I think Google Fiber's emphasis on working WITH communities, instead of seeing them as adversaries and telling them to go fuck themselves, has been pretty huge. I watched for fifteen years as nobody gave a damn that state legislatures were passing protectionist laws keeping incumbents from competing. Google's entry mysteriously suddenly woke everybody up this stuff and now we're finally seeing traction on the subject...
"why are you skeptical about the existence of a smoking gun just waiting to be found in this particular case?"
Because I've studied, written about, and watched Verizon for fifteen years, ten hours a day? They don't document this kind of stuff. They cover their tracks. They have fantastic lawyers, and rarely if even do they even suffer from whistle blowers (unlike AT&T).
Yeah, the wireless industry is not dissimilar (and several of the key players are the same). That said, when the Motorola DynaTAC 8000X first went on sale 30 years ago, it was $4,000, so....
"He actually did a pretty good job of describing how the free market can keep bad actors in line. It really does work that way."
Unless his comments were more in depth than what AOL-owned TechCrunch reported, he generally just waves his hand in the general direction of accountability and suggests everything will just kind of work out.
"Trouble is, telecom isn't a free market. And when conditions of freedom don't exist in the marketplace, because the industry is dominated by anticompetitive actors, then free market principles break down and you need a completely different toolset--monopoly economic principles--to correctly analyze it."
Absolutely. Whether it's Verizon's domination over the last mile for fixed line broadband, or the duopoly retail power it enjoys with AT&T over wireless (and backhaul), we're talking about an entirely different potato.
"However lets also look at how some people treat the companies, then maybe we can get some insight into some of their policies even if we don't agree wtih them."
I still don't think if four customers out of a thousand might sue it's a good idea to treat all 1,000 customers as hostile adversaries.
And if you DO still think it's necessary, there's certainly softer language you could use that what AT&T did here.
"To be fair to the websites changing their policies on reader comments, I've read the given reasons why they stopped doing so and many of them are NOT saying they are doing it to further reader conversation and interactions."
I've been studying this pretty closely and I've yet to see one website be totally honest about this and not, in some form, try to claim that muzzling their audience opens up broader conversational opportunities.
"I'm not so sure that it's due to thinking that their customers are idiots, so much as knowing that most of their customers flat out have no other option. You can do whatever you want, treat your customers as abysmally as you feel like if you know that there's no competing company/service that they can go to."
Totally agree, but even that has limits.
Time Warner Cable tried to cap all of its users in 2009, and despite being stuck in uncompetitive broadband markets the absolute stink customers raised caused the company to totally reverse course.
"Those poor folks in other countries are better off without any Internet than a limited version provided free by Facebook."
Again, that's a false choice. Facebook doesn't operate in a vacuum. Wanting them to deliver the REAL Internet and encryption capabilities (which has countless benefits, of which I don't need to go in to) does not somehow automatically equate to wanting all of India's poor to go to hell without Internet.
"You're way off on this one Karl. Facebook certainly has commercial interests but I don't see anyone else with similar resources extending access to the unconnected billions."
Microsoft just announced plans to deploy white space broadband to 500,000 Indian villages in conjunction with the government. Google just announced plans to deploy free Wi-Fi to 400 Indian train stations.
"The US & Indian telecommunications regulatory environment are very different."
Sure are. The Indian government's initial report just got done declaring Facebook's zero rating ambitions are "collusion," where as in the US, we think the horrible precedent set by zero rating is just nifty.
"Yes, it's a commercial service so Facebook gets to make decisions about it. Get over it."
Gosh, guess that settles it and I'll just go in the corner and never talk about potential horrible precedents anymore since this is all apparently settled and Facebook is in the right. :)
On the post: With Another Major Expansion, Google Fiber's Looking Less Like An Adorable Experiment And More Like A Disruptive Broadband Revolution
Re: Pulling a netflix
On the post: The FCC Has To Remind ISPs Not To Spend Taxpayer Subsidies On Booze, Trips To Disney World
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On the post: With Tim Wu's Help, New York AG Launches Belated Investigation Into Whether ISPs Intentionally Slowed Netflix
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Because I've studied, written about, and watched Verizon for fifteen years, ten hours a day? They don't document this kind of stuff. They cover their tracks. They have fantastic lawyers, and rarely if even do they even suffer from whistle blowers (unlike AT&T).
On the post: Nearly All Tech Hardware And Services Get Cheaper Over Time -- Except For Cable TV
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On the post: Nearly All Tech Hardware And Services Get Cheaper Over Time -- Except For Cable TV
Re:
On the post: Tim Berners-Lee: 'Just Say No' To Facebook's Plan To Bastardize The Internet
Re: Re: Re: So you're saying the Google and Microsoft versions are purest altruism, not at all similar?
Good thing I never argued that point then, I guess.
On the post: Tim Berners-Lee: 'Just Say No' To Facebook's Plan To Bastardize The Internet
Re: So you're saying the Google and Microsoft versions are purest altruism, not at all similar?
Though in this case, Google hung up on its zero rating plan when criticism in India mounted. Facebook doubled down and called critics "extremists."
On the post: AOL CEO Promises 'The Market' Will Keep Verizon, AOL Honest About Sleazy New Stealth Cookies
Re:
Unless his comments were more in depth than what AOL-owned TechCrunch reported, he generally just waves his hand in the general direction of accountability and suggests everything will just kind of work out.
"Trouble is, telecom isn't a free market. And when conditions of freedom don't exist in the marketplace, because the industry is dominated by anticompetitive actors, then free market principles break down and you need a completely different toolset--monopoly economic principles--to correctly analyze it."
Absolutely. Whether it's Verizon's domination over the last mile for fixed line broadband, or the duopoly retail power it enjoys with AT&T over wireless (and backhaul), we're talking about an entirely different potato.
On the post: AOL CEO Promises 'The Market' Will Keep Verizon, AOL Honest About Sleazy New Stealth Cookies
Re: If you were consistent would apply your logic and invective to Google a thousand times over.
https://www.techdirt.com/blog/netneutrality/articles/20150820/10454632018/google-lobbied- against-real-net-neutrality-india-just-like-it-did-states.shtml
Or for being painfully inconsistent int its principles?
https://www.techdirt.com/blog/wireless/articles/20100812/17291310611.shtml
You mean like that?
On the post: AT&T Lawyers Want You To Know That AT&T's CEO Will Never Listen To Customer Suggestions
Re: Re:
I still don't think if four customers out of a thousand might sue it's a good idea to treat all 1,000 customers as hostile adversaries.
And if you DO still think it's necessary, there's certainly softer language you could use that what AT&T did here.
On the post: Techdirt Podcast Episode 46: Things We Got Wrong
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On the post: China Looks To Quell Dissent With 'Citizen Scores,' A Number That Tracks Purchases, Opinions And Social Circles
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I'm pretty well screwed.
On the post: Motherboard's Version Of 'Valuing Discussion' Involves No Longer Letting You Comment
Re:
I've been studying this pretty closely and I've yet to see one website be totally honest about this and not, in some form, try to claim that muzzling their audience opens up broader conversational opportunities.
On the post: Motherboard's Version Of 'Valuing Discussion' Involves No Longer Letting You Comment
Re: Why is Techdirt continually reporting on this?
I dunno, I think it's important to keep highlighting it since so many seem totally oblivious to the down side.
How about I stop writing about it when news websites stop claiming they're muzzling their audience for the benefit of an open dialogue?
On the post: As Comcast Broadband Usage Caps Expand, Company Still Refuses To Admit They Even Have Caps
Re: When you have no other choice
Totally agree, but even that has limits.
Time Warner Cable tried to cap all of its users in 2009, and despite being stuck in uncompetitive broadband markets the absolute stink customers raised caused the company to totally reverse course.
On the post: Tennessee Voraciously Defends Its Right To Let AT&T Write Awful State Broadband Laws
Re: Pshaw
On the post: Toronto Sun: We Value Criticism And The Voice Of The Reader So Much, We're Killing Both
Re: Is this fair? Signal/Noise
On the post: Facebook Hopes Renaming Internet.org App Will Shut Net Neutrality Critics Up
Re: Re: can you really complain about free?
On the post: Facebook Hopes Renaming Internet.org App Will Shut Net Neutrality Critics Up
Re:
Again, that's a false choice. Facebook doesn't operate in a vacuum. Wanting them to deliver the REAL Internet and encryption capabilities (which has countless benefits, of which I don't need to go in to) does not somehow automatically equate to wanting all of India's poor to go to hell without Internet.
That's Facebook's position too, and it's inane.
On the post: Facebook Hopes Renaming Internet.org App Will Shut Net Neutrality Critics Up
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Microsoft just announced plans to deploy white space broadband to 500,000 Indian villages in conjunction with the government. Google just announced plans to deploy free Wi-Fi to 400 Indian train stations.
"The US & Indian telecommunications regulatory environment are very different."
Sure are. The Indian government's initial report just got done declaring Facebook's zero rating ambitions are "collusion," where as in the US, we think the horrible precedent set by zero rating is just nifty.
"Yes, it's a commercial service so Facebook gets to make decisions about it. Get over it."
Gosh, guess that settles it and I'll just go in the corner and never talk about potential horrible precedents anymore since this is all apparently settled and Facebook is in the right. :)
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