a commodity disappeared. Hundreds of companies went bankrupt and the consoldation of the Telecommunications Industry into 4 mega-corps began.
Even with Net Neutrality out of the way the Telcos would still have far more bandwidth than they could possibly sell.
Imagine being charged an extra fee by the traffic cop to use an intersection because your car is white?
EPU’d as usual, and a day late but..Anne @ 7:05PM
Best suggestion yet.
I still like “Free information, not fee information.”
Someone mentioned that other countries would keep net neutrality while US would be “left behind” again. Another good point.
I have tried to get younger people (including my 3 in their 20’s) to call their reps & sens…they live & breathe internet…but they just have that “ho, hum” expression. Makes me want to tear my hair out.
I think that the two which the most people will be able to relate to are the fast food analogy and the HMO analogy (which could be fleshed out even more).
In re what ironranger says about the younger set, how about a couple of analogies for them:
Music: How would you like it if you could not listen to the station you wanted (or buy the CD’s, mpegs, etc.) because none of the small independent labels could afford what the Religious broadcasters could.
Makes me think of the song American Pie actually.
Another analogy for the younger set:
Your parents may not like some of the sites you visit/belong to, but they allow you to because it costs them nothing. What if you can only get to those sites by paying a large fee and your parents refuse to fork over the money?
I like the HMO analagy best. Fast Food one second.
I like using multiple analogies. Especially liked the HMO–it’s simple and everyone can relate/understand. No one likes the HMO model, most people really hate it so using it brings up that all important emotional gut level response. Sadly this is far more effective than appealing to reason alone.
I second Leslie’s call-out of the Kos post (a gas station analogy).
http://www.firedoglake.com/200…..ent-146389
Also Anne’s post at
er, sorry. Hit post too soon. Or Anne’s comment at
abo ve
I won’t weigh in on which of the analogies listed here works best for me (there are several excellent choices), but will say that, along with many other (in my case former) Northern Virginians, I witnessed a preview of the net neutrality problem in the 1980s.
The Dulles Access Road, a 4 lane highway that connects Dulles Airport to the DC beltway, carved a corridor through the Western suburbs of the DC area that allowed no local traffic. It was built, at considerable taxpayer expense, so that Congress and its staff would have a nice, uncontested drive to Dulles Airport.
I had an office that overlooked the Access Road in the 1980s, and many times could count on one hand the number of vehicles that passed along both directions of the Access Road in the course of a minute, while traffic flooded local roads.
So there you have it – a public resource, paid for by the public, that could only be used by the privileged (or those who live and travel where they do). Like the alternatives to net neutrality, a monumental waste and a scam understood by very few.
The no free lunch meme works for me. Although the concept of rent seeking might be hard to explain to the average joe.
Personally I reckon the nets a pretty much nuclear bombproof sort of ‘tar-baby’ and I almost feel sorry for any fool that messes with her BUT the ‘ Manchurian Global’ arrogance of corporations like Cisco, Microsoft and Yahoo colluding with fascist regimes in order to censor and jail people makes me sick.
I want those who believe they can censor the net to know fear…to taste fear.
Cutting off their vig is just the start of it.
I personally think “Website Impartiality” would have been a better choice of terms for what we’re arguing for than “Net Neutrality”.
If VeriZomcast were to have a financial stake in, say, Fox News, which of your local TV affiliates will have the best streaming video of the local news?
I think this is all still dancing around the gorilla in the room. The closest Dover Bitch’s list of analogies comes to getting at the most dangerous (and potentially persuasive) element of the issue is:
Competitive information: Without Net Neutrality, there’s no reason the companies controlling your web access won’t deny access to information they don’t like.
But why not come out and say that this can include POLITICAL information that they don’t like? Without net neutrality the telecom industry can control political speech on the internet every bit as much as they already control political speech on TV. Compared to this the fact that they’d also be charging us more is peanuts. The fact that they could be steering us to online retailer A rather than online retailer B also pales in comparison.
It is THIS danger, of corporations controlling the content that users can access (in practice, affordably, etc.) on the internet, that should form the core of the message.
i like the AOL, Compuserve analogy. They lost a lot of customers the last time this was tried. AOL could have been the biggest ISP if they had provided the Internet in 1996, instead of making it a difficult and slow link to get to.
The same thing happened to Webcrawler and Altavista. They were the biggest search engines, but finding what you were searching for became impossible, as sponsored links filled the first few pages of results. Google merely gave real searchs again.
_
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Tell you what. How ’bout you people pay to build and maintain a nationwide highway system, but you route things so that, every once in a while, stuff has to flow across my privately owned quarter mile bridge, or my 100 mile stretch of road. I’ll get stinking rich charging higher than needed rates for these little hops, and you people can stuff it. How’s that sound?
Now, let’s talk internet routes.
just two things.
- smart network /dumb pipe is false analogy – they could make the network “smart” for all types of traffic that need it (voice, video) across the board without “toll roads”
- I like toll road analogy.
- interstate highway system analogy also good. what if walmart got to send its trucks in the fast lane on the interstate, while small businessmen had to eat their dust.
“mob bosses running toll roads”