Richard Bennett, NANOG posting, and Integrity

Mon Jul 28 03:59:14 UTC 2014

Maybe it would help if you tried to address the issues in a serious way 
instead of just trying to be cute.

Just a thought...

RB

On 7/27/14, 8:52 PM, Matt Palmer wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 28, 2014 at 08:16:36AM +0530, Suresh Ramasubramanian wrote:
>>   On 28-Jul-2014 8:06 am, "Matt Palmer" <mpalmer at hezmatt.org> wrote:
>>> On Sun, Jul 27, 2014 at 05:28:08PM -0700, Richard Bennett wrote:
>>>> It's more plausible that NAACP and LULAC have correctly deduced that
>>>> net neutrality is a de facto subsidy program that transfers money
>>>> from the pockets of the poor and disadvantaged into the pockets of
>>>> super-heavy Internet users and some of the richest and most
>>>> profitable companies in America, the content resellers, on-line
>>>> retailers, and advertising networks.
>>> I've got to say, this is the first time I've heard Verizon and Comcast
>>> described as "poor and disadvantaged".
>>>
>>>> Recall what happened to entry-level broadband plans in Chile when
>>>> that nation's net neutrality law was just applied: the ISPs who
>>>> provided free broadband starter plans that allowed access to
>>>> Facebook and Wikipedia were required to charge the poor:
>>> [...]
>>>
>>>> Internet Freedom? Not so much.
>>> I totally agree.  You can't have Internet Freedom when some of the
>>> richest and most profitable companies in America, the content resellers,
>>> on-line retailers, and advertising networks, are paying to have eyeballs
>>> locked into their services.  Far better that users be given an
>>> opportunity to browse the Internet free of restriction, by providing
>>> reasonable cost services through robust and healthy competition.
>>>
>>> Or is that perhaps not what you meant?
>> I think he meant the actual poor people that broadband subsidies and free
>> walled garden internet to access only fb and Wikipedia are supposed to
>> benefit, but I could be wrong
> I've got a whopping great big privilege that's possibly obscuring my view,
> but I fail to see how only providing access to Facebook and Wikipedia is (a)
> actual *Internet* access, or (b) actually beneficial, in the long run, to
> anyone other than Facebook and Wikipedia.  I suppose it could benefit the
> (no doubt incumbent) telco which is providing the service, since it makes it
> much more difficult for competition to flourish.  I can't see any lasting
> benefit to the end user (or should I say "product"?).
>
> - Matt
>

-- 
Richard Bennett
Visiting Fellow, American Enterprise Institute
Center for Internet, Communications, and Technology Policy
Editor, High Tech Forum