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posted by janrinok on Thursday November 27 2014, @05:50PM   Printer-friendly
from the have-the-cake-and-eat-it dept.

Brian Fung writes in the Washington Post that Wikipedia has been a little hesitant to weigh in on net neutrality, the idea that all Web traffic should be treated equally by Internet service providers such as Comcast or Time Warner Cable. That's because the folks behind Wikipedia actually see a non-neutral Internet as one way to spread information cheaply to users in developing countries. With Wikipedia Zero, users in places like Pakistan and Malaysia can browse the site without it counting it counting against the data caps on their cellphones or tablets. This preferential treatment for Wikipedia's site helps those who can't afford to pay for pricey data — but it sets the precedent for deals that cut against the net neutrality principle. "We believe in net neutrality in America," says Gayle Karen Young adding that Wikipedia Zero requires a different perspective elsewhere. "Partnering with telecom companies in the near term, it blurs the net neutrality line in those areas. It fulfils our overall mission, though, which is providing free knowledge."

Facebook and Google also operate programs internationally that are exempted from users' data caps — a tactic known somewhat cryptically as "zero rating". Facebook in particular has made “Facebook Zero” not just a sales pitch in developing markets but also part of an Internet.org initiative to expand access “to the two thirds of the world’s population that doesn’t have it.” But a surprising decision in Chile shows what happens when policies of neutrality are applied without nuance. Chile recently put an end to the practice, widespread in developing countries, of big companies “zero-rating” access to their services. "That might seem perverse," says Glyn Moody, "since it means that Chilean mobile users must now pay to access those services, but it is nonetheless exactly what governments that have mandated net neutrality need to do."

Related Stories

Wikipedia Zero Discontinued Due to Lack of Adoption and Interest Outside North America and Europe 12 comments

Wikipedia Zero Discontinued Due to Lack of Adoption and Interest Outside North America and Europe

Wikipedia's zero-rated access program will be discontinued:

In the program's six year tenure, we have partnered with 97 mobile carriers in 72 countries to provide access to Wikipedia to more than 800 million people free of mobile data charges. Since 2016, we have seen a significant drop off in adoption and interest in the program. This may be due, in part, to the rapidly shifting mobile industry, as well as changes in mobile data costs. At this same time, we conducted extensive research [1] [2] to better understand the full spectrum of barriers to accessing and participating in Wikipedia.

One of the critical issues we identified as part of this research was low awareness of Wikipedia outside of North America and Europe. To address this, we experimented with new projects and partnerships to increase awareness of Wikipedia, and we've experienced some initial success in this work. In Iraq, for example, we raised awareness of Wikipedia by more than 30%. In Nigeria, we partnered with Nigerian community members and Nollywood stars to introduce more than 15 million people to Wikipedia and how it works. These successes have given us several ideas for where we may take our partnership work next, and over the coming year, we will explore other ways we can leverage the findings from our research and the Wikipedia Zero program to direct future work with partners.

Also at TechCrunch, Boing Boing, and BetaNews.

Related: Wikipedia's 'Complicated' Relationship with Net Neutrality
A Dark Web Version Of Wikipedia

Wikipedia Ceases Zero-Rating Programme

The Wikimedia Foundation, most well-known for Wikipedia, has participated in zero-rating for long enough to see a massive decline in it being a source of visits. That settles that. So now Wikipedia is turning around and resuming its efforts to instead be available to any visitor.

After careful evaluation, the Wikimedia Foundation has decided to discontinue one of its partnership approaches, the Wikipedia Zero program. Wikipedia Zero was created in 2012 to address one barrier to participating in Wikipedia globally: high mobile data costs. Through the program, we partnered with mobile operators to waive mobile data fees for their customers to freely access Wikipedia on mobile devices. Over the course of this year, no additional Wikipedia Zero partnerships will be formed, and the remaining partnerships with mobile operators will expire.

Source : Building for the future of Wikimedia with a new approach to partnerships


Original Submission #1Original Submission #2

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  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @06:17PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @06:17PM (#120658)

    I won't donate to Wikipedia because I don't want to be subsidizing Internet users in third-world nations, especially while I still have to pay a significant amount each month for reasonable Internet access in a first-world nation. People in third-world nations shouldn't benefit at my expense.

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Lagg on Thursday November 27 2014, @07:00PM

      by Lagg (105) on Thursday November 27 2014, @07:00PM (#120662) Homepage Journal

      Too bad you're going to either get downmodded or told to check your privilege or some other bullshit like that people try to use to shut down discussion, because I actually see your point and agree. Like it or not net neutrality means net neutrality. I do believe that this is what you would call a "slippery slope". It's great that WMF can exploit this to give people access to it in places where they normally can't. Facebook is saying more or less the same thing and would likely use Wikipedia as an example to justify their own violations of net neutrality. Needless to say neither them or Google are doing it out of the kindness of their own hearts. Giving people financial incentive to use their stuff instead of anything else would seem to be a bit of a red flag for competition if said competition can't also get those fee exempt connections.

      In essence, wikipedia's relationship with it isn't complicated. WMF capitalizes on violations of it and are being disgustingly dishonest about the whole thing. No one said neutrality is easy but in the long term it benefits everyone. The dept. line for this summary is quite apt.

      --
      http://lagg.me [lagg.me] 🗿
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @07:39PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @07:39PM (#120667)

        >> I won't donate to Wikipedia because I don't want to be subsidizing Internet users in third-world nations,
        >
        > Too bad you're going to either get downmodded or told to check your privilege or some other bullshit like that people try to use to shut down discussion

        You seem to be confused as to definition of "donation." The OP might have had a point if he was complaining about donations going to for-profit telcos in the 3rd world nations, but he's just piggy-backing his xenophobia on this issue. If you weren't so sensitive to criticism you might have recognized that. Kind of like when libertarians don't recognize that racists who support states rights don't give a damn about freedom, they just like anything that helps out their own agenda to quash other people's freedom.

        > No one said neutrality is easy but in the long term it benefits everyone. The dept. line for this summary is quite apt.

        You'd have done much better to just post that on your own thread instead of starting off with a whiner's defense of xenophobia.

        • (Score: 2) by Lagg on Thursday November 27 2014, @08:29PM

          by Lagg (105) on Thursday November 27 2014, @08:29PM (#120677) Homepage Journal

          You're sure conjuring up a lot of subtext from those two posts. And here I thought I was trying to partake in critical thinking. Little did I know I was agreeing with a xenophobe who is comparable to a racist that wants to quash freedom because they're racist while at the same time being overly sensitive to criticism.

          Now I know why those politicians are so lazy. This social and geographical talk is tiring.

          --
          http://lagg.me [lagg.me] 🗿
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @08:53PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @08:53PM (#120683)

            > You're sure conjuring up a lot of subtext from those two posts.

            On the contrary, go back and read the first post. There is nothing there about net neutrality. All that is there is complaints about subsidizing the third world.
            I'm going to have to say that you are the one conjuring subtext, to the point of ignoring the direct and surface meaning of his words.

            • (Score: 2) by Lagg on Thursday November 27 2014, @10:23PM

              by Lagg (105) on Thursday November 27 2014, @10:23PM (#120698) Homepage Journal

              I mostly just used it as a segway into further related discussion. If the guy wants to see his donation money used to help the plethora of issues countries such as his /or the one wikipedia is based in before it being used to exploit countries with fledgling at best infrastructure I think his point is entirely reasonable. I'm not going to disregard such points because they might be interpreted as racism or xenophobia. That's stupid and people in a science and tech community should know why it's stupid.

              To be honest I'm not so sure I'd want my donation money being used this way either. Generally when I donate to projects focusing heavily on the internet I expect those funds to be used where there is a lot of internet presence. Most first world countries have pretty severe issues with availability in rural areas. There's definitely an issue with free access. This isn't anything having to do with the people themselves, it's simply a matter of fixing problems in one place before starting an entirely new project in another.

              Maybe the initial post really doesn't want his money going to projects in third world countries just because they're third world countries. I highly doubt that's the case, but you know what? I see his point there too and he's free to have it since there is any number of reasons this would be the case. Coddled pissants everywhere need to start seeing the line between free expression and outright bigotry. I live in the southwestern US which is not known for its hospitality to people with the wrong accent or tan. I see black guys being asked by white guys if they're going to steal, I see black guys calling white guys that they asked for a cigarette "racist crackers" because they don't give them one. I see white and black guys calling latino guys "dirty" for no apparent reason. I see latino guys verbally harassing both white and black guys too.

              That's racism and xenophobia. There are few things I hate more. Saying you don't want to finance third world projects when the projects at home have issues to work on is expressing a valid point. If you fail to see the distinction you're just giving companies wanting to abuse the already weak net neutrality in fledgling countries an opening to use.

              --
              http://lagg.me [lagg.me] 🗿
              • (Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday November 27 2014, @10:49PM

                by frojack (1554) on Thursday November 27 2014, @10:49PM (#120701) Journal

                If you fail to see the distinction you're just giving companies wanting to abuse the already weak net neutrality in fledgling countries an opening to use.

                You were on a good roll, till that last, somewhat confusing, sentence. Parsing that sentence hurt my brain, and I'm still not sure I catch your drift.

                If the companies like Wiki are willing to damage the entire internet for their pet projects, then they are not deserving of support.
                Let them buy infrastructure and donate that rather than dividing up the existing bandwisth.

                Breaking the internet in their quest for page views (and self aggrandizement) ultimately does more harm than good.

                --
                No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
                • (Score: 3, Insightful) by FatPhil on Thursday November 27 2014, @11:16PM

                  by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Thursday November 27 2014, @11:16PM (#120711) Homepage
                  Agreed. The end (getting info to people who want and need it) does not always justify the means (enabling destructive telcos from puting a jack-hammer to the foundations of the internet). If they want the information to be distributed at minimal cost, they should simply work towards having absolutely lightweight pages, so that every byte of data sent delivers 8 bits of useful information. To be honest, the "Simple English" wikipedia does part of that, as it strips off a lot of the blah-blah-blah that main English page carries that you might not even care about until you've absorbed the simple english version.

                  Alternatively, they could burn a thousand DVDs, and distribute those to school or library systems free of charge. That would cost less than one worker-week's wages in the US, even if it might cost several worker-year's wages in some of the destination countries. You don't need to break the internet in order to distribute information.
                  --
                  Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @11:12PM

                by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @11:12PM (#120707)

                segue [google.com]

                Segway [tronitech.no]
                A name from a very clever marketing guy.

                .
                I don't grok Frost Piss' xenophobia.
                It's obvious to me that the problem at the root of this is Crony Capitalism (anti-competitive cartels) and their data caps.

                What's needed globally is more places like Chattanooga and Wilson, NC (Socialist ISPs).

                -- gewg_

                • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 28 2014, @12:25AM

                  by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 28 2014, @12:25AM (#120739)

                  Please don't use insults like "homophone" here. Yes, some men like other men, and some women like other women. There's nothing wrong with that!

                  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 28 2014, @10:54AM

                    by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 28 2014, @10:54AM (#120808)

                    Hey, there's nothing insulting about the word homophone. My phone is proud to be a homophone, so proud that he doesn't even shut the goddamn bedroom door when he's banging my wife's Lumia.
                    I mean I'm not a bigot or anything but there are some things I'd just rather not look at, you know?

                • (Score: 2) by aristarchus on Friday November 28 2014, @01:26AM

                  by aristarchus (2645) on Friday November 28 2014, @01:26AM (#120749) Journal

                  Xenophobia: Fear of Xena the Warrior Princess, and with good reason! Lucy Lawless could snap you in half like that boy that Congressman Grimes was threatening to break in half. But it could be worse! Fear of Xenu? Oh crap, he escaped, and he's after my operating Thetans? Tom Cruise, save us! So, Gweg, (if you actually are the real gw_eg), do you grok the Xeno now? (Actually, just a Greek work for aliens. Not space aliens, just foreigner aliens, like people from the third world for whom somehow we have to subsidize the internet thereof. Or something. I am just confused by all the racists, xenophobes, homophones, xylophones, homophobes and arachniphobes in this thread! Seriously!)

              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @11:34PM

                by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @11:34PM (#120717)

                Coddled pissants everywhere need to start seeing the line between free expression and outright bigotry.

                Those two concepts are not in any way contradictory. That you think they are contradictory is just more whining.

                I see black guys being asked by white guys if they're going to steal, I see black guys calling white guys that they asked for a cigarette "racist crackers" because they don't give them one. I see white and black guys calling latino guys "dirty" for no apparent reason. I see latino guys verbally harassing both white and black guys too.

                That's racism and xenophobia.

                Yeah, when poor people say shitty things to other poor people THAT is the kind of racism that really damages society.

                There are few things I hate more.

                Too bad your hate is so misplaced. It certainly is easy to be revolted by the simplistic and obvious, it doesn't require any critical thought at all and lets you feel like you are a proper good person. What really matters is when a black person, so poor that they have to bum a cigarette, calls some random white guy a "cracker" -- that is the kind of bigotry that must be stamped out!

                Good thing you are here to tell us coddled pissants what kind of free expression counts as bigotry and what doesn't.

                Saying you don't want to finance third world projects when the projects at home have issues to work on is expressing a valid point.

                It is a convenient cop-out. If you think the guy intended to donate to wikipedia before he read this story, then you must also think that every AC post about systemd here is also completely on topic.

              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 28 2014, @01:42AM

                by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 28 2014, @01:42AM (#120751)

                Saying you don't want to finance third world projects when the projects at home have issues to work on is expressing a valid point.

                By that logic he would never donate to wikipedia at all because any support of wikipedia also supports 3rd world users, or should donations only go to fund servers that block non-US ip addresses?

                • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 28 2014, @02:11AM

                  by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 28 2014, @02:11AM (#120755)

                  There's a big difference between Wikipedia adding support for something that all users could potentially benefit from, and them basically paying the Internet bills of some Africans.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @10:43PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @10:43PM (#120700)

              I only see an economic argument in the original comment. The "direct and surface meaning of his words" in no way indicate racism, xenophobia, or whatever other misinterpretation you've concocted.

              This is a case of Wikipedia taking money that could be used to benefit all Wikipedia users, and instead basically using it to pay the internet bills of a small subset of its users. Who these people are or where they live is irrelevant. It's unfair to donors to misuse their generous donations like that.

              I, too, will never donate to Wikipedia again now that I'm aware that this crap is going on. It's just like how I won't donate to Mozilla. They've shown time and time again that they make bad fiscal decisions, and I will not waste my resources on such nonsense.

          • (Score: 2) by aristarchus on Thursday November 27 2014, @09:01PM

            by aristarchus (2645) on Thursday November 27 2014, @09:01PM (#120685) Journal

            This social and geographical talk is tiring.

            Now I understand! You are just too lazy not to be racist, xenophobic, and imperialist in a post-colonial fashion, and do not want to share your hard work with a bunch of lazy third world types. Thanks! You have saved me a lot of work trying to figure out what you and the OP were trying to say about net neutrality.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @10:16PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @10:16PM (#120697)

              LOL...

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @11:10PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @11:10PM (#120706)

              Jesus Christ. After reading your comment, I momentarily thought I had accidentally browsed to Reddit or Hacker News.

              I can't tell if you're joking or being sarcastic, or if you're actually serious. If this is a joke or sarcasm making fun of these people who cry about racism that doesn't exist, good job. If you're serious, well, I truly feel sorry for you.

              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @11:40PM

                by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @11:40PM (#120720)

                > these people who cry about racism that doesn't exist,

                Racists never think they are racist, they always believe that their racism is legitimately grounded in fact. That is the way it has always been and will always be.

                • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 28 2014, @02:13AM

                  by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 28 2014, @02:13AM (#120756)

                  So what you're saying is that those who claim to be the most against racism are, in fact, the most racist people around. You know, I think you're absolutely correct with that assertion.

                  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 28 2014, @02:54AM

                    by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 28 2014, @02:54AM (#120763)

                    Correct. Being against racism is the same thing as denying the existence of racism. Identical.
                    Your grasp of the situation is perfect.

              • (Score: 2) by aristarchus on Friday November 28 2014, @01:19AM

                by aristarchus (2645) on Friday November 28 2014, @01:19AM (#120748) Journal

                If you have to ask whether it is sarcasm, you already are a racist. Do try to get a clue! Some of us here on Soylent are trying to be human beings!

                Wait, which side were you on?

                • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 28 2014, @02:18AM

                  by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 28 2014, @02:18AM (#120757)

                  This is hilarious. Each comment of yours is funnier and funnier than the last!

                  • (Score: 2) by aristarchus on Friday November 28 2014, @02:27AM

                    by aristarchus (2645) on Friday November 28 2014, @02:27AM (#120758) Journal

                    Sorry, It's not intentional. Fish in a barrel, racists in white hoods, and whatnot. And what is so damn hard to understand about common carrier status? This was settled with telegraph back in the day! And then POTS! So what about network connectivity? Same deal, morons! Oh, gawd, and gweg, now I am tired. Too tired to not be a racist anymore. Fricking Honkeys! Espido Gringos! Bloody Brits! And Comcast, is it possible to be racist against corporations?

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by bradley13 on Thursday November 27 2014, @07:05PM

    by bradley13 (3053) on Thursday November 27 2014, @07:05PM (#120663) Homepage Journal

    This just isn't helpful. I'm somewhat familiar with Africa, and in many African countries, national bandwidth is truly pretty limited. If you give one service advantageous access, then you are automatically reducing the bandwidth available for all competing services. If you "zero-rate" the service, so people don't pay for data from a few services, the costs don't go away - they just get buried in higher rates for all other services.

    Google, Facebook, Wikipedia, and anyone else who thinks their service is so special? They need an ego check.

    If the end customer want to prioritize their personal VoIP bytes over their personal HTTP bytes, that's called QoS and is just fine. However, the data providers don't get to decide this. The only option open to service providers would be to place edge servers closer to the customers.

    --
    Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
    • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @07:48PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @07:48PM (#120668)

      I don't think you get how "zero-rating" works - the costs are still paid for directly, they aren't buried in higher rates for all other services. Facebook pays for the bandwidth that Facebook-Zero users consume (and if you look at the facebook-zero service, it is a massively stripped down low-bandwidth version of facebook precisely because facebook is footing the bill). Same thing with wikipedia - the wikipedia foundation pays for every one of those bits. It isn't re-apportioned to higher pricing for normal bandwidth.

      You might be confusing it with something like T-mobile's 'free' music streaming [eweek.com] where streaming music from certain designated sites is not charged against a user's bandwidth allotment. T-mobile does not charge those sites either, they just average the cost into the base price for their smartphone plans.

      Both are problematic in the long run, but their mechanisms are significantly different.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @09:06PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @09:06PM (#120688)

      I see your points. I agree somewhat but I have a slightly different opinion.

      I remember the day commercials came to cable TV. It was only supposed to be on 'special' occasions and then only 2-3 mins an hour (on the top of the hour). Fair enough. But then it expanded more and more. Eventually to run these stations they needed that extra cash flow. Now it is a cesspool of tabloid journalism and reality shows with the occasional diamond in the rough. Whos only purpose is to sell you that 17-25 mins of commercials per hour.

      If you allow these guys to get used to the cash flow and not grow their business in a proper ways other than subsidies it will become crap requiring more and more money (there is never enough). The companies will not treat their real customers as customers but the people who pay the subsidies as their 'real customers'. They will treat their customer base as product to be sold. Which is what we have become.

      However, the ISPs that are pushing for this are looking for 10-20% YOY growth (i listen to the quarterly broadcasts from these guys). You only get that by raising bills in a monopoly state. In a competitive one you need to earn that extra pay. I work in one of the monopoly ISPs (why I post AC on this). They have 0 connection to their customers, none. They only care about what their bosses care about. The top guy thinks wireless can serve 20mb connections to everyone and then charge 150 a month for it and thats fine. Then turn around and squeeze the people giving them content (the reason we buy that 150 dollar connection) for more. The couldnt even settle for *free* content. They want to charge to receive the free content which me as the real customer requested. These multi millionaires are so fng wildly out of touch it sickens me. They think a 200+ dollar per month bill is just fine and dandy. Why not they can easily afford it?! All you have to do is get a job for millions a year they are everywhere... These guys make me sick. They have product that sells itself and will not add to it. It is really sad. I saw a video of a guy crying because google fiber was coming to his neighborhood. There is a reason for that which totally flies over the heads of these guys. I saw my company waste 130 billion dollars. That could have pretty much wired up millions of homes and created a steady 40-60 per month revenue off each. All for possible paper profit in 20 years instead of real profit in 20.

    • (Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday November 27 2014, @09:34PM

      by frojack (1554) on Thursday November 27 2014, @09:34PM (#120694) Journal

      This just isn't helpful. I'm somewhat familiar with Africa, and in many African countries, national bandwidth is truly pretty limited. If you give one service advantageous access, then you are automatically reducing the bandwidth available for all competing services.

      Exactly.

      Further, if Facebook and Google and Wikimedia want to subsidize end users in remote places let them ADD to the band width with direct grants rather than SUBTRACT from the bandwidth by effectively buying it up for their own use. Let the give grants to end users. Let them buy infrastructure for ISPs, or put servers on the ISPs network to reduce the ISP's upstream costs, with a stipulation that the ISP passes that cost saving along to customers.

      But they don't need to fuckover the entire net just to make THEIR content flow faster.

      Further, an organization like Wikimedia, which perpetually has its hand out begging donations, has no business subsidizing some users.

      --
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      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @11:44PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @11:44PM (#120724)

        Further, if Facebook and Google and Wikimedia want to subsidize end users in remote places let them ADD to the band width with direct grants rather than SUBTRACT from the bandwidth by effectively buying it up for their own use.

        What is a "direct grant?" They are paying the telco for the bandwidth used, who do you propose they grant this money to other than the telco?

    • (Score: 2) by Non Sequor on Friday November 28 2014, @12:49AM

      by Non Sequor (1005) on Friday November 28 2014, @12:49AM (#120747) Journal

      I'm shooting in the dark here, but wouldn't this kind of thing be done in conjunction with in country mirroring of the content in question? I would think that bandwidth going out of a developing country would be a precious resource but local content could reasonably be a "freebie" by comparison (to the extent that local content exists).

      --
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  • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Thursday November 27 2014, @08:28PM

    by kaszz (4211) on Thursday November 27 2014, @08:28PM (#120676) Journal

    Those that are willing to trade network neutrality for free access deserve neither and will lose both.

  • (Score: 2) by darkfeline on Thursday November 27 2014, @08:32PM

    by darkfeline (1030) on Thursday November 27 2014, @08:32PM (#120679) Homepage

    I think the issue here of net neutrality is the same as free speech, (or innocent until proven guilty, or the many other things the US's founding fathers got right (that our current government is getting wrong)). Even if there are situations that make you uncomfortable, even if there are situations which you feel that making an exception is the morally right thing to do, you must hold strong, as the slope is very slippery indeed.

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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by unitron on Friday November 28 2014, @12:43PM

    by unitron (70) on Friday November 28 2014, @12:43PM (#120822) Journal

    Well, either that or I suspect the OP, who's AC, trolled y'all real good.

    Anyway, I'm not sure the problem solved by net neutrality, my email being a millisecond slower because of your video streaming, is a problem that needs solving.

    The problem is when ISPs are also content providers, and one company's video offerings are prioritized over another's because the first one is also the ISP.

    If Amazon bought UPS, would the brown trucks show up with packages from Amazon sooner, or packages from newegg?

    On the subject of donations to Wikipedia, this might be of interest:

    Wikipedia doesn't need your money - so why does it keep pestering you? [theregister.co.uk]

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/12/20/cash_rich_wikipedia_chugging/ [theregister.co.uk]

    (apparently inserting blank lines to improve overall readability is verboten around here)

    --
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