Submitted by The US Justice Department has said that internet service providers should be allowed to charge for priority traffic. The agency said it was opposed to ‘network neutrality’, the idea that all data on the net is treated equally. The comments put the agency at odds with companies such as Microsoft and Google, who have called for legislation to guarantee equal access to the net.
I wouldn’t be at all surprised if this happens, it will benefit those who lobby for it, and will likely make the rest of the net less interesting.
I am also sure it will also have unintended consequences which have not yet become obvious. Personally I’d say leave it alone but big interests never take a damn bit of notice of joe average.
What, you don’t think MS and Google don’t have teams of lobbyists working for them?
It sounds more to me that the ‘two-tier’ system is nothing more than traffic flow control, which routers all across the internet are doing anyway.
AFAIK the plan is to create a high-speed lane for higher-priority traffic, or add priority to sites which can afford the charges.
This isn’t a bad idea, really, it would create funds and incentive for ISPs to expand their performance capabilities, but then the question remains as to the remaining performance in regards to non-preferred sites.
If too many people jump on the expressway, they may decide to widen the expressway at the expense of the frontage road, causing backups on the frontage road, which will be most sites.
Would be good for YouTube, Google, Yahoo, and corporate news sites, bad for community projects or non-profit orgs, or just the normal individual’s web-site, which could become virtually inaccessible as browser timeouts begin to be eclipsed by network delays.
What we really need is ISP-caching, with cache updates occurring at a given interval for basic ‘added priority’ content, and on-modification through notification for ‘high-priority’ content. ISPs could sell their storage capabilities and deliver specific content faster ( such as YouTube’s top 100 videos or so ).
Oh well, I’m split on it.
–The loon
The internet is made of tubes, not just things you dump stuff on. And now those tubes are getting clogged, and keeping innocent senators from reading their emails.
http://www.boingboing.net/2006/07/02/sen-stevens-hilariou.html
Ted Stevens is the co-chair and current ranking member of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. The committee is responsible for all communications-related legislation that goes through the senate. Stevens apparently has near-zero knowledge of how networks function. And he’s in charge.
Here’s another gem from him, in which he refers to an email (from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Stevens):
“an Internet [sic] was sent by my staff…”
…might lose their competitive edge. Yes datacenters can be built outside the USA, the problem is with startups. They will have a harder time launching in the US. Can you imagine a nascent YouTube growing (heck, even starting) if they had to pay even more for bandwidth?
*looks for flying pigs* =)
Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer, right?
I think the real problem here is one of expectations. Your ISP expects you to use the internet in a bursty manner, maybe downloading a song or reading web pages. When they sell you their n mbps service they expect you will not use the full potential of their service and they charge you based on this expectation.
Now, the internet is changing and things like P2P and video are causing the average user to become less bursty. Now, the ISP has to beef up their equipment and get nothing in return, because of course your service technically didn’t change, you only changed how you use it. So the consumers expectation is no price increase.
What happens when everyone moves from bursty to constant connection? Who pays for this? The end user, the ISP or the content provider? And let’s be realistic someone will pay.
If end users are anything like me, I would not want to pay any more for my service.
If the ISP pays, the end user pays so this is moot.
If the content provider, somehow, pays for getting their content to the end users then they can either charge the end user directly or use ad revenue.
The only new source of money I see in my example is advertising. Am I wrong? And the only one with access to ad revenue is the content provider, right?
If no one pays, does this force the ISP not to invest in providing high speed service in under served areas because the capital is being spent on upgrading existing customers?
This is crap. The Washington Post recently had an article stating Japan is almost totally wired with 100 meg fiber to the home. They can do it without a two tier structure why can’t we?
This is crap. The Washington Post recently had an article stating Japan is almost totally wired with 100 meg fiber to the home. They can do it without a two tier structure why can’t we?
That’s exactly why the US and other countries doing such a thing will get left behind.
Well, I would take this 100 meg fiber claim with a grain of salt. It may be 100meg on their own network, but I doubt that the ISP itself will have such highspeed connections for everyone. It would make P2P stuff fast on their own network though.
This is crap. The Washington Post recently had an article stating Japan is almost totally wired with 100 meg fiber to the home. They can do it without a two tier structure why can’t we?
Because the US is a completely different country and society than Japan or European countries.
Take a look at the whole GSM thing. You Americans invented the cell phone thing, but it took you years and years longer to properly implement it – 3rd world countries were already using full-coverage cellular networks, and you guys were still trying to figure out how to best divide/sell the frequencies.
On top of that, the US is an immense country. For us Dutch, implementing a nation-wide super-fast internet would be relatively easy compared to doing the same in the US.
And I’m not even mentioning the fact that the US governmental structure is quite odd – Washington’s say in things is fairly limited compared to The Hague’s say over here.
Take a look at the whole GSM thing. You Americans invented the cell phone thing, but it took you years and years longer to properly implement it – 3rd world countries were already using full-coverage cellular networks, and you guys were still trying to figure out how to best divide/sell the frequencies.
It is easier to implement something from scratch than it is to upgrading a creaky old aging infrastructure. It is also much less expensive.
Just because we invented it doesn’t mean we did a good job implementing it. Now that our infrastructure is starting to show its age and the big telcoms aren’t doing so well, they don’t want to upgrade.
You are right.
Let’s not forget the fact they our big businesses want to squeeze every last dime from their investments/customers/employees. The aging equipment and technology is allowed to be used because they don’t want to dig into the CEO’s and staff memebers huge bonuses and paychecks. American business want the highest possible profit. I understand their greedy little point, but I don’t agree with it.
Besides, the internet isn’t made for the wealthy. It is for all. And this will really only hurt American businesses.
Although it seems most ISPs are going to continue to play on the “fair and level,” both because it’s simpler and it’s what people expect, I’m afraid a few corrupt ISPs (AOL, Verizon, &c) will take the failure of net neutrality to pass to encourage people to pay them to grant their sites priority.
The one impact I’m most worried about is our politics. Elections are coming up, and e-mail and electronic word-of-mouth is vital for any candidate nowadays. Imagine an election year where the GOP manages to spend enough money to lock Democrat sites down to a dismal minimum (on the bribable networks, anyways). Not to mention what fundie/extremist organizations will do to everyone else…
(can’t resist)
That’s a design feature, not a bug.
Considering how the Republicans have had trouble raising money lately (none of the candidates is doing particularly well, esp. in comparison to certain Democrats), I’d say the worry should go the other way ’round.
They shouldn’t have spend so much in Iraq imho.
And I’m not even mentioning the fact that the US governmental structure is quite odd – Washington’s say in things is fairly limited compared to The Hague’s say over here.
I’m pleased that it appears that way, because that’s the way it should be. Ours is supposed to be a limited government, where the citizens–and hence the businesses which citizens run–maintain some autonomy.
Edited 2007-09-07 17:30
It may appear that way from the outside, but from the inside looking out, it doesn’t look that way to me.
The general populace have NO say in what happens. Our little “Democracy” experiment has been hijacked by political special interest groups with boku $. These take the form of political parties, corporations, and “grass roots” organizations that are anything but “grass roots”.
Your vote doesn’t really count, and now it’s easier than ever to buy a stuffed ballot box.
So sure, we, the people are supposed to be running the country, but when was the last time no-name-joe decided to run for office and didn’t have to bend over for some ‘funding’ or fabricate a ‘platform’ of non-issues that cannot be legislated (thank god the courts still work to some extent) to distract people from the real, actual things that effect their lives?
Food for thought. Might as well give up. Greed has won.
Woe is us! We should all jump out the window.
The same greed that persists now will destroy those who have feed it.
Their greed has caused them to do many things illegally and quietly, things which will eventually come out, but that will take some careful work.
Within the U.S. government there are several factions either controlled by, or at odds with, the one over-whelming authority in the nation: The Neo(Nazi)Conservative NWO Christian Evangelists.
This is what the neo-cons really are, and what Hitler was. These people are either very dumb or very arrogant, but likely both. They seem to think that no one will notice that the plans and even speeches that Bush has given are ****IDENTICAL**** to those of Hitler.
Bush’s PDD 51 grants Bush the same rights Hitler established in his Directive 51. This would explain why Bush has used presidential directives so much, many of which are akin to those placed by Hitler.
With this mirroring of History, we should expect 9/11 to be a hoax or at least exacerbated, like the German Reichstag fire. MUCH evidence supports this to be the case, with even foreign intelligence agencies calling most of the new bin-Laden tapes phonies ( like the one where some Guy that kinda looks like bin-Laden did 15 years ago, and was supposedly joking about 9/11 and the bodies falling and laughing about it-the one that sent us to war, by pushing the support for action upward ).
That video is an obvious fake, it is against Islamic beliefs to wear gold(and silk and silver), because then you may not have it in the after-life. In the video, the alleged Osama and the man to his right were both wearing gold rings. Osama is left handed (CIA profile), but wrote with his right hand in the video ( with natural form ). But, somehow, the CIA was the only intelligence agency to not catch it.
Actions for greed or power-grabbing always have the tell-tale signs of mistakes made along the way to an attempt at quietly usurp/steal power/money. The two often go hand-in-hand, and the U.S. makes a lot of paper. Bush and/or Cheney ( and others ) got caught up in the Enron scandal and needed a way out, a way to protect the larger hidden interests. They needed to stop the SEC proceedings and investigations, and destroy the paper-trail.
9/11 did just that, when the SEC and most/all documents relating to money laundering and ongoing/pending corporate investigations.
The 9/11 reaction has put fear in our various federal law enforcement departments(the highest ups) as to how vast their network is, who can be trusted, and how to go about continuing the investigation quietly, and performing a silent raid, or seek congressional action.
But congress seems pretty fearful as well, and seemed to had shaken off some of its fear and actually start acting against these illegal actions by the Bush admin. But they aimed, instead, at the SPP. A program designed as part of the New American Century project, controlled by the CFR and Cheney, with Bush in full control of implementation (signing a piece of paper and convincing Mexico and Canada to jump on board).
Congress did manage to stop some of the funds going to the SPP, but they are somehow still fully funded. Only a few calls for impeachment have been made, and Ron Paul’s R(EVOL)UTION became a self-starter, with him having over 20,000 volunteers on his campaign for president.
But it isn’t the man these neo-cons fear, it is rather the realization that often comes when researching him, the other candidates are all simply playing politics, they are giving no answers, and they have a twisted understanding of the constitution.
Oh, if people only read…
–The loon
This reason enough to want a different administration:
http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/
>Within the U.S. government there are several factions either controlled by, or at odds with, the one over-whelming authority in the nation: The Neo(Nazi)Conservative NWO Christian Evangelists. <
You obvously are not an american nor have you ever been here, the crazies that you talk about are a minnescule minority, and most christians are not crazy the way you portray them.
I do agree with some of the points made, but overall this sounds like a hate speach towards americans, you are essecentially saying that a strong majority of americans are crazy and irrational people which simply is not the case.
an overwhelming majority of americans are against the current administration and if what you said was the case the opposite would be true.
Not at all, bu I simply think I didn’t get my point across properly.
I am an American, a Texan to be exact, and a VERY patriotic one at that.
In fact, it is my patriotism that has caused me to research the people in the executive branch ( the entire intended scope of the previous comment ), an dalso to try and discover why this was allowed to happen ( neo-con control racket ).
It took 60 years for the extremist Christian ‘elite’ to gain the power hold they have today. But make no mistake, these people are NOT Christians, they are anti-Christs working to a specific end: one world government.
They have managed to delude themselves into believing they are working to bring Jesus back by making th world as close to as that which was described within the Bible. In doing so they are going against what humans are suppose to be doing: PREVENTING that from occurring.
Check out the SPP and the NAU, google: Freedom to Fascism ( 2hr long video, very informative ).
But, while the crazies are indeed a VERY minuscule minority, they are the minority now in control of too many aspects of our lives. Previous administrations paved the way for this type of control by creating autonomous units of the government, such as the CIA.
They also failed to prevent the military industrial complex from lobbying congress. The many concessions made ever since WW2 has destroyed what this country was trying to become, and has corrupted the great experiment known as the ‘American Dream.’
Now, welcome to the ‘American Nightmare.’
–The loon, voting for Ron Paul
And yet you don’t have it, neither do we belgians. We’re falling behind, after the industrial revolution Belgium had the densest railsystem after the UK and we reaped the benefits for the entire industrial age. Now we’re behind because we’ve privatized the communications infrastructure and there’s no immediate profit in investing in better connections.
People need to wake up and vote out the luddites (or the just plain ignorant) and improve the infrastructure. History shows why.
Look at the size of Japan, though.
Considering the size of the U.S. we have a pretty sweet internet back-bone. In fact most of our internet back-bone is on optic cable, with speeds exceeding that of Japan’s hopes for the future.
Problem is that smaller ISPs cannot afford optical connections, and opt for less expensive solutions, and larger ISPs often ‘cannot afford’ to run optical to all of their sub-stations or local hubs.
I live well outside of any large town, in Texas, and fiber optics have been laid to most subdivisions in the area, with each group of subdivisions having their own private subnet / local hub.
This is a technical requirement which causes good decentralization, good performance, and excellent capability. The true bottleneck then lies in the equipment utilized to power the network, and the standards applied to that equipment. Quality of Service features on most routers could be easily switched on to provide point-of-demand priority adjustment, merely by flipping a single option on the most popular networing equipment used to power the internet ( mostly Cisco, IIRC ).
–The loon
Because the entire population of Japan is smaller than the population of New York City. Not to mention that the U.S. on a whole is a -little- bit bigger than Japan, with it’s people a -little- more spread out (insert japanese capsule hotel joke here).
Because the entire population of Japan is smaller than the population of New York City.
New York City has 8.1 million inhabitants. Japan has 127.5 million inhabitants.
*smacks head*
The problem is ISPs have had their heads shoved in the ground and apparently haven’t been paying the slightest bit of attention to what’s going on.
Let’s be realistic, we have paid and we are paying. And the ISPs are failing to provide the service we paid for. They have squandered their money and refuse to upgrade/extend their infrastructure.
If you pay for a service and an ISP can’t live up to the terms of that service, it is up to the ISP, not you to fix whatever is wrong.
And the ISPs are failing to provide the service we paid for. They have squandered their money and refuse to upgrade/extend their infrastructure.
I don’t know where you live, but Verizon has been tearing up the streets and yards here in Maryland for over a year laying “the last mile” of “fiber to the house”. And a while before them, Comcast upgraded all their distribution infrastructure to fiber.
I’m not totally sure what the network neutrality buzzphrase means, but one thing is sure–the ISPs are very active in trying to bring us better service.
Verizon has been upgrading their network, but SBC… excuse me, AT&T hasn’t. At least some place that isn’t one of the top five metroplexes. Cox is ok, but sweet jesus they rape customers when it comes to the final bill.
Net Neutrality means that all bits will be treated the same regardless of where they originated. ISP won’t get to extort money from content providers, websites, VoIP, P2P apps, etc., to make sure their bits are delivered.
Example, bits from google won’t be penalized from being from google, and Vonage won’t have their bits relegated to the bit bucket so Verizon or AT&T can push their telephone service.
Non-neutrality has it’s upside, but it does have potential for abuse.
Net Neutrality means that all bits will be treated the same …
That sounds very good at first, but that fact that the government is the enforcer, “looking out for the little guy” (so to speak) makes me nervous. When government power grows, it’s the little guy that invariably gets hurt.
The only aspect of this that gives me reason to believe that “net neutrality” might be a good and necessary thing is the fact that the ISPs are still quasi-monopolies. I have three choices for broadband, but some people have only one. If everyone had three choices there would be absolutely no need for government fiddling with the free market.
Maybe it’s needed as part of the normal limits on monopoly power, but it just sounds so much like propaganda that I’m leery.
I felt the same way then AT&T stated that they were going to start filtering the traffic crossing their pipes.
Generally, I’m anti-regulation and actually argued against this when it first became an issue, but it’s looking like the corporations aren’t going to play fair.
If the telecos want to accelerate traffic on their network between their customers and accelerate their services to their customers that’s fine, but I don’t want them to get into the habit of charging for priority.
Now, the internet is changing and things like P2P and video are causing the average user to become less bursty.
You pay an ISP for an estimated average bandwith. Now if that bandwith is decreased due to too many subscribers than that ISP has the obligation to invest in faster equipment.
A lot of subscribers have a monthly data rate beside a capped transmission rate. Also not uncommon is a fair use policy.
Why should one have to suffer because your freaky neighbour on the wire likes to stream mp3 to half the net population?
Is this supposed to be a surprise?
That’s how their health system works, if fact, I feel this is how america works.
I’m in Montreal, Canada. We have a Park called “La Ronde “that was bought by a US company named Six Flags. Since they bought it you can now pay more and get in the rides faster than those who pay the normal fee. I was outraged. This is so typically american.
Got money?
go to another amusement park or call them and tell them why you’re not going anymore. That’s how capitalism works.
That’s the problem. Capitalism doesn’t work, for many reasons. It has “crashed” more than once too.
Of course, because Amusement Parks spring out of the blue every day, given the wide availability of cheap land everywhere.
And of course, capitalism works so well and companies are so nice that they would never think of bribing the local politicians so that they are the only game in town and no other company obtains a license to build an “amusement park”.
Capitalism works some of the time under a healthy amount of regulation. There is this uneducated myth that the US is a bastion of unfettered capitalism, when the exact opposite is the truth.
Want to see unfettered capitalism and the invisible hand of the market? Look at the post-soviet economies that lacked any meaningful forms of regulation and engaged in a wild-west of unregulated unfettered capitalism. Result: corruption was rampant, the collapse of companies occurred daily and a general distrust of the market.
Capitalism in regulated markets such as those provided by most social democracies works far better than the naive capitalism that most people have in mind when they utter the word.
I am not ascribing to you, specifically, this type of thinking as, for all I know, you may be well aware of some of the points I have raised. Generally speaking, though, there is a tendency to overstate the generosity of the market and to understate the role of the state in making markets work.
Does Six Flags do this in the US? I’ve been to several amusement parks here & I’ve never once seen anything like this.
Universal Orlando does this. It’s preposterous.
Essentially, for a fee (like $20!) they let you “cut” in line.
“Does Six Flags do this in the US? I’ve been to several amusement parks here & I’ve never once seen anything like this.”
Yes they do. At least at Magic Mountain in California.
By the way, this capitalistic bastardism that you speak of is why America’s economy has always kicked the world’s collective ass. Current ‘weakness’ is a matter of 2nd/3rd order derivatives – it’s still the biggest economic force in the world.
Not that I’m against Net Neutrality – ISPs made a long-term bet on internet use and the market shifted against them. When investment banks lose money on stocks, do they ask the companies whose value went down to pay them back the difference? No – they stand by their bet. That’s the problem with what the ISPs are doing – they’ve got the economics ass-backward. If they charged customers per the KB, then their revenue would scale with usage, but then the whole system would get more complex (does anyone you know use a pay-as-you-go phone plan?) as well as make it harder for them to retain customers in a competitive market. Because of this, they (effectively) want to have uploaders pay for their bandwith twice, which is like stockholders demanding that a company pay them a dollar (per stock held) for every dollar the stock drops.
Please don’t misunderstand – capitalism rocks, it’s just that the ISPs are sore losers.
Now, for the other side of the argument.
Ever used a turnpike? Paid a toll? To use a road? A highway? A superhighway? An information superhighway?
You go faster.
Why do you pay to use it?
It’s worth it. To you.
Why do they build turnpikes? Tollbooths? … Information superhighways?
It’s worth it. To them.
It’s a great idea, and it’s the basis of the ‘anti-net-neutrality’ argument. But.
We already have it.
By the way, this capitalistic bastardism that you speak of is why America’s economy has always kicked the world’s collective ass. …
Shame it’s such a failure, in comparison to other countries, when it comes down to basics like quality of life.
Correct me if I’m misinterpreting this but it seems as though anti-net neutrality legislation will pan out like this:
Good for:
– ISP’s and their lobbyists
– Politicians getting kickbacks from ISP’s
Bad for: Everyone else, including:
– Every internet user who visits a US-based website
– Big websites/content providers as they would have to pay the ISP’s extra to maintain the bandwidths they have now have – guess who will end up paying for this in the long run?
– Smaller websites/content providers as they may not be able to afford high bandwidth access and consequently people won’t be as likely to visit their websites. Great content will be moot.
Quote from article:
Quite frankly, this is nuts. The biggest hurdle that prevents ISP’s from upgrading networks is a lack of competition. What little faith I have in our government is quickly eroding.
Lack of competition? In my area I can get HSI from AT&T, Comcast, or Sprint (wireless). That’s relitively competitive? No? I think what is keeping ISPs from upgrading their networks is lack of revenue?
Here is the big secret… Profit margins on HSI are not that great. The reason infrastructure does not get upgraded is because there is no return on investment. The basic tenant of every company is to make money (period). Sorry, that is a fact for every company no matter where you are in the world.
And by the way competition usually lowers profit margins so you point is counter-intuitive.
Competition can lower profit margins but real competition will give you better rates and/or service. Who says that a company with high margins has to has to use it in the customer’s best interest?
Yes, it sounds like you have some good competition in your area. Not everyone has that luxury, however. Pseudo-competition (or none at all) lets rates grow and service stagnate.
Over here, it’s Verizon DSL @ 768k (fairly slow) for $30/month or Comcast @ 6-8 Mbps (fairly speedy by US standards) for $50/month. Comcast offers 12-24 Mbps options, but you pay even more. And the rate hikes…sheesh. I swear, every time I see/hear a Comcast ad (which is every 30 seconds in this area), my rate goes up by $2/month.
Verizon fiber @ 50 Mbps is a very limited option right now for this area, but hopefully the coverage grows fast. It would be nice if Comcast had some serious competition here.
Others have no choice at all. Thanks, de-regulatory legislation! I’m sure they won’t screw up net-neutrality too.
Edited 2007-09-07 15:49
There was never any regulation that forced a cable or phone company to provide HSI. What deregulation do you mean?
The funny thing is that “Net Neutrality” would be a new regulation. When was the last time government intervention helped the telecom situation in the US?
I think LobalSurgery is refering to this:
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070815-east-coast-verizon-wa…
http://www.fcc.gov/mb/facts/csgen.html
From the link:
In adopting the 1992 Cable Act, Congress stated that it wanted to…ensure cable operators do not have undue market power, and to ensure consumer interests are protected in the receipt of cable service. The Commission has adopted regulations to implement these goals.
However, in 1996:
In adopting the Telecommunications Act of 1996, Congress noted that it wanted to provide a pro-competitive, de-regulatory national policy framework designed to accelerate rapidly private sector deployment of advanced telecommunications and information technologies and services to all Americans by opening all telecommunications markets to competition. The Commission has adopted regulations to implement the requirements of the 1996 Act and the intent of Congress.
After de-regulation, competition still existed, but in many areas it was only for a short time, just until one provider could swallow all the rest.
Exactly.
The same thing happened here in Canada.
Sure, they tried deregulating it.
At one time we had numerous cellphone companies.
Then, they all just bought out each other.
Rogers bought Fido for example (the only other GSM provider).
To top it off, they prevent foreign competition
Great scam.
When was the last time government intervention helped the telecom situation in the US?
The breakup of AT&T. Until then, my father tells me, you could only get two phones in the United States, and one of them (the “Princess” model) you got by paying more. AT&T wouldn’t let residential customers hook anything else to their network.
I knew someone whose husband worked in AT&T’s development department back then. She said AT&T’s engineers hated management. They developed lots of nice things, and management was constantly refusing to implement them. Cost vs. anticipated benefit.
It isn’t about profit margins, it is about what the company can sell you without having to upgrade their infrastructure at all. Why spend all that money upgrading their infrastructure when they can use their existing equipment and tell their customers a line that most invariably buy and pocket the money.
Back in the dialup days most people (myself included) were doing everything they could to increase their download speeds. At that time I was on Bell Atlantic (now Verizon) and their official stance on any support call concerning Internet access was “if you can get a voice call then your line works”. I had a discussion with a senior engineer at the ISP I was using at that time and he said if Bell Atlantic spent $16 million on a new switch, many of the problems people faced with poor access would go away. Well that didn’t happen. My other option was ISDN, at $130.00 a month also from Bell Atlantic/Verizon.
The example you provide is the exception to the rule, in many areas (especially rural) you have no choice at all. So the company providing the service can do whatever they want and you just have to suck it up. They don’t upgrade simply because they feel they don’t have to, if you want service no matter how bad it is you will come to them.
If every community in the US was like your neighborhood, it would be a different matter. Unfortunately that is not the case for many people who want quality service.
Competition – so you have 1 phone company monopoly, 1 cable monopoly and 1 wireless (near monopoly). Of course if any of those are unusable (bad signal, too far from DSLAM,etc.) the pool thins out even more.
The system has been tuned to soak maximum money from the customers.
If the copper/fiber infrastructure was seen as a monopoly and regulated as such (including prohibited from higher level services) the customer would see maximum competition for the largest part of the services stack. If on the other-hand a monopoly is allowed to extend to the ISP or even content provider level then the customer would see the least competition.
According to this:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/07/24/bloomberg/bxatt.php
consolidation seems to be profitable. Please keep in mind that is after all the high buck exec salaries and bonuses.
Competition does usually lower profit margin but it also usually increases value to the customer. In competitive markets companies tend to operate more efficiently as well.
No, I have at least 6 phone companies (Comcast, AT&T, Vonage, Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile) 3 HSI providers and 4 TV providers (AT&T, Comcast, Dish and Direct TV). How is any one of these companies a monopoly???
All this in little old Olathe, KS.
Just because you don’t like to pay for your internet doesn’t mean any of these companies is a monopoly, period!
Edited 2007-09-08 19:59
Point 1: competition in the ISP branch is already cutthroat, and that is what will ensure that the average Joe will have enough tube to be happy. Anyway, competition is bad; I read it here, it must be true.
Point 2: Anti-net neutrality legislation is not even on the table. The ruling was against letting the American government regulate bandwidth, which is a good thing.
So AT&T and Verizon think the Internet should have tiered access, and the DoJ is saying that is OK. I bet this is the payback for AT&T and Verizon allowing intelligence agencies access to their networks.
The consumer always pays for expansion of the respective company networks in their areas. Either the DoJ talking head is clueless, or is ignoring the long history of AT&T , Bell Atlantic, Verizon and other companies asking (and getting) huge tax breaks for “upgrading” their infrastructures to support “high speed access” and essentially do nothing but charge more and cash in on the tax breaks given to them.
The bottom line under tiered Internet service in the US would be simple, you pay to play or not use the Internet at all.
looks like,Two-tier Broadband it has already started in New Zealand.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/4188468a28.html
With people accepting this kind of nonsense from companies all the time and not doing anything about it, this was inevitable. i wonder why the US justice is part of this? what is next? to outlaw OS that are not DRM,etc compliant. having a two tier internet is going to far.what is sad, many will buy into it and keep quite.
Edited 2007-09-07 14:52
The reference you made to the 2-tier system in NZ explictly refers to rural Broadband users, not to “suppliers” of the end web-sites.
NZ has huge swathes of nearly empty rural land, after all, and quite a few rural customers live a couple of hours drive from the nearest exchange; my sister lives only 30-45 minutes drive from the nearest city, but is too far away to receive piped-in water, for example.
On top of that, broadband take-up in NZ is pretty low, mostly because it’s been priced too high per MB compared with dial-up, for too long — I think it was arounf $40/month for 512Kb down up until last year, which is the “cost-of-living”-equivalent to £40/month.
I suspect the different pricing reflects the fact the most rural customers don’t care about high-speed internet enough to hit a point where automatically installing DSLAMs to rural exchanges becomes cost-effective, so they’re passing some of that cost onto the customer.
Google has enough fiber laying around (in the US anyways) to become a tier I ISP competing with the big boys. They also vehemently reject the idea that ISPs can charge a premium for some traffic and use QoS to limit others.
It will be interesting to see an ISP do this and Google decide to open up their fiber. Google is one of the few companies large enough to compete with the tier I ISPs and (possibly) win.
This will be interesting once it plays out.
If Google started their own backbone it would make no difference. The ISPs that are threatening extortion are last-mile ISPs, and Google’s dark fiber doesn’t run to my house.
I can pretty much guarantee that this has to do with the DOJs illegal wiretapping program that AT&T and Verizon helped them out with. This is probably what the networks get in return for their assistance with that.
Land of the free my ass.
I can see both sides of the story. Obviously bandwidth cost money. ISP do sell service based on the assumption that x number of users are going to be able to share x amount of bandwidth.
In my case I pay $60 a month for 10Mbs ADSL. How much would a dedicated 10Mbs connection cost me? I assume quite a bit more. Now if everybody who had that same service spend day and night “clogging the tubes” it wouldn’t be cost effective for my Internet provider and my connection speed would suffer.
With that said though, I don’t really hammer my connection all that much. I download music and tv shows (iTunes) from time to time. I download software more often than music, but I doubt I go over 15GB of download a month.
However, I would come closer to supporting net neutrality over a two tier system. Although I have no statistics I come closer to believing that bandwidth isn’t being abused as much as ISP’s want to make it out to be. I do think it cuts into profits for them, but that’s life.
Also, it’s not the business of government to make it profitable for a business to be lazy/crappy planner/ etc!
If your model is working, CHANGE IT – but DO NOT trample on people’s rights, abuse your monopoly, etc to do it.
I don’t even blame companies. They exist for profit, nothing more or less. The Government, on the other hand…
True. Capitalist society here in the USA. All companies are out for profit, it’s why they exist. It’s the government’s responsibility to make sure that the corporations do nothing to “harm” society, growth, health and general welfare, etc. by controlling interstate commerce (for example).
That’s the problem though. ISPs should expect that users use the bandwidth they pay for. When I sell somebody a service, I expect them to use it.
Many people here are saying how the Department of Justice is sinisterly tied to companies wanting to make an extra buck on a two-tier Internet.
But no one is saying what’s
at stake here: freedom of speech.
Let’s look at radio. Radio was a relatively cheap medium compared to the money required for large newspapers. So, you’d think when you turned on the radio in the US you’d hear every kind of opinion being discussed. What’s the real situation now? The government sold licenses to broadcast on specific frequencies to large companies. Now all you hear is a Clear Channel broadcasting commercials, manufactured music, and right-wing talk shows. It’s a far cry from any openness in the medium.
The internet is the latest technology allowing the greatest degree of freedom of speech. Anyone can put up a website and put his or her own ideas. The opinions you find on the internet are of every shade. (Compare the blogs of Angry Patriotic Bastard to Angry Arab.) This, I feel, is under attack. I’m not saying the government censors the media. It’s like if the little guy has to shout with his throat, and the big guy gets a microphone and stadium-sized speakers. Sure, both guys get to say whatever they want, but the little guy barely gets heard.
so does the ISP get to charge me double if I download some video….? or does it detect that I have 30% P2P traffic and I pay higher on 30% of my traffic? What if I download an .avi and not stream it? Heavy VOIP user? Now all of your cost motivation to use VOIP is gone, no more voip, no more need for 2 tier. The $$ used to lobby this could have upgraded their equipment. This is a power grab.
-Bounty
This is a perfect example of why I really dislike politics and the idea of politicians. Who are the people that should be making the decision about something like this? The people who are experts in the field, who genuinely understand the issue and the consequences of their actions. Who ends up making the decision? Politicians. And what expertise do politicians have? They went to school to BE politicians. They are easily influenced and bought by lobbyist and big companies.
They have no right legislating on something that they are ill educated about. If you think they know what they’re talking about, look for the post linking to Senator Steven’s video. And this goes beyond just the internet and technology: medicine, education… there are all kinds of different areas where politicians get the final say but very obviously shouldn’t be the ones making the decision. I’m not sure I know how to put the power in the right peoples hands, I’m just saying the current system is pretty fubar.
China. India. Brazil.
Well done U.S.A, this would be the first step in increasing the chances of alternative arrangements for the internet being instigated elsewhere.
Not good, on the whole, I think.
It’s always strange these days how government granted monopolies want the ‘free-market’ to prevail.
It’s not just telecom. Let’s take healthcare. The government grants an exclusive right to doctors to treat patients. On my own, I cannot decide I have a sinus infection and go to the store and pick up some nasonsex. I have to go through a doctor who gets his/her cut.
This works fine if government/people recognizes this and realize they can and should control costs/accessibility.
However, what has happened is these government mandated monopolies have convinced many people they should be able to charge free market pricing or act is a free market company.
Lets go back to telecom. Yes, frequencies are auctioned off, but its still a government mandated monopoly. Those waves pass through our common air and even on my personal property.
It’s ridiculous for the government to say they should not have mandated GSM or anything, as that opposes the free market.
Similarly with cable and land lines.
Now practically speaking, it’s okay to have these government monopolies, as long as we recognize that it is not the free market and should not be treated as such.
My ISP provides my with upload/download capacity.
Googles ISP provides them with upload/download capacity
That’s the end of the story.
The good analogy is a world of complete toll roads.
I use the roads and I should be charged for my use of the roads. Now, does it matter if a large number of people who use the toll road want to go to mall. This clogs up the roads. Should the mall pay the toll company extra? No, because people are already paying to use the toll.
If ISPs made a bad deal with their customers, they should own up to it and adjust their rates accordingly. Or install better throttling or network management abilties. I know at my brother’s university, once you pass your allocated bandwidth, they put you on a lower priority queue (okay for basic browsing..but you can’t stream videos for sure)
Edited 2007-09-07 16:26
The internet has only become what it is today, and moved society upward and forward the way it has, because it was so free.
Completely open, accessible to anyone with a phone or data connection, you can scrape ancient parts together and access the entire world – communicate across continents. Research using thousands of sources (not just a few media outlets).
Completely avoid any kind of censorship.
With a bit of know how, stay anonymous in doing so.
The Department of Justice is charged with being the legal arm of the executive branch. It’s supposed to defend the people and their rights – NOT be a tool of business.
With everything that’s happened, are you surprised? With the blatant corruption, laws broken and discarded, the constitution just a piece of paper…Things are bad and without some change are going to get worse. They’re not just talking about charging for more Youtube. They’re talking about control, censorship, removal of anonymity. They’re talking about Big Brother in the worst of ways.
And given how we’ve behaved as a Nation (the US) as of late, we’ll be fine as long as we can watch Big Brother on NBC (ah, the irony), drink a latte, and drive an SUV.
Make sure you’re registered to vote, and fight for a candidate that believes in the constitution, your rights, and freedom. That believes in a better WORLD, not just a better NATION.
I’ll give you three presidential names to look up:
Mike Gravel
Dennis Kucinich
Ron Paul
Guarantee you that with any of them as president, we’ll have a government with a different direction indeed. This must be fought. Geeks will develop their own methods, of course, for getting around things like this. But the average person will LOSE the free internet before they can even realize it’s vast potential.
Edited 2007-09-07 16:30
The Internet is not a public good. There is no such thing as a “public good.” The Internet is a service provided by institutions, who should be allowed to charge whatever they want.
-Dan
The Internet is not a public good. There is no such thing as a “public good.” The Internet is a service provided by institutions, who should be allowed to charge whatever they want.
The internet was originally designed and built using government money which the public provided.
Sure there are business interests and private investments have been made but without the original funds put forth none of it would exist at this point.
And neither should public works be the gateway to private profit.
Since when has any major floated business proprotionately paid for the infrastructure that it uses to make profits only for shareholders? Corporation tax my shiny metal *ss: at least in the UK, it’s been uncovered recently that many companies are getting away with blue murder regarding the payment of such taxes:
http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2007/08/28/one-third-of-large-co…
http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2007/08/29/paying-nic-is-no-subs…
We the people not only pay our own taxes to see government supinely pave the way for companies to exploit the fruits of this public largesse, but we are directly subsidizing businesses, in that the latter try to find ways of complying only with the letter of tax law.
Of course, rabid capitalists here will opine that without business-created jobs there ain’t no wages out of which taxes might be culled, except you can have businesses that are owned by the people that work for them, co-operatives, non-profits, stakeholder-ownership…hey, maybe we don’t need capitalists and profiteers to run good businesses: now there’s a thought….
What’s wrong with that? Nationalizing private companies, whether they are “natural” monopolies or not, is socialist and causes harm to the consumer and taxpayer.
No extra taxes needed – this is Marxist hate of “the rich.” Neither are subsidies – this is not capitalism but corruption and favoritism.
What’s wrong with that? Nationalizing private companies, whether they are “natural” monopolies or not, is socialist and causes harm to the consumer and taxpayer.
I used to believe this too until I found myself stuck in the middle of the US Health Care system.
First of all, why should communism, socialism, a welfare state … be bad per se? That’s what you seem to suggest.
You are talking in such absolute ways, like there is only one way. As a matter of fact that is not true as history tells us. Capitalism is a very new concept, contrary to the system in the medieval time eg.
While capitalism can’t live without growth, the old systems mostly could and did.
That doesn’t mean that capitalism is worse than these, but different.
I’m not sure if you believe in god, if you believe in Christ. If you do read the bible, you’ll find some “communism” in there.
That’s one of the things I do not understand about the US politicians – the elephants in fact – they potray themselves as religious yet fail imo most times to act after their own religion.
Much disapproval you must learn, young padawan.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_good
This is simply outrageous! The Internet is showing signs of running out of bandwidth and rather than implementing Internet2 and the government backing the transition we get this pile of cow dun? What happened to fair trade and open markets?
If this stupidity does not get overturned they are on the way of creating Internet mafia and this is really really bad. Just when I was saying that the US has a much better policy than the EU when it comes to Internet they go and do something stupid like this … damn you George and your whole posse of idiots …
Please explain the relationship between government backing and [/i]fair trade and open markets[/i]. They’re not quite opposites, but they seem to be somewhat at odds to me.
Without a government there can neither be “fair trade” nor “open markets”, because who is to enforce indentures?
Governments are there to provide the “fairness” Adam Smith talked about, he never said that the world should be the playground of companies, he always said that there should be certain rules, enforced by the governments.
“Every man, as long as he does not violate the laws of justice, is left perfectly free to pursue his own interest his own way (…)”
That’s a good answer.
But it doesn’t explain why the free market is inadequate to guarantee good and increasingly better ISP service.
Well I don’t think that this is the case.
I think that the “free” market copes with the problem very good, at least here.
The offers and the speed get better.
I also do not have the problem of getting mails late.
A problem is, if ISPs start to fix a price, something that happens on a lot of different areas.
I haven’t followed the net neutrality debate at all but I’m surprised that two big for-profit corporations like Microsoft and Google would prefer it over a tiered system. Wouldn’t the tiered system give these companies more access/control to the internet? If they have the faster speeds they can push their web based services as a selling point.
Now for us the consumers it seems pretty bad. Why should I get lower priority over someone else? I’m against it and I only see it being good for big business.
Wouldn’t the tiered system give these companies more access/control to the internet?
No, it would allow MS and Google to pay more for the same bandwidth that they use today.
First, this issue is very confusing. I still haven’t read a good description of the issues that I trust as not being spin.
However, I believe in the free market. Currently, I am personally fortunate enough to live where there are three (three!) broadband ISPs to choose from: Comcast (CATV), Verizon (phone), and HughesNet (satellite).
Verizon just offered me a special deal as Comcast’s special deal expired, so I dumped Comcast switched to Verizon. If Comcast comes up with a sweet counter offer, maybe I’ll jump back.
The free market is alive and well here. If any two-tier crap becomes bothersome, each ISP will have the opportunity to offer a flat rate the same as they do now for phone calls. Remember when you had to pay different long distance charges for across the state and to each state? The market itself is getting rid of that bother.
Virgin media (NTL) has been doing this for some time
without charging its customers. In peak times 16:00 to 00:00 they sometimes temporally cap the users using the most bandwidth to ensure that all services and customers get a reasonable service.
I’m not saying that this is the best solution, but it seems work. I think this “charge more” way of thinking from the US government is not very helpful.
Technology should be constantly developed and the ISP/Tube owners should compete to provide the best service and gain customers.
Can’t wait to pay my $115 6mbps cable bill and then the extra $115 just to retain any priority on the network…
Yes, I pay $115/mo for 6mbps and it sucks. TimeWarner and AT&T in this area are both about the same price for the same speed.
Then you have 20 other countries in the world (random number) that have 50mbps or atleast 20mbps or better paying a quarter of what I pay…
I should mention that I do a lot of my work at home. And TimeWarner’s connection drops 15-20 times per week and I call them everytime it happens. I just got to the point where I ask them if I can shut them off 15-20 times a week at random so they can’t do their job.
And AT&T seems a lot more solid here but the throughput seems about 250kbps less although it’s suppose to be the same speed. I pay for both services max speed connection just incase one goes down I can use the other. Neither service is reliable enough to use for a workplace.
Even dedicated lines like T1’s around here seem to have the same uptimes and conenction issues or the cable business lines all go down and have problems like any home connection.
Cable down = 15-20 times a week
DSL down = 1-2 times a week but slower theoreticle same speed as the cable.
Edited 2007-09-07 18:17
When I first heard about the anti net neutrality scam being pulled by these companies, I was p*ssed. I felt that way because I remembered the money the telcos got in the 90’s to lay down a fiber-optic network and they just took the money and ran. I found an article discussing this @ http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2006/05/12/telcos-lay-billion-goo…
So, when I hear them talking about how their networks can’t handle the growing demands of consumers, they get no sympathy here. To me it’s a way of government bailing out big business after already letting them rip off taxpayers to the tune of $200 billion.
Thanks for the link jaypee. Two things I found interesting in this link you provided:
“Today’s average residential broadband user consumes about 2 gigbytes of data per month, Kafka estimated, which costs the service provider about $1”
“Essentially, today’s user in a location where the choice for broadband is between a single cable provider and a single telecom DSL provider pays about $40 per month for a dollar’s worth of service. ‘Excessive’ could be an understatement regarding that price.”
Excessive? How about highway robbery. Why does Comcast get away with charging me $49.95/month? Because simply there is no competition. It seems to me clear as day what the solution is, yet our government would rather hang around men’s bathrooms at airports than actually do their duty, which is to look at the best interest of the citizens. Much the same way the AT&T was broken up and regulated, they could do similar with HSI cable and the infrastructure. There is absolutely no reason why we should not have our choice in cable.
Now to top it off, as some may or may not have been aware of, certain cable companies like Comcast are now terminating users for excessive bandwidth. And it appears that Comcast is the most aggressive at this. They do not talk to you beforehand, they just cancel your account claiming you are using too much of the shared pipe. The question I have is simply as these cable companies grow with users, are they simply not re-investing to support the added infrastructure? No, and they have no reason or incentive to do it.
It seems to me that the obvious solution here in the US is much like our aging bridge system (I live in Minneapolis FYI) we have an aging telecom. Money and tax incentives have been given to companies to do something about this, now it is up to the government to insure this gets done. With an election coming up, I would advise EVERY US citizen to bring this issue up. In 2007 we should be connected via 100mb fiber in every household. This is an embarrassing joke how far we have fallen, and it is the ones in Washington who are to blame.
Maybe what we need is everyone to put up the money to pay for fiber from their house to the middle of the road or wherever the main wire drag is located on there property. Then make the govn’t come in and lay all the rest at our tax paying expense. Looks liek we are going to end up paying for it anyway, might as well make it so we can control our portion of it.
Then have all the isp’s connect to it aswell to offer us the services we need.
Never having to change our in home connection from cable or dsl and just use the straight fiber to our equipment to our comps. And we only pay the provider we want for the specific services we need.
This way they are relegated to services on the net but not the actual connection. Controlling the connection is the issue imo. Example, in order to have dsl I”must have” a phone line and number. For cable I “must have” basic cable.
Basic cable or a phone, I could care less about. Cell phones at this point cost less than a land line and have stupid amount of features that land lines do not have. Who cares about basic cable, it’s just standard tv at this point, get a sattalite or HD cable for all the features you need. Wich btw, could be traversed into our homes via the fiber aswell.
Just my rant and my opinion.
Edited 2007-09-07 20:38
Read my previous comment. We actually already paid for fiber in the 1990’s. The telcos took the money but didn’t put in the fiber optic network(s) they promised to provide in exchange for all our tax money.
…if it happens. I work remotely, VPN to a point 3000 miles away and the internet is slow enough now… and I pay around $50/mo for DSL (or I could pay $60/mo for cable). Both companies offered a fixed IP address for significantly more; I wonder what the cost would be to be on the “tier 1” network.
From what I see, the trend now is for ISPs like Comcast and Qwest to push VPN users to their “Business” class service. Aside from a static IP (which is not necessary for all VPNs) you get nothing more than a bill double the cost. I am sure the motivation behind this is someone in accounting, finance, or marketing decided since more and more people VPN these days, they now have new revenue without any cost. Comcast can now double my monthly bill without providing anything new. I know certain ISPs actualy strictly forbid the use of VPNs to the point they will actively cut your connection for using one. If you look at the terms of service of most of these ISPs like Comcast, you will see that use of a VPN is against the rules.
Beyond Net neutrality I think we are heading backwards with internet service and usage in the US. I don’t know which candidates specifically, but I can easily take a guess at which party is going to screw us on this in the future. Sad when we get to a point where we will NOT want to use the internet because of cost and concerns.
I agree with what you say… but when did Comcast start that policy? I used to VPN using Comcast, back East. As far as I know, unless I upgrade to my current provider’s business service they will not guarantee a consistent connection… but it is not disallowed, and that is with a major carrier in the West.
I pity the fool who thinks this is a good idea.
Of course, should they succeed, I pity everyone.
The US Department of Injustice is at it again, can they get anything right? Take notes Americans at how your liberties are being destroyed.
Personally, I think that business should NEVER have been allowed to use the WWW, but should have been made to set up their own network infrastructure.
Dave
The Internet is an information Highway. Do you prioritize the traffic between cities? Why should you do that with information?
creation of digital divide and people who have less money will get inferior access than people who have more money.
…approach of privileged access for a private business to business parallel pipe. Let future developments for such private enterprises who are willing to pay for increased bandwidth and need it for their business processes develop as the Internet2 is developing for R&D.
Leave standard B-C and C-C alone and using the Internet as it currently stands.
When the Internet2 developments can be moved over to either the Private B-B and Public B-C/C-C then do so.
This whole damn thing wouldn’t exist without Federal Tax Money and now the Government is willing to think People will pay for this premium service?
They obviously are very confident in the addiction they label as the Internet and think like Cigarettes that the psychological dependencies on it allow it to have an excise tax. Instead of it being directly through the Government they are willing to allow the ISPs to add it on.
Don’t use the Internet for 1 week. See how hundreds of millions of inactive users can do for business what, in theory, Earth day is supposed to do for the Environment.
Edited 2007-09-08 19:25
“This is crap. The Washington Post recently had an article stating Japan is almost totally wired with 100 meg fiber to the home. They can do it without a two tier structure why can’t we?”
Answer: because we (the US) are too busy wasting money on everyone elses war instead of putting that money toward infrastructure, alternative fuel investments, medical research, etc…
Note: I say everyone elses because the “war on terror” has been going on and a pain in the rear all over the world since before 9/11 even lest people forget. And the two countries that wine about it the most: Russia, and China actually have a lot to gain if we bring stability there so they just kick back and let us waste our money and lives instead.
IMO 98% of the current net neutrality movement is based on an unsubstantiated fear. Truth is the Internet has never been and never will be neutral. Also if you want an ISP that doesn’t prioritize your traffic, and are willing to pay for it, then companies will offer it.
The Internet represents freedom from government control. That also means freedom for Internet providers to prioritize traffic. TV is already done this way. There are freely accessible shows and then there are programs that you pay extra for. There are also TV networks that many cable/satellite providers don’t carry at all. Very similar idea and we’ve had this system for decades and no one died directly from it.
My advice is for NN advocates to calm down. Make it a meditation. Bring awareness to your breathing (seriously). Notice the life underneath all the problems that your mind creates.
If you think the government is going to solve your problems, you have a lot more problems than you thought you did.
Live in fear, and your fear can grossly distort your perceptions of reality.
If you think the government is going to solve your problems, you have a lot more problems than you thought you did.
Well stated!
I thought of an analogy. If I notice that my local grocery store doesn’t always stock my favorite breakfast cereal–i.e. it is restricting that product’s bandwidth–I would never complain to the government. I would complain to the grocery store. Or shop elsewhere.
ISPs are businesses with paying customers. They know they have to keep their customers happy. That’s why Comcast raised it’s download speed to 16Mbps and why I hesitated to grab Verizon’s better price which offered only 5Mbps down (though I grabbed it anyway).
You claim that the telcos have the freedom to do as they wish, but they do not. Because of their government granted monopoly, they are required to operate in the interest of the public good. We’re already on a fast track back to days of Ma Bell, and you’re helping to make it happen with such attitudes.
Don’t say I didn’t warn you when the day comes when you can only connect AT&T approved devices to the Internet.
Thanks rajj. Once that happens, we’ll deal with it. It’s not a problem now, that’s for sure. Until it happens, it’s not a real problem. Until then it’s “all in the head.” This is what I’m talking about, about imagined fear of a hypothetical situation. The fact is that AT&T mandated their devices *only* with government backing of a monopoly, which is totally different from the situation we have now. Thanks.
People forget that it was the “cursed American capitalistic greed” that gave us the internet in the first place.
Capitalism and private markets are the way to go, it’s when the government gets involved that things begin to go awry.
*hums twilight zone theme*