Don't
Touch That Dial!
"Problems cannot be solved at the same
level of awareness that created them." - Albert Einstein
 The
'net? Working like cable TV? Can't happen, right?
Wrong. Imagine this:
Your ISP, and basically there's only two of them now, someday
tells you that if you sign on to its service you have to
use their
proprietary browser.
But their browser will only let you go to sites that are approved
by the ISP, and those sites just happen to be ones that pay
the ISP money to
be included in its browser. After all, why should they allow
you to waste bandwidth visiting Uncle Fred's Cat-O-Rama if
it
doesn't
put a nickel in their pocket?
In this wretched future you'll be able to shop all day but
innovation, the thing that made the internet such a marvel,
will be a thing of the past.
It'll be a perfect win-win for commerce and it would look
exactly like cable TV in its current incarnation, a one-way
thoroughware charging
a flat fee whether
you watch anything or not. And charging extra for anything
beyond the basics.
When cable TV came to my city back in the early 80s there
was much skepticism of one company being the gate-keeper
for all that information, so we were promised numerous public
access facilities to let us
make
and transmit our own media. For about five years there were
three or four channels on the "B" side of the dial
filled with all sorts of sometimes delightful, sometimes
dreadful home-made lunacy. But, suddenly, those channels
disappeared either
due to budget cuts or lack of interest. All that was left
was exactly what
we've got now, a selection we can take or leave.
I, personally,
leave it.
The net still holds unending promise as long as its
kept out of the money-grubbing hands of corporations, and
John McCain's campaign is slopping over with telecommunication
lobbyists.
Demand that the net be kept neutral, the way it was designed.
Vote
Obama.
Seriously.
=mike=
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