VIDEO FUNNY: The Lonely Island - The 'Bu

This shit is going to get better and better. Gotta keep it Free. (clicky clicky on those devils if you haven't)

Oh, and on that tip, I saw via the Common Cause blog that Marc Cuban is complaining about the form-letters being forwarded., saying it's spam. He also links to a post calling for tiered internet service so that fantasy applications like remote medical diagnostics can emerge.

My response:

It's the beauty of the marketplace, man. You speak with the voice of a billionare investor. That's a loud voice. Sometimes you get spoken back to by a few thousand of us little people. Welcome to parity.

The problem with teiring service is not that the principle of Network Neutrality is involuble. The poster above who suggested home-alarm data as that which could be "privileged" is correct. There are already laws around this that impact things like 9-1-1 service.

But if you really think BellSouth wants to tier internet service so grandma can get a video checkup, I've got a bridge here in Brooklyn you've just got to see. We don't have technology or trained personnel to even begin to imagine that as a reality. It's pure vaporware spin.

On the other hand, you're a founder of HDnet, a company that produces video entertainment of the highest-bandwidth that conumers can currently recieve. It's pretty easy to imagine real ways in which tiered service might be of use there.

Here's what I believe: If large corporations determine how internet traffic will be teired, it will almost certainly not be done in the public interest, or in the interest of creating a vital market for service and data online. It will almost certainly be a move to consolidate the existing marketplace, to commoditize and productize the network, to turn the internet into a consumer medium.

This will raise higher barriers to entry. It will stifle innovation. It also threatens the principles of standardization and interoperability: a "market driven" tiering structure would likely lean towards propritary technologies and business practices, creating corporate/national vertical silos which may impair global connectivity.

The great pracitcal benefit of the internet has been the decentralization/re-distribution of the means of communication. That's what makes all this cool, really. Incidentally, is also the phenomena which enabled your fantastic personal wealth. (Yahoo made you a billionare. Their money comes from harnassing online communication.)

Color me cynical, but I'm unconvinced that your support for net teiring is motivated by a desire to "keep the net healthy." I suspect it's about maximizing shareholder value.

I don't know if the comment was accepted or not. There seems to be some moderation happening. Ah, email verification. There it is. Anyway, it's interesting how billionare blogging works. I suspect in todays business culture it's nearly impossible to be very honest.