You don't do yourself much favor in this discussion when you post links to returnofkings.com or avoiceformen.com :-)
249 karma · joined September 7, 2013
Technology affects culture (and vice-a-versa). Trolling is/was rampant in blogosphere and Twitter, but I have impression that Facebook and Google+, who both enforce much hated real-names policies, have less of a trolling component.
I also believe there is nothing Facebook can do to convince you to believe that as well. Or is it?
SIS cannot force Google to convert some employees to full-time (nor it makes business sense for them).
I don't like MPAA either, I think they go over the top. But you are no better than MPAA by failing to take a more nuanced point of view. If there is no copyright whatsoever, I can guarantee you that no one will make 100M hollywood movies. And yes, they do take 100M to make - they hire armies of artists and programmers for that.
Some folks also get bikes with rear suspension because it limits stress on the torso and knees when hitting bumps.
Will that hurt 'international trade'? Yes. Will this cause another Cold War? No.
I would entertain your argument only if there was consumer choice. In such case we could perhaps experiment with different business models where content provider subsidizes last mile. Without it, consumers are essentially hostage to a monopoly, which is unacceptable.
But thinking about fundamentals, a few years out, why do you think self-hosting will still be cheaper? What is it in self-hosting that economies of scale of AWS/GCE can't crush?
You are describing a universe which only exist in an imaginary island where all the Galts are living. "Freedom of Contract" works when there are one or two similar-sized parties involved, but it does not scale well beyond that. Try renting a car with a customer agreement tailored for your liking; or try negotiating custom EULA with vendor of whatever browser you are using to post your comments.
If by net-neutrality you mean the system where a paying broadband customer can consume any content, irrespective of that content owner ability to pony up to cash to broadband provider, then yes, these two issues are related. More competition in consumer broadband market would keep providers in check.
In an ideal world (at least my ideal), broadband providers would strive to do everything they can to deliver content to me. In current world, it's well documented that Comcast is passively allowing interconnects to fill up, causing congestion, and forcing content providers to pay up for better interconnect.
In old world there were a dozen of "tier1" providers who would all peer with each other more or less settlement free. It is conceivable that one of these providers (I think it was Cogent in this case) was offering "low rates" to take Netflix traffic and deliver that traffic to Comcast over their settlement free peering. As traffic flow between Cogent and Comcast was increasing, Comcast refused to upgrade the interconnect to accommodate the flow. Then: links get hot, traffic gets dropped, customers complain, Netflix+Cogent asks Comcast to behave, Comcast offers to unblock the pipes via direct Netflix<->Comcast peering for a "fee".
Now I don't know whether that "low rate" that Cogent was charging Netflix was lower than a "fee" that Comcast is charging. It might be that you are right and the fee overall reduced Netflix costs. What I do know however, is that Comcast is a monopoly and if unregulated, they can start extracting higher and higher rent from Netflix (or any other content provider for that sake).
There is no use for Google to participate in long-haul wholesale. There is a lot of supply there. The real issue is last mile, where consumers have no choice.
Google is driven by data and sorry but advanced users are a mere blip in that data. I can bet there was a gazilion user studies that showed that your grandma was super confused when 10 options would pop up when she pressed 'More'. The same studies showed that she was much less so confused when 4 options were presented, increasing engine usability for her.
My point here is that some folks attribute sinister motives (more search dollars), while the actual motive is just to make the interface usable for more people.
(Disclaimer: I work at Google, not in search though.)
You have to understand how US law works. If you are not an injured party, you can't sue the government for it. In other words, Google cannot sue the government for the injury government is causing to you. What they can do, however, is claim an 'injury' on First Amendment grounds, reasoning that their free speech is limited when they cannot disclose that John Doe is being surveilled (and thus John Doe is being injured). They do that with the hope that with transparency John Doe will have the information necessary to sue the government.