[CS-FSLUG] End of the Net (again)?

[Tim Young]

I don't think there would be any way for this to work. If someone 
attempted it, they would be hammered very fast and very hard. 
Financially, it would be a dumb thing for a company to do. For example:

One of the largest internet industries is the porn industry. The Porn 
industry survives because thousands of new sites/access points to 
existing sites are released every day to avoid blockers. There is also a 
huge anonymous browsing industry that has sprung up to thwart business 
content blocking. All of this would be nixed if such a solution were 
attempted. Do you think that the devil would stop his own most effective 
tool against Christians (porn) simply to change a power structure? No. 
On a financial and spiritual front, it does not make any sense.

One of the other major internet industries, the gaming industry, works 
with peer-to-peer games. If peer-to-peer communication is blocked, then 
the gaming industry is basically dead too. Gaming drives the majority of 
the growth of computer hardware.

Also, the only reason the Internet has blossomed has been because of the 
freedom people have had to publish their own information and see other 
people's information. If this were limited, then probably most of the 
impetus for people to use the Internet would die. It would be similar to 
street-makers deciding that only roads to Wal-Mart and Mc Donalds will 
be maintained, so that all other businesses will die. It would end up 
being seen as monopolistic practices, or at least an attack against the 
freedom of speech. Only communistic countries, like China, have been 
able to get control of the Internet. And China has had a very difficult 
time maintaining that control. There are hundreds of ways to get 
information in and out of the Internet, and people use those ways. The 
only real thing that would happen if these organizations tried to put up 
barriers would be for there to be a plethora of tools that would 
circumvent their blocks.

I see this as a "Y2K" scare. It might be a real issue, but even in the 
worst case scenario, it would be just a small bump in the road. The 
world would not stand for such a change. And we (the world) have too 
many intelligent people who would find the many ways around the issues.

The I-Phone was released such that it could only be used with a service 
from ATT. Within a few days, a "hack" was published. And the main result 
was that other people developed other phones that were basically the 
same, but cheaper. The attempt to corner the market failed and only 
served to make people hate the I-Phone.

Anyway, the examples are endless. I have no worries that the internet 
will die in 2012. There are just too many factors involved for that to work.

- Tim Young

Ed Hurst wrote:
> Gentle list members, what think ye of this?
>
>    http://ipower.ning.com/netneutrality2
>
>