The little telecom DSL box that controls your world, that gets Google and their fanboyz crazy... Photo (c) by Catherine A. Fitzpatrick.
Paul Venezia has an article about Internet metering on infoworld.com -- and it's a perfect exemplar of the snarky geek's assault on the Internet Service Providers and telecoms and the flogging of the typical Google-lobby arguments against metering or controlling traffic because bandwidth is a scarce resource.
You can tell from the snark and the vitriol dripping from the paragraphs reciting these well-worn geek saws about ISPs are wheeled out not from "science" but "politics".
And the first thing to understand about this politics is that it is a kind of craftsmen class war, if you will, or competing industrial warfare replete with sabotage -- part of which is articles like Venezia's.
GEEK CLASS WARFARE
The first class is the geeks -- computer programmers, Internet engineers, website designers and such -- the people who call themselves "the Internet" when of course, they are only part of the Internet and should know their place better, like gas station attendants and garage mechanics.
The primal need the geeks have is to disguise the cost of themselves to their clients, who are usually not ordinary consumers or end-users, but enterprise, or small business, who have to hire them to run the Internet in their offices or who work in large IT companies supplying the Internet's functioning. Their costs aren't cheap and don't seem to be coming down -- they start at $50 an hour as consultants and as staff they easily command six figures. From the earliest days of the Internet, the programmers had to "liberate" the content of things like newspapers that they wanted to bring over the Internet line to get more people using it because they had to remove from the view the fact that they -- and their machines -- cost a lot to install in an office.
Few offices have ever "saved money" by installing networks and computers. Even if they automate tasks that human clerks used to do, as it has been aptly pointed out by critics more than once, a more expensive programmer or network administrator now replaces some of the cheaper clerks -- and the machines, while they seem to be coming down in cost, seem to replicate like bunnies -- before, it was just a computer on your desk, now it's your laptop and phone that your company might also be paying for -- and someone will justify a tablet as well. All of these -- and their servicing, because they break down all the time -- add thousands and millions of dollars to IT budgets as well as personal expenses and make life more expensive, not less even if "the cost of computers and bandwidth are coming" down as the geek snarks always tell you. They hide the cost of themselves, which is only going up, and the number of their gadgets, which is doubling and tripling.
So this class of people -- I call it the Google lobby because it's Google first and foremost, and then everyone relying on Google products specifically and the Google paradigm of free content and ad revenue -- are very, very keenly interested in making other people pay for their work tools and the highways of their business and not have any more costs than they have to bear already, so they can make more money. They want telephony to be done all over the Internet "for free," as it is on Skype. They find ISPs and telecoms evil, piggy and selfish and even "corporate welfare clients" of the state because they are "in the way" of their vision of an Internet paid for by other people, which they get to use to "innovate on top of" and get paid their consulting or staff fees -- which, as I noted, aren't cheap.
REAL ENGINEERS
Meanwhile, the telecoms are filled with engineers, people who don't have to "build apps" for yet another way to share a song with your girlfriend who are also called engineers, but real engineers who have to actually go out and build towers, string wires, get wireless signals working, and serve individual customers, which geek programmers typically never have to do, or if they do, it is in a business setting where their "customer" is only the person who hired them and supervises them, not even the individual users in the office.
These business and industries have different profiles, cultures, ethos, etc. And they clash because they are selling the same thing: communications for people and increasingly, things. These communications are increasingly penetrating every aspect of life, so that where once it was just a phone, or then it was a phone and fax, now it is phone, fax (things never fall out of use completely), DSL line or other dedicated computer line, smart phone, laptop, tablets -- and then all the things in your home that are starting to be wired and connected to the "Internet of things," about which I have warned.
From the cold perspective of "The Internet" -- the geek bosses who control your connection, ultimately, because they must install it and fix it when it breaks down -- the telecoms are dinosaurs. They should get gone. They don't need to exist any more. Google will get into the phone business, and replace Apple. Voice can all be done over the Internet, and so can everything else.
Except Apple is a huge, powerful, rich force to conjure with, and won't go down easily. While it angers many people that Steve Jobs was hoarding billions of dollars and not hiring people or giving to charity, I can see why he built up this war chest to fight the battle needed with Google. And from the perspective of the consumer, it's a good thing when titans clash, because then they aren't in a totalitarian system under the thumb of only one power, and the titans have to reduce their prices and try to serve customers more or at least be a little mroe responsive to them.
THE 'NET NEUTRALITY' REACTIONARIES
Venezia's arguments are the same one repeated everywhere this discussion surfaces, as it does increasingly in the "net neutrality" wars. I think the very term "net neutrality" is a fake, contrived socialist term that should be changed to "bandwidth consumption management' or something like that to reflect the reality of the technocommunism forces battling for its "free-ness".
Infoworld.com calls Bill Snyder's arguments on this "conservative" and thereby contrasts Venezia then as "progressive," but the reality is, the progressive, socialist approach to the Internet is by far the more reactionary and conservative, based on ideologies of 150 years' vintage that have been disproven by the Soviet and other communist experiments around the world. What's far more modern and advanced is the marketplace where scarce goods are supplied by a free market, not doled out by the state, and people are paid for goods and services and commerce can thrive.
Metered Internet is probably something we will be facing at least in some places, because bandwidth doesn't come out of thin air but requires machines, electricity, people, lines, etc. to provide. Those costs have to be covered, even if geeks want them disguised. Telecoms manage their covering; they pay for them. This fact is something those arguing for "net neutrality" stubbornly ignore, and try to cover up with two arguments:
1. "Telecoms are subsidized and therefore the public should get more out of them." Well, subsidies is just a socialist word -- you could turn it around and call it "incentives". I'd like more numbers on this entire issue, but even if the "government pays for telecoms," it pays for them for a reason: they provide a necessary service, and they provide jobs. The incentive for them to do business, in other words, pays off. They are not welfare clients just sucking down tax-payers' moneys and then demanding more to go the next round; they produce. They are not Google, hijacking content, selling ads against it, and then reluctantly removing it under fire (they took down five million pieces of content last year from DMCA notices!).
That's why the entire notion of "corporate welfare" that the left brandishes in their assault on capitalism is so silly and infantile -- government use of tax-payer funds to incentivize a sector that serves people and provides jobs, including union jobs, can't be the evil the left suggests -- and however we may wish to criticize it as inefficient, it just doesn't compare, when you think of other boon-doggles like Obama's "green job" subsidies that ended in ruin.
And whatever these subsidies, what are they as a percentage of the ISPs overall revenue? And what ways is Google subsidized in its business, in fact, by subsiding ISPs? (That equation is *never* contempalted by the "net neutrality" nerds). And what way is Google also subsidized by states or municipalities supplying free Internet access and or wi-fi and broadband that benefits Google's ad sales business, basically, it's core enterprise?
2. "The Internet is already paid for so telecoms shouldn't charge more for content but let others innovate and build -- they are stifling innovation"
Er, paid for, by telecoms, so they should get to do what they need to do to stay in business. I saw what you did there, Google -- supplying free wi-fi in the New York subway or to entire towns in Kansas, trying to prove you can "do it better". I don't believe you.
INNOVATION IS JUST ANOTHER WORD FOR TECHNOCOMMUNISM
I've come to see -- especially from reading Fred Wilson's blog -- that "innovation" is just another word for technocommunism. It often involves merely jacking a siphon into the state's pipeline and siphoning off oil or gas -- in a world where AT&T and Verizon play the role of the state. In this case, the Internet is supplied by "somebody else" (the telecoms) and the FourSquares and Twitters and Tumblrs and all the things Fred invests in ride on top of this "for free" while the beneficiaries of the VC cash -- the start-ups -- either live off their VC stipends until they are sold to something bigger and everyone can cash out, or they put in ads and earn ad revenue against the hijacked content of other people, supplied over routes paid for by other people.
In other words, Verizon or Comcast has to hump Twitter or Youtube or Tumbl or Facebook over the "Internetwebs" for free, because their customers demand it, even though they are paying the same costs they paid 10 years ago (I am still paying $37 a month for Verizon DSL). My Internet use -- and my gadgets' Internet use -- is probably 10 times more than it was 10 years ago, but my fee is the same. That's going to have to give -- and I get that, especially because I don't pay any subscription fee for Facebook or Youtube or Twitter, despite heavy photo and video usage, even though I'd be willing to -- if those services then paid for their bandwidth instead of demanding a handout -- like they accuse the telecoms of getting LOL.
Venezia is outraged -- the horror! -- that Verizon might get into the content business the way AOL has, and might charge for either conveying heavier content or supply content of its own for no charge or less charge than those using their highways. But the outrage is entirely misplaced and entirely communist in nature. Why shouldn't a company that paid for the bandwidth and supplies the wires and the gadgets to access it provide a loss leader of content to compete with Netflix, which is siphoning off their gas, so to speak?
After all, um, Google is competing with Netflix now by having a dirt-simple interface over which you can get movies for cheap to see on Google Play. That's what this is all about, people!
THE INTERNET KILLED MY NEIGHBOURHOOD
I have nothing but undying scorn for Netflix. I had a perfectly good video store -- actually, 6 video stores within walking distance, all of them bustling, 4 of them Blockbusters and 2 of them independents -- and all of them were killed by "the Internet" i.e. Netflix. Within a year, when Netflix began delivering over the Internet instead of in mailed packages, they all died, scarring my neighbourhood with empty stores that didn't rent out. With them went choice, variety, and most important business and jobs, and the ecosphere of things that spring up around such giant stores -- the little delis that existed around them.
I used to go to the Blockbusters or the independent store and browse up and down the aisle. On Netflix, I can only see the top -- the screen -- and try to go around pre-fabbed categories that sometimes make no sense and then look at their pre-fabbed offerings based on whatever algorithms they use, painfully having to load page after page, and try to browse. Netflix works great if you already know of a movie you want and search for it -- it doesn't work great to browse and discover.
In a store, you browse by genre and alphabet and have the serendipity you cannot get online. You have the staff picks. You see your neighbours in the store, and they tell you something they liked. You see foreign films that serve your neighbourhood's actual people that just aren't on Netflix. And so on.
Netflix, meanwhile, destroyed everyone else's business with their Internet delivery -- then jacked up the prices, after they had everyone hooked, sparking the outrage of their customers, many of whom quit on them. And flocked to piracy. So this was a win, everybody? Jobs killed all over my neighbourhood, businesses killed that really didn't "need" to be killed "because of the Internet," and then everyone flocks to pirates like the now-seized tvshack.net? Which incurs more losses for the content industry?
Venezia argues that the cost of bandwidth has been lowered, and therefore is indignant that "ISPS are still claiming poverty. But once you come out of the Google lobbyist fog on this question, you see the issue -- it doesn't matter if bandwidth is cheaper because there are way more customers making way more demands on that bandwidth. Duh! Geeks don't understand the central issue of the telecom: CUSTOMER SERVICE AND MORE GADGETS!
SAY IT WITH ME NOW, LOUDLY, CUSTOMER SERVICE
That's because geeks don't have customers; they have clients.
It isn't at all "to the detriment of everyone" if my ISP now gets into the content business or even starts metering my hugely-bandwith intensive Second Life streaming, foreign TV, Skype, huge files of documents and photos for work, etc. -- which is way heavier than my aunt's occasional email, work files and Youtubes on Sunday although possibly not as heavy as my son's online war games, constant video watching and constantly pushing of photos on Facebook and such.
In fact, if the ISP delivers content for free as a loss leader to raise their prices on that much heavier load *on* the bandwidth and *many more customers* especially in mobile, THAT'S OK. In fact, that's business, that's capitalism, and that has to be done. It has to be done to cover costs; it has to be done to pay for people; they have unions with demands, and that's ok, too, although I've expressed skepticism about Verizon.
The alternative is gapingly obvious -- socialism, if not coercive communism, whereby the government pays for bandwidth "like a utility" -- although it isn't like water, that people need to live, or electricity, that people need to be part of the modern world and do their jobs and feed their families; it's largely socialization and entertainment that comes through the bandwidth, and therefore the idea that the government should fund it, instead of taxing it as it does cigarettes and alcohol, seems risible.
Venezia thinks ISPs and telecoms don't "really" care about bandwidth because they cope with the rising demand and keep making it possible for greedy Netflix and content-robbing Youtube to thrive. But he thinks they are "crazy" for caring that Netflix and Google's Youtube get a free ride -- and get to make their income off other people's money. Why? This is purely a technocommunist position. At least admit what your beliefs are: pure technocommunism of the "we pretend to work and they pretend to pay us" and "expropriating from the expropriators" variety. And admit that what you want is even more socialism from Obama, even more government control of the Internet via an executive agency, the FCC, which "net neutrality" "liberationists" want to achieve, and then all the coercion and deprivation *that* entails. Admit it. It's the Big Lie I can't stand...
And...Venezia talks as if Google Play, which can advertise on Google Search any day of the week and drive millions to its doors, doesn't exist and won't take a chunk out of Netflix's business. Hungarian "goulash communism" and Yugoslavia's "workers' self-management" was always competing against the more bumbling Soviet communism, you know?
INTERNET OF THINGS = BANDWIDTH HOG
Venezia is right to flag the "Internet of things" (although he doesn't call it that) -- the household devices like TVs or toasters or whatever that will "run on the Internet" or "your smart phone". They will be even bigger bandwidth eaters. And something has to give, somewhere. And in a free market society such as we still live in, that will be prices, not government agencies supplying socialism out of thin air. Pandora, Spotify, or itunes Streaming will have to pay more for what they do, and charge more, or die. Free is not viable. And yes, companies like AOL will compete, and that's good. Venezia is one of those people who loves competition to telecoms, but hates it when it's to Internet companies.
ISPs don't have to get "monopolistic"; they will just have to charge more and/or supply more loss leaders, and content seems the obvious low-hanging fruit.
OH, THOSE EVIL WALLED GARDENS...
There is nothing intrinsically evil about "walled gardens" as the geeks told us for years around Web 1.0 and the early Web 2.0. Surely they have to concede now that the giant walled garden of Facebook, heading to a billion members, is the winner of the war they thought they had won back in the 1990s over AOL with free open source browsers. AOL "lost," but then put in a free messengering system used by every teenager on the planet with an Internet connection. AOL "lost," and they "still make unsuspecting people pay for Internet connection" as geeks snort, yet they bought the geek and lefty flagship publications of TechCrunch and Huffpo and they continue to prevail with them and with music content they supply on their channel.
Venezia ends with an apocalyptic, hysterical geeky vision, calculated to stampede his fellow geeks into hatred and clicking on ads for various causes to kill telecoms and support the Google business model, such as the "Internet Freedom" goon squad are putting up everywhere. He warns:
Their [the ISPs'] ultimate goal is to turn the Internet into cable TV, with themselves at the center, getting paid coming and going. They want the whole pie, and it would be a wholesale disaster if we were to give it to them.
Uh...It's more like this: the Google and associated lobby ultimate goal is to take over the content streaming of the Internet, too, and we see Google doing that -- buying phones, supplying software to phones, buying Youtube and starting Google play. That's the more scary prospect, because these people own search, which means they own intentions and privacy of billions of people in searchable ways that telecoms don't match even carrying all our conversations.
The reality is that these two different industries and different cultures and different business models compete, and it's good that they stay in competition and one doesn't supplant the other. The telecoms are no more likely to "turn the Internet into cable TV" than Google will be able to take all telephony away from Apple and others. Already Google provides TV shows for $4.95 on the Internet, and Venezia isn't making a peep -- it's ok when Google turns the Internet into cable TV, but not when Comcast does it, you know?
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