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There was an appeals court ruling recently that said that Comcast was not in the wrong for slowing down some sites for downloads. The reason being that the FCC does not, currently, have the legal right to regulate the use of the Internet by individual companies. And there has been an outcry on the Internet about fair use and monopolies and half a dozen other things that include the end of the World as we know it.
Am I the only one who remembers when you had to dial into the Internet to use a service that would allow you to participate in the World Wide Web? I was a member, still am I think, of AOL. I got the software that allowed me to go onto the web through a phone number from my computer. I paid monthly for the privilege to use that phone number. I had an e-mail address, groups that I belonged, and access to the rest of the web. Now I pay the phone company to have an Internet portal in my home but my e-mail is through my Mac account and my G-mail account. I have a Yahoo email for the groups that I belong to. And I have those AOL accounts that I haven’t looked at in years but I know they are still there.
AOL did regulate where I could go on the web and what I could do. I knew that going in. Only occasionally was I stymied by trying to get to a website in Europe or Russia. AOL would slow down things that caused them to lose bandwidth and we all knew it. There was talk of a two-tiered system and one would pay more for a faster connection for a while but then the phone companies got into it and AOL sank faster than the Titanic.
While I was on AOL, I worked for the Academic Assistance Center aka the Homework Helpers. I did a lot of work with kids and their homework. I also told a lot of kids to go DO their homework and stop trying to get me to do it for them. AOL has used some of my articles as part of the homework help for years. And for this work, I got to use AOL unlimited for no fee other than my work for a certain number of hours. Apparently I am part of a class action lawsuit and settlement against AOL for the number of hours I put into the program. I have to recall all the names I used but it is hard because I had to change the name with the policy changes.
What Comcast is doing is no different than what AOL did. The disconnect is in the short term memory that people have about how the web worked and works. The service providers are not there for their health, they are there for profit and they are still figuring out how they can profit from the web. Yes, I have read the doom and gloom scenarios about censorship and slower downloading times for certain sites leading to the banning of sites. And how these services try to get you to use their search engine before Google. It is for the ad revenue plain and simple.
No one screams censorship because certain sites are blocked at their workplace or slow download for certain sites (that maybe they shouldn’t be on). I couldn’t access AOL on my work computer and that was fine. I did what I needed at home. MP-3s were banned on the server at my work because it was eating up bandwidth like no one’s business and a lot of it was illegal downloads of music. The exception was the music department and the audio department but that made sense. It’s their servers and their rules. And for Comcast and all the rest of the providers it is the same thing, their bandwidth, their rules.
On sort of a tangent, when one owns a website or bbs or whatever that they run, it is the same thing. They own the space. It is a private company and they can set the rules as they want. They can ban people because they have seen pictures of the people wearing orange if they want. Screaming 1st Amendment and “I have rights” just shows how much the shouters don’t know about either the first amendment or the rules of private property. One choice that people who are bent out of shape when the rules change is to go start their own whatever and compete with the person they think is wrong by showing them up by doing it better. But I see more complainers than doers out there. Also there are very sloppy ideas about copyright. I swear everyone bends it to the point they are making rather than looking at the real legal implications of what they are trying to do. But that’s a whole other rant.
I am grateful that my service provider hasn’t stopped me from doing what I want on the net.
Am I the only one who remembers when you had to dial into the Internet to use a service that would allow you to participate in the World Wide Web? I was a member, still am I think, of AOL. I got the software that allowed me to go onto the web through a phone number from my computer. I paid monthly for the privilege to use that phone number. I had an e-mail address, groups that I belonged, and access to the rest of the web. Now I pay the phone company to have an Internet portal in my home but my e-mail is through my Mac account and my G-mail account. I have a Yahoo email for the groups that I belong to. And I have those AOL accounts that I haven’t looked at in years but I know they are still there.
AOL did regulate where I could go on the web and what I could do. I knew that going in. Only occasionally was I stymied by trying to get to a website in Europe or Russia. AOL would slow down things that caused them to lose bandwidth and we all knew it. There was talk of a two-tiered system and one would pay more for a faster connection for a while but then the phone companies got into it and AOL sank faster than the Titanic.
While I was on AOL, I worked for the Academic Assistance Center aka the Homework Helpers. I did a lot of work with kids and their homework. I also told a lot of kids to go DO their homework and stop trying to get me to do it for them. AOL has used some of my articles as part of the homework help for years. And for this work, I got to use AOL unlimited for no fee other than my work for a certain number of hours. Apparently I am part of a class action lawsuit and settlement against AOL for the number of hours I put into the program. I have to recall all the names I used but it is hard because I had to change the name with the policy changes.
What Comcast is doing is no different than what AOL did. The disconnect is in the short term memory that people have about how the web worked and works. The service providers are not there for their health, they are there for profit and they are still figuring out how they can profit from the web. Yes, I have read the doom and gloom scenarios about censorship and slower downloading times for certain sites leading to the banning of sites. And how these services try to get you to use their search engine before Google. It is for the ad revenue plain and simple.
No one screams censorship because certain sites are blocked at their workplace or slow download for certain sites (that maybe they shouldn’t be on). I couldn’t access AOL on my work computer and that was fine. I did what I needed at home. MP-3s were banned on the server at my work because it was eating up bandwidth like no one’s business and a lot of it was illegal downloads of music. The exception was the music department and the audio department but that made sense. It’s their servers and their rules. And for Comcast and all the rest of the providers it is the same thing, their bandwidth, their rules.
On sort of a tangent, when one owns a website or bbs or whatever that they run, it is the same thing. They own the space. It is a private company and they can set the rules as they want. They can ban people because they have seen pictures of the people wearing orange if they want. Screaming 1st Amendment and “I have rights” just shows how much the shouters don’t know about either the first amendment or the rules of private property. One choice that people who are bent out of shape when the rules change is to go start their own whatever and compete with the person they think is wrong by showing them up by doing it better. But I see more complainers than doers out there. Also there are very sloppy ideas about copyright. I swear everyone bends it to the point they are making rather than looking at the real legal implications of what they are trying to do. But that’s a whole other rant.
I am grateful that my service provider hasn’t stopped me from doing what I want on the net.
