The Emperor's New Clothes

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Not So Fast

I am not normally moved to gesture on your posts Steve - because, normally, you're with the beat.

But this time you're way, way, off.

True: At some point last mile competition will, eventually... [checks watch, checks calendar, checks last 10 diaries (yawn)] kick in.

True: New, small, last mile providers could not care less about doing all those big, complex, Hollywood content deals.

True: The new 'content' has never been 'owned' - and even with Net Prejudice new stars will emerge, and increasingly resist 'Hollywood's' siren song.

True: DRM and copyright are big problems for their owners - no-one else gives a damn 'cos they're toothless, brainless, and smell really bad.

True: Past IT choke points such as Microsoft monopolies were not the end of the civilized World.

True: The politicians can be fully expected to screw it up in the worst possible way - even if they get a clue in the meantime.

True: The IT industry does not give a monkey's cuss for Net Neutrality - where's the fun in an open market?

True: Discussing media 'ownership' is a debate for the mentally retarded.

False: Net Neutrality is not a game fit only for the paranoid.

It is perfectly possible to plug the network 'intelligence' (hey, it's their name for it, leave me out) that still exists in POTS back into the Net. Trust me, (please?) you don't want these zombie devices in your Net access.

I waited through HDLC/SDLC, Statmuxing, X.25, Frame Relay, ATM - holy crap I even served on SMDS committees - and that's just the transport layer!

All of these were open, 'industry supported', standards - and all were balkanized to death. Life before TCP/IP was pure hell for anyone who actually wanted to get anything done in their own back yard - and you could just forget the wider World.

It took at least a quarter of a century ('69 to '94) just to get open packet switching technology adopted as one standard so that we can start to build on top (i.e. the Web). Net Prejudice will turn back this clock - count on it (pretty please?).

The Internet is important - and exploded into view - because anyone can connect and be sure that everyone else is connected to them. True, this ideal has been eroded over time (NAT, Firewalls, Encryption, DRM (aka CRAP), etc. etc.) but that does not mean that the ideal is no longer valid - that the ideal is not worth defending. On the contrary, at some point we have to make a stand or we lose the freedom to BE CONNECTED.

Posted by: Stephen Wheeler   Posted on: 05/04/06 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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