You may have heard that, according to the Wall Street Journal, it appears as though the FCC will advance new rules more or less abandoning the concept of Net Neutrality. Or, as President Candidate Obama said in 2008:
“The most important thing we can probably do is to preserve the diversity that’s emerging through the Internet…something called net neutrality. I will take a backseat to no one in my commitment to network neutrality.”
Hah! Good one. We didn’t realize what a terrific sense of humor then-Senator Obama had back then, though he’s certainly gone on to demonstrate it in the years since (nothing funnier than an Afghani wedding reception, after all).
Basically, the FCC is going to give Intertube providers the ability to charge a “premium” for fast transport across their networks. But I’m sure they’ll go out of their way to continue to make improvements to the non-premium parts of their networks. Uh-huh.
So if Netflix is willing to pay Comcast a fee to not have their traffic throttled (which, of course, they already are) and Amazon Instant Video (or HBOGO, or SHowtime OnDemand, or Hulu, or…) isn’t, well, guess what. You can either pay out the ass for Netflix or sit and watch Amazon buffer all night long.
Of course Netflix will also have to pay off every other carrier out there, too. Not much good having an agreement with Comcast if AT&T, Verizon, et al are just gonna throttle you down until you agree to the extortion (or course, the FTC and DOJ are doing their best to make sure the Comcast will soon be the only company that owns all the Intertubes and the media, so that should simplify the payoffs). And as a consumer, not only will you be paying more for access to video streaming sites, or VOIP services, news sites, or, dare I say, blogs, but I can pretty much guarantee you that the price for your crippled Internet service won’t be going down, either.
It’s a lose-lose situation.
So thanks, Mr. Preznit. We can always count on you to do what’s right – for the Telecom companies, and the big banks, and your pals at Goldman Sachs.
Once again I am comletely confused. That rancher, Bundy, who refuses to recognize the federal gummint is pictured in the NY Times with his supporters. In the first shot they are riding horses and carrying the American flag (a country they say doesn’t exist). In the second they’re sitting on their horses with their hats held over their hearts as they listen to the national anthem. What am I missing?
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/24/us/politics/rancher-proudly-breaks-the-law-becoming-a-hero-in-the-west.html
We pledge allegiance to the flag of the country that we believe does not exist, and to the non-entity for which it stands, no nation, under our personal god, very divisible, with liberty and justice for just us with the guns and all.
There were protestors at the OKC Memorial site today – the memorial for the building the anarchists blew up. The protesters were calling for the arrest of Holder, among other things. There was a large police presence. My heart skipped as it was quite frightening to be inadvertently in the middle of it. The free-loading rancher has embolden them.
Rachel Maddow did a great piece on the history of this crap tonight and OKC was in it. There will be a rerun in about an hour and you can also download for free on iTunes for a day.
Thanks, DVR set to record.
Nuttin’ like being able to monetize something for private gain that tax dollars built up . I also see that the networks and the NFL and MLB are threatening to remove their programming from over the airwaves that supposedly belong to ‘the people’. Of course, gubment already sold off a chunk of that bandwidth with the big digital conversion that made anyone with old school televisions have to go out and buy converters to see what they used to get for free. Then there is the idea that polluters of our environment should be able to recoup their losses when and if they have to clean up the messes they make from the rest of us. Water is going to be the new oil and of course that should not be a right or free.
I think that pj could monetize the MS blog with our help and we could all be rich. We need to develop a breath meter to calculate the use of air by every human so they can be billed by the company that is given the monopoly to air.
Yeah, the networks are all pissed off at this Aero company. If you don’t know about them, their business model is to install arrays of little baby antennas, and then “lease” you the antenna (and the use of a DVR) and provide the signal to you over the Internet.
According to Aero, they’re just leasing the antenna to you, and you get the free broadcast signal (complete with commercials, I might add( so they don’t need to pay retransmission fees they way cable and satellite companies do.
According to the networks, this is a copyright infringement.
The networks, of course are just being greedy bastards and “double-dipping” – getting paid both for advertising AND for retransmission fees.
This is Dish Network’s argument in their lawsuit against the networks. Their “Hopper” automatically records prime time newtork teevee and then automatically skips the commercials when you play it back. Dish says they have every right to do that, because they pay a fortune to carry local channels.
If you can figure out a way to make money off this, let me know. I’ve always said I’d be happy to prostitute myself but, hell, I can’t even give it away for free.
Guess I’ll go back to just books. If they still make them.
Lots of money making ideas here (plus an interesting article to boot).
I am sorry more of that money isn’t being used like this rather than buying the Bay Area. They probably have already stolen the breath meter idea.
Tuesday, Apr 22, 2014 11:45 AM PDT
Blow up the Times Op-Ed page, and start again! Why Friedman, Brooks and Dowd must go
The New York Times Op-Ed page is the best real estate in media. Why is the Times OK with it being so embarrassing?
Kind of a douchebag Mount Rushmore. But they need to get William Safire up there. Or maybe his rotting corpse is lying at the feet of Friedman and Dowd – they both look as if they’re smelling something foul. I guess that could just be Brooks, though.
Masters from SU.