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0wn yourself

2006-06-03

net neutrality

here's one that i'm having trouble digesting. net neutrality.

both sides have some really good arguments.

on the one hand, i agree with sonia arrison in her articles on the matter of regulations usually being a bad thing. i understand that the internet (and all of the concepts, ideas and paradigms that have sprung from it) happened largely because of the hard-to-control nature of the decentralized network. it's headless, so it's very resiliant, and simultaneously, anyone can introduce and idea from any point and have it spread to any (or even every) other point on the network without much time, effort, or way to stop it.

basically, it's a more level playing field.

and i also understand that there are ways to alter that level playing field to once again stack the proverbial deck in a particular entity or interested party's favour.

but i can also see that large entities controlling a large portion of the infrastructure can institute certain practices (for whatever reasons) that can have effects on performance and usability.

and what i mean by that is that an entity which controls a large enough portion of the backbone, can effectively disrupt, cripple or break sites and services which run over their channels.

now the real question becomes one of the lesser of two (actually three) evils--allow these companies to do as they will (i.e. throw network neutrality right out the window and forget about it), allow the government to regulate the backbone providers (and i think we all know about some of the perils that one contains), or to come to some other solution...maybe the honour system? some kind of independent (and unbiased) third party audit scheme? *shrugs*

i understand how _i_ feel about the matter--i just don't know which of the two apparent factions i fit into.

actually, i guess i don't necessarily have to pick one of the existing sides. i've never been very good at fitting in anyway...

besides, pretty soon we'll get to see what all the politicians think. hehe.

as always, i'm still learning.

--cid

a paper by tim wu--the guy who coined the term 'network neutrality'

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