Stop the Slow Lane
stoptheslowlane.com
stoptheslowlane.com
Why not implement a loading bar that actually progressed slowly and then put a brief explanation underneath the loading bar describing the FCC "slow lane" and how it would negatively impact users?
To add insult to injury, give the user 3 options:
- pay the site owner to access the "fast lane" to your content
- send an email (to FCC chair? maybe a representative?) to voice their anger
- get used to waiting; that'll be the new norm if nobody prevents this, right?
The first option would be incredibly controversial, but would underscore how objectionable the "Slow Lane" idea even is. If anyone is stubborn enough to pay, you could funnel that money into the EFF or some other relevant organization.
The point is that just throwing people a loading screen (especially without a good explanation) will leave the user confused. Once the content loads they'll probably forget about that loading screen anyway (at least on a conscious level), so don't wait until afterward to explain what just happened.
As an aside, there was a comment that users will wait for a website that's sufficiently highly trafficked, but I don't think that's true. I remember some Google presentation[0] where an engineer explained that virtually any extra loading time was enough to discourage users from returning. Maybe that's just with search or other highly interactive sites (rather than reading a blog, for example), but I wouldn't want to test that hypothesis with any site I cared about and managed.
0: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Il4swGfTOSM - The "impact of slow sites" comes up early on.
http://rubbingalcoholic.com/#ALWAYS_SHOW_SL_WIDGET_COMCAST
If anyone wants to help out with this or give me feedback directly, please email me jeff@rubbingalcoholic.com
will give their lawyers a stronger argument
I agree that there are fair use arguments, which is why I said "practically": hosts take down fair-use content every day. A subset of that is eventually restored, but only after the parties have argued it out (frequently through their lawyers).
While you guys obviously have a message to get out (a great message), you may want to consider adding a link someone could click to get rid of the widget and load the site immediately. Imagine that you saw four sites with the widget, then emailed your congresspeople, and now you have to keep dealing with them all throughout the day even if you already took action...it'd be annoying.
Thanks for all the work on this!
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c0/Wikipedia...
There should absolutely be a call to action to Congress representatives and FCC, too.
They're not intending to provide higher QoS for sites that pay up -- that's insane and it wouldn't work anyway.
Fast/slow lane practices throttle that connection, regardless of how large the pipe is.
So, my small business website could be using a large internet connection that technically has plenty of bandwidth to carry my traffic but, unless I pay Comcast a premium, traffic from my website will be put in the slow lane and throttled back.
The media has framed a lot of the congestion issues in the context of "fast/slow lane" but what they come down to are business disagreements between the transit providers and the ISPs. The solution to these disagreements from the viewpoint of a large service provider is to purchase an interconnect directly to the ISPs. If you are a small service provider, the solution is to purchase delivery through a CDN. Netflix used to purchase delivery through CDNs until it got too expensive for their business model; so they started building their own CDN that they called "OpenConnect". They used their positive brand image in conjunction with the ISP's poor brand image to launch a PR campaign with the goal of knocking down the price they would have to pay for interconnect service. It worked; they knew they were always going to have to pay the Comcasts and Verizons of the world but they were able to talk the ISPs down a significant amount.
Strategically, it's a bad position to be in for a service provider because the ISPs can raise the price at any time (which is why Netflix has continued complaining about it). But realistically, the ISPs sit on such a strong market control point that nothing can really stop them from setting prices (common carrier status just means they have to offer the same price structure to everyone; not that they can't arbitrarily raise prices).
I mean this is cute but I think this might be the fourth or fifth implementation I've seen and they all have better likelihood of just annoying someone instead of educating them.
I realize a standardized alert message delivered via JS doesn't have the same "share-able" impact, but it's probably more effective overall.
I'm imagining Wikipedia's fundraising drives and whether they'd do as well if they just blurred out a large portion of every article to raise awareness versus a prominent message.
Our impression (and experience) is that people get more excited about doing something symbolic.
Again, any direct recommendations about how to improve this, and we'll improve it :)
Visibility is the issue, not understanding the problem. I think the message of "the internet could be slower without net neutrality" is the one that needs to be delivered. People generally know what "slower" means.
As I mentioned, a standardized message would probably be more effective, but it's also not something that would be particularly exciting to share on, say, Hacker News.
"Why do I keep getting this bloody message with Comcast's logo on it every time I hit random websites? readreadread Fucking Comcast at it again.."
That way, they can see what the site is like and if they choose to press the button, they can see what it is like to be on the slow lane. Otherwise, the first time visitor may not give the site a chance at all.
We're making a version that's just an anigif that people can embed. That should be live really soon. So, that works for people who don't want to interrupt visitors with a message.
Thanks for the heads up.
This makes about as much sense as the power company getting more money to power a PC than a lamp, or the government demanding a bigger toll if you're crossing a bridge for a vacation.
The big conglomerates that offer both internet and content services (which are the largest broadband ISPs, but this interest isn't general to ISPs, its specific to those dominant players) have been clear that they want the ability to charge anyone for anything, even if they've already charged someone else for it, but they haven't been clear about the real reason -- though the actual places where they've chosen to do this make it very clear: what they want to do is use their market power in the broadband market charge the content firms that have already built businesses in content markets that threaten the conglomerates markets a toll to compete that serves both to limit the outside content firms' ability to profit in the market and subsidizes the conglomerates own competing services. Its pure protectionism; that's the reason that the cable companies (whose bigger business is often selling consumer video services -- cable TV + premium VOD tied to cable TV and, in many cases nascently though they are far behind the "pure internet" video services, video-over-internet subscription services) main target for tolls is Netflix.
Allow this, and the ISPs will start at the top and work their way down, until they've used their tolls to take over every profitable business relying on using the internet to connect to customers.
The big cable companies have had video-over-cable subscription services for years, and well established customer bases for them, and charge very high prices for them compared to any video-over-internet service. They haven't offered video-over-internet services because they'd be competing with themselves, and only started offering some when people started moving to third-party services. Still, they'd prefer to levy specific tolls on third party video-over-internet services so they don't have to compete and, if they decide to compete, can have their competitors foot the bill. Its a pretty classical way of leveraging market power in one market to prevent free competition in another, and it was one of the prime things that was specifically called out as a targetted concern in every version of net neutrality / open internet regulation that the FCC has issued.
As someone who works in the industry, that's why this whole argument feels false to me. Sure, the cable companies own the infrastructure for their customers, but there's money to be made from selling services to other customers as well. Big companies like Comcast aren't as stupid as you think: their video distribution model will likely look a lot more like Netflix in 5 years, as will the other cable/telco video companies. They're not trying to set up the rules so that Netflix fails; they're trying to set up the rules to ensure they can sell their products in the marketplace as well. How do you ensure your products don't suck? You ensure everyone in the value chain is adequately compensated (at least until you can disintermediate them).
When Comcast enters the video-over-internet market, they will have to pay for interconnects to the other ISPs. But that's fine with them; because it's a marginal cost tied to revenue. You have to tie the fixed costs of expanding infrastructure to increased revenue somehow or the economic model falls apart. That means either charging service providers by the gigabyte or charging consumers. Charging consumers would have a chilling effect on Internet commerce (just look at aggregated mobile data usage stats) so they've opted to go after the service providers.
Your last statement doesn't really help your argument since the situations you describe actually happen. The power company can't really do the first because they don't have the visibility, but they do charge more per kWh for residential power, since residential peak usage occurs in the evening. In many areas toll roads and bridges are more expensive if you don't have an EZ Pass (the EZ Pass basically flags you as a resident).