Free internet for all not such a bad idea
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
Well maybe it is not basic human right, just like having access to a road is not but maybe we should have more internet infra paid with taxes.
Exactly.
>Well maybe it is not basic human right
In Switzerland you have the basic right to gain information, the discussion ATM, is a TV/Radio/Newspaper enough or does it needs a Internet-Device (important for prisons, pledging, bankruptcy etc)
It also just enables people to communicate and access information. Kinda weird that we need to make a business pitch to show that something is essential. Then again, we're living under capitalism.
The USSR was NOT Socialism nor was it Communism, that was just a motto to establish absolute power lead from a small elite circle (the withered core of the communist party). It's kind of the opposite of communism and especially socialism.
BTW it would have been extremely interesting if Israel went that route (maybe the first real, and humane communist state?)
BTW2 Sparkling water in russia? Maybe Woda but then without sparkles.
Russia always had just Kings/Emperors:
The Tsar
The Party
The Putin
> > It also just enables people to communicate and access information. Kinda weird that we need to make a business pitch to show that something is essential.
> How is capitalism part of this conversation? Socialism also has to debate the merits of making something essential
Indeed, and the social and societal merits are that it enables equal access to education (per the letter in the article) for all, especially in times of a pandemic.
Meanwhile the capitalist merits are that it also enables greater amounts of commerce to occur.
The parent commenter is lamenting that the gains to society outside that exclude increase in capital flows aren’t sufficient to justify something, and that a capitalist gain needs to also be present to provide that justification. While also noting that we do live in a capitalist society.
> It’s not like the USSR had sparkling water running to every home. As much as some people would have liked it.
I’m not sure that the USSR is relevant here. I’m not sure sparkling water adds value to society in the same way as access to electricity, clean running potable water, or the Internet does. One is is a non-essential luxury item. It’s increasingly difficult to argue with a straight face that Internet access is a non-essential luxury.
EDIT: that’s not to say there isn’t an argument to be made that access to the Internet today is a non-essential luxury, and if someone actually has a good faith case to make, by all means please do!
I'm not sure if they will consider "free internet" as another way to access TV and charge you.
These days you have to pay no matter what, even if you have no device that can receive broadcasts.
So this is a universal tax anyway, whether or not you have a TV-enabled device.
Some years ago they would send people to sniff around your home to find a media device, like taking photos of your car radio in front of your home to prove you can access public media. But if you let them in your home, they'd write a report of you having a TV etc.
But as I said this isn't happening any more, they just assume every household has a device capable of accessing public media so everyone must pay.
There was a big movement against this but ultimately the Constitutional Court decided all this is A-OK.
We already do, taxpayers are just not getting much value for their money.
>ISPs that take billions in government subsidies (from programs like the FCC’s Connect America fund) traditionally focus their efforts on more competitive, urban markets, leaving less-affluent cities and rural markets with sluggish DSL that fails to even meet the FCC’s base definition of broadband https://www.vice.com/en/article/ywkn4b/study-throwing-taxpay...
I lived in a flat that only had ADSL a few years ago and I never intend on going back to that.
Even FTTC (fibre to the cabinet) ends up at the bottom of the short list. FTTP is pretty vital now for me, and very much features as one of the deciding factors.
Also often the address isn't given until after you've arranged a viewing so it's a pain.
It should just be listed like other utilities like heating, air conditioning etc.
[update] I'm totally okay with this being downvoted, but I'd like the input as to why, if I'm somehow wrong, then tell me ? :)
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/audio/2016/aug/04/int...
Yet I don't like private companies storing it...
And it's too complicated to manage on my own. Damn.
I have some right to the domain on which I host my mail, but I don't have a right to a fixed static IP, and I don't have a right to be able to make outgoing connections on port 25 (or any port, I guess?), and I also don't have a right to a bouncer, so in practice, I don't have a right to host my own mail, there's no law giving me the right to demand any of those things, it's up to me to be a combination of lucky and wealthy enough to make it happen.
Basically, I want to send a mail to you, your server is listening on those ports because you're a normal person, and didn't rediret port 80 to be your SNMP incoming.
So, I try to make a connection to your domain:25, my packets won't even leave my ISP, my outgoing connection is simply dropped.
Try it, are you lucky enough that you can ? If you speak a bit of SMTP you can send email from telnet like that.
At least some uniquely identified email address is better than hoping things like court documents with legal implications get paper mailed to some previously known physical address you may or may not still have any access or relationship with.
I also keep a local backup of my email so if the day ever comes I am ready.
But, for me, in the end, email must die.
There's actual legal debate about this. This articles summarizes that debate. [1]
> This article considers three answers to the question whether electricity access should be a universal human right. A first position is that there is no human right to electricity but perhaps contractual rights related to various societies. A second position is that electricity is a derived human right, a right based on other rights, grounded on rights such as the right to adequate housing. A third position is that there is a universal human right to electricity. It is argued that the second position is the strongest since it supports the idea that humans often need access to electricity but avoids the stronger claim that all humans must have this access. The latter claim faces the challenge that rights language should focus on the needs of humans and not be extended too far to include everything that could be beneficial for humans. Such an extension might diminish the attention on the actual aim of human rights: That all humans should have a good enough life.
I agree with those assertions and it's why I think that neither electricity nor the internet are universal human rights.
Contrary to such universal human rights as the right to a family, liberty, recognition as a person before the law,... which should be read as first principles that ought to be applied in human interactions, rather then claims to specific commodities. [2]
That doesn't mean those things aren't important. Access to the Internet has gained in importance. Instead, human rights are a moral framework that ought to underpin the governance of that access. And that's what makes all the difference.
[1] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13642987.2019.1... [2] https://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/
Like, here in DK, I have a RIGHT to electricity, not for free, but no matter where I live geographically in this country, I have a right to be able to buy a home, and a right to a electricity subscription, the electrics company cannot just say "nah, we don't wish you as a customer" unless I really do something wrong.
For E-Mail addresses, it's not so, if nobody wants to provide me with one, then that's just too bad. Electricity is somewhat easier then email, because "the power I got yesterday" has no connection to the power I get today.. We also have a right to phone numbers, meaning that if I switch to a new provider, my phone number follows to my new subscription with no additional fee.
But if I switch e-mail provider from gmail to proton, I've no right to have my email address, no less the actual inbox transferred to my new provider.
* poor service, since there will be no competition and little to no incentives to improve it
* lack of privacy, since law enforcements and random officials will absolutely want to have full access (and sure, Google has access to my emails, but I can use Protonmail instead and trust them way more not to abuse this access than I would trust "DMV for email")
* even further centralisation of power - it would be much easier to apply pressure to people doing anything "anti-government" (I believe there are already examples of this with people being cut from all-encompassing WeChat in China, but I don't have references at hand)
There is also an argument against frivolous expansion of human rights with anything not absolutely necessary or too specific.
As it stands, internet access and services are incredibly centralized in the marketplace within just a handful of enormous companies.
In a functioning democracy, you'd be able to elect the right people to make sure service is maintained properly and not abused.
Think of something like paper. Originally it was exceptionally expensive and only available to the wealthy or particular tradesmen. Scraps of already-used paper were reused because the material was so valuable.
Today, paper is basically free. In fact, we’ve gone to far in the opposite direction: people waste paper constantly and it’s an environmental problem.
If, in the early stages of paper, we had said “We need to mandate paper for everyone,” I’m skeptical that it would have been commodified. It seems to me that whatever method we use to make internet access easier and cheaper, it probably isn’t going to come from ISPs.
As such, the arguments for legislation is about as different as they can get. Paper as an industry will likely have a healthy competitive market without significant intervention; household internet not likely.
Nobody is proposing to legislate that paper should be provided free to everyone, it's not at all comparable.
In Finland person living alone gets 502.21 EUR per month of "basic income support" (rent is paid using different support system). The sum is calculated using imputed costs where phone, internet and daily newspaper are 20% of the monthly expenses (100 EUR per month)
If person can't manage his income (alcoholic, drug addict, mental problems) social services might pay some of those directly.
Like they can today.
>you'd essentially kill off private providers giving the government
No one said that, the ISP can provide the bandwidth, and all the free tier contracts are paid by the government (our taxes).
I do not understand why censorship operated by individuals and companies is so underestimated, in some respects it's even worse.
Censorship by private ISPs wasn't allowed when we had net neutrality, but at the moment they can do whatever they want.
If most places had competitive free markets for internet, that might be be ideal, but we basically have monopoly providers in much of the country.