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Net Neutrality is Dead; Goodbye Interwebs
12 years ago
Net neutrality was struck down in the United States Court of Appeals today. What this means is that Internet service providers can limit the speed of access to certain sites and services or even block access altogether. So, providers in America are no longer required to provide access to all sites on the Net, and can give preferential treatment to services they provide, blocking competitors from providing alternative services. Your cable Net access provider doesn't like your DSL or fiber optic providers's movie service competition? They can simply block you from using it now.
They can also save their resources for beefing up access to only their own services, or just make it more expensive to use competing services. Therefore, it will be back to the AOL and Compuserve days, when the "Internet" was actually just access to small closed network services, and maybe email. It will also come to resemble cable television more, where the Internet is just used to provide access to a smaller and smaller number of set content streaming networks. Naturally, the days of sites like Fur Affinity are numbered.
In short, the Internet is dying. And with things having already been leaning in this direction with only a handful of competing services providing access to commercially produced productions and such, the age of everything from amateur arts to simple game streaming will come to an end. The Internet will gradually just become a very limited little set top box that helps you watch more cable television shows with "original" programming, like that last series about mobsters, or the one before that about prison, or the one before that which was also about mobsters, or quirky killers, or quirky vampires, or the several shows and movies about zombies, and so on. As we move to tablets rather than computers that can do actual work and to more such mindless consumption, there won't be any need for silly things like keyboards or stylus, or the ability to make anything of our own using computers. We will just have these little mobile television screens that help us turn off our brains, but don't provide access to Wikipedia anymore cause Wikipedia was non-profit and didn't have a deal with Verizon.
Then we will entertain ourselves to death while slowly forgetting how to write, or draw, or that we ever even had choices on the Net to begin with. It will be a great new world of boundless possibilities for network profits to look forward to. Home pages? Social networks? Our own creativity? Who needs any of that when we can have faster streaming of the latest movies about the latest young adult fiction novels, or more zombies?
Of course, the concentration on zombies lately has not been a coincidence. They have been preparing us for when we would become the zombies ourselves. Quiet, entertained, and without thought or objection. Goodbye Internet, it was fun while it lasted.
Rave
They can also save their resources for beefing up access to only their own services, or just make it more expensive to use competing services. Therefore, it will be back to the AOL and Compuserve days, when the "Internet" was actually just access to small closed network services, and maybe email. It will also come to resemble cable television more, where the Internet is just used to provide access to a smaller and smaller number of set content streaming networks. Naturally, the days of sites like Fur Affinity are numbered.
In short, the Internet is dying. And with things having already been leaning in this direction with only a handful of competing services providing access to commercially produced productions and such, the age of everything from amateur arts to simple game streaming will come to an end. The Internet will gradually just become a very limited little set top box that helps you watch more cable television shows with "original" programming, like that last series about mobsters, or the one before that about prison, or the one before that which was also about mobsters, or quirky killers, or quirky vampires, or the several shows and movies about zombies, and so on. As we move to tablets rather than computers that can do actual work and to more such mindless consumption, there won't be any need for silly things like keyboards or stylus, or the ability to make anything of our own using computers. We will just have these little mobile television screens that help us turn off our brains, but don't provide access to Wikipedia anymore cause Wikipedia was non-profit and didn't have a deal with Verizon.
Then we will entertain ourselves to death while slowly forgetting how to write, or draw, or that we ever even had choices on the Net to begin with. It will be a great new world of boundless possibilities for network profits to look forward to. Home pages? Social networks? Our own creativity? Who needs any of that when we can have faster streaming of the latest movies about the latest young adult fiction novels, or more zombies?
Of course, the concentration on zombies lately has not been a coincidence. They have been preparing us for when we would become the zombies ourselves. Quiet, entertained, and without thought or objection. Goodbye Internet, it was fun while it lasted.
Rave
Ludicrosity !
Also the internet isnt a thing, its an idea, or better its a conglomerate of many things, I somehow doubt you can effectively control it one way or another, not in the current state it is in. Regardless, I doubt this will have any effect on the way I as a German citizen use the Internet, seeing that I use a German ISP and such.
I have been reading articles about the issue for years, but I don't see why the congress here would do such a thing when the lobbying forces seem to be stronger for attacking neutrality than enforcing it, although it's true that some heavy hitters at least claim to support it. Besides, this is the same congress that can't even seem to keep the government open consistently. I doubt they will act fast and with unity now that the need has arisen from the judicial branch. As you may have heard, our system is kind of broken right now when it comes to legislation.
Of course they can control most of the Internet, at least in my part of the world, if the few major service providers most people have available to them go into war mode and divide it into fiefdoms, which may well be what happens. I hope it won't start a trend in the rest of the world, though as I mentioned, other regions have their own problems with Net access as it is. The general trend seems to be towards less open Net and more spying on what Net access does remain.
Doom and gloom, I say!
I have heard some of the arguments on Verizon's side about torrents and such. It's a valid aspect of the issue to consider. But it's hard for me to trust all their motives when they are currently engaged in such a winner-takes-all struggle with other access and content providers. They just have so many motives for abusing this.
But of course I hope you are right and everything turns out OK. I had better post more on FA while I still can in the coming year in the meantime though, just in case the sky really is falling.