> The government would actually be the anti-regulation force here, and > the > ISPs the regulators. It seems there is a lot of agreement that the Internet shouldn't be regulated. J Sent from my iPod. ...because my other device is a BB Storm. On Aug 20, 2010, at 3:09 AM, Mike Miller <mbmiller+l at gmail.com> wrote: > On Fri, 20 Aug 2010, Harry Penner wrote: > >> Actually I wasn't telling you what you ought to do with regard to net >> neutrality. I was asking you to think before doing anything. > > Back in reality, on Thu, 19 Aug 2010 at 10:41:41, you wrote, "Seems > to me > we ought to show up and tell the FCC to keep their paws off us." > > >> I ask you again to think hard about what the consequences of such >> regulation might be. If we outlaw content meddling by ISPs, will it >> cause unmetered connection prices to go up or maybe be phased out >> more >> quickly than they otherwise would be? Will it affect the usability >> of >> VoIP or video streaming? If we're dead set on some regulation as the >> solution, is there a way to craft it to minimize those effects? Your >> point (in another thread) that we don't even know how the regulation >> would be worded isn't an argument for or against it, but it would >> certainly make me think twice. Surely you wouldn't support a >> regulation >> that would affect the entire Internet so broadly without knowing >> every >> letter of what's in it? > > Right -- we have to know what's in it before we oppose it or support > it. > This is what I've been saying and it is not what you were saying. You > might have meant to say something different, but your point was pretty > clearly that government regulation will be bad, so we should oppose > it. > > > I read a bunch of the stuff on this list today and a lot of it > wasn't very > impressive but I did like what Tony Yarusso wrote. I liked it so much > that I'm appending it below. What's wrong with what Tony is saying? > > Mike > > > Date: Thu, 19 Aug 2010 18:54:47 > From: Tony Yarusso <tonyyarusso at gmail.com> > Reply-To: TCLUG Mailing List <tclug-list at mn-linux.org> > To: TCLUG Mailing List <tclug-list at mn-linux.org> > Subject: Re: [tclug-list] Net Neutrality hearing in Minnesota > > Much of this discussion actually looks at things somewhat backward, > IMO. > The government would actually be the anti-regulation force here, and > the > ISPs the regulators. > > Consider this: > > One option is to have a free-flowing Internet where everything is > equal, > and just allowed to happen. The "Information Superhighway" would be > allowed to be a "free market" of ideas and content. > > The other option is to have business executives decide they want to > reward > some of that traffic and punish others, or favor some customers over > others, or charge extra fees for certain uses while subsidizing > others. > No content is guaranteed passage, but rather must meet the particular > rules set forth for it. > > Which one of those sounds like regulation to you? Clearly it is the > latter, which is the one done by ISPs, dictating which traffic will be > "special" and which will be hindered. The former is not regulation > by the > government, but a mandate that regulation must not be done by > corporations. > > The first case, with free flow of information, is the hands-off > approach > that allowed the Internet to flourish. The difference is that now the > corporations have the technology to put a stop to that, so people are > asking the government to intervene in order to protect the integrity > of > the Internet's nature as it has been from the beginning. > > - Tony Yarusso > > _______________________________________________ > TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota > tclug-list at mn-linux.org > http://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list