from the are-utilities-really-optional dept.
Broadband Internet access is a "core utility" that people need in order to participate in modern society– just like electricity, running water, and sewers, the White House said on Tuesday. A report written by the Broadband Opportunity Council, a group created earlier this year by President Obama and co-chaired by the Secretaries of Commerce and Agriculture, says that even though broadband "has steadily shifted from an optional amenity to a core utility," millions of Americans still lack high-speed Internet access.
The report cites 2013 data indicating that about 51 million Americans, or about 16 percent of the population, cannot purchase broadband access at their homes. That number may have dropped by now, but the White House says the government needs to make a bigger push to expand broadband deployment, especially in rural areas and low-income communities.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Thursday September 24 2015, @07:34AM
* Pinches nose to get that nasally "White-boy" voice, looks over in direction of teleprompter: *
(Score: 3, Interesting) by physicsmajor on Thursday September 24 2015, @08:03AM
The internet is absolutely a core utility. I'm on record as saying this for over a decade. The trouble is actually providing it.
A truly free market is a great thing. However, broadband isn't, and there is no way to make it into one thanks to right-of-way, easements, etc. just to get the cables from A to B. Furthermore, with very rare exception these companies are known bad actors - bad in every way except for their bottom lines. Just one example: bandwidth prices going down with speeds going up, but suddenly they feel the need to add caps? Jesus Christ. Wireless is even worse, which is very bad as it's the best tech to reach the sparser population in the West.
We the People have given the benefit of the doubt time and again and been repeatedly burned. The entire ISP industry needs to turn into a utility and be regulated as such. I strongly think in many cases it should be taken over by local governments, with help at the State level to wire up the rural municipalities. And, yes, I say this as a card-carrying libertarian. When a monopoly is granted, it must be strictly regulated or you get no end of abuse.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Thursday September 24 2015, @08:43AM
Indeed yes.
Sharing of information is a natural right. Admitting that the Internet is a core utility is a good step. Another big step to take is retirement of the business model of selling copies. There are other ways to earn a living from art. Copyright law is a huge block of the potential of the Internet. If not for copyright, our public libraries could go completely digital. It would make works far easier to search out, problems with damaged or lost copies would be nearly eliminated. Another poster wrote mockingly of BitTorrent, as if it's a foregone conclusion that copying is bad. It's not.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 24 2015, @08:48AM
Nevertheless in the most advanced countries the following will be pretty generally applicable:
1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
3. Abolition of all right of inheritance.
4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
5. Centralization of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.
6. Centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
8. Equal liability of all to labor. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country, by a more equable distribution of population over the country.
10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children's factory labor in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, etc., etc.
When, in the course of development, class distinctions have disappeared, and all production has been concentrated in the hands of a vast association of the whole nation, the public power will lose its political character. Political power, properly so called, is merely the organized power of one class for oppressing another. If the proletariat during its contest with the bourgeoisie is compelled, by the force of circumstances, to organize itself as a class, if, by means of a revolution, it makes itself the ruling class, and, as such, sweeps away by force the old conditions of production, then it will, along with these conditions, have swept away the conditions for the existence of class antagonisms, and of classes generally, and will thereby have abolished its own supremacy as a class.
In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 24 2015, @09:01AM
Yeah sure, that absolutely worked in the Soviet Union. </sarcasm>
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 24 2015, @09:06AM
Nazis beat the Soviets to space. National Socialism is the master of space race.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 24 2015, @01:54PM
Dude, Iron Sky wasn't a documentary...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 24 2015, @09:26AM
When you pirate mp3's you're downloading COMMUNISM!
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday September 24 2015, @03:20PM
When you breathe OXYGEN, you are practicin communism!
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 24 2015, @12:27PM
GP said the copying of information is so cheap it makes no sense to try to restrict it. that is not communism.
no matter how many times I give a piece of information to someone else, I will still have the piece of information. this is fundamentally different from physical objects like food, clothes, or land.
stop treating copyright abolition as a precursor to communism. it just shows you're an idiot who can't tell the difference between objects and information.
(Score: 1) by Pino P on Thursday September 24 2015, @02:17PM
So what model other than copyright would you recommend for funding the creation of the first copy of a work, such as a movie or video game?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday September 24 2015, @03:29PM
It's simple, really. People who like it can offer some form of recompense. Bards and minstrels lived that way for thousands of years. They would set up in a village or town, and start entertaining. People would toss them a copper coin, or some food, or maybe rotten tomatoes, to show their appreciation.
If you can't make people WANT to pay you, then you're doing it all wrong. You're not entertaining at all, you're being a pain in the ass, and should be run out of town on a rail.
https://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e43/jookie212/halloweenpics002-1.jpg [photobucket.com]
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Francis on Thursday September 24 2015, @05:38PM
And the quality of work wasn't on par with what we had 30 or 40 years ago. Up until relatively recently artists had to find a patron to fund them, now most of them work 2 or3 jobs so they have the money to afford to create art.
People need to spend a large amount of time developing their skills in order to get them to a level where people are even willing to use the materials without paying. I venture that if you go and look at the copyright material, the vast majority of the stuff you actually want to view is going to be from people that spent many years developing their skills. Having the option of selling is helps to justify the sacrifices that need to be made in order to be the next Dali, Munch or Rembrandt.
But, more than that, why should I or anybody else create works that can be taken and sold by somebody else? Why should my work go to enriching somebody else with no compensation paid to me?
(Score: 1, Troll) by Runaway1956 on Thursday September 24 2015, @06:20PM
You shouldn't do work that no one is willing to pay you for. So, don't do it. If I remember my history, most of those famous artists died penniless. (when did they invent pennies? my statement is an anachromism?) You gotta be nuts to get into that line of work. So - go flip hamburgers at McDonald's for $15.00/hr, and let some other chump paint/compose/write/whatever. But, don't blame me if that other chump starts collecting the big bucks because people really like him/her.
Nothing prevents you from finding a patron, either. Hell, get ten or get twelve hundred, if you like.
I thought that artists mostly did what they do because they like it? Why are you worried about making money at it? Millions of people have hobbies, for which they expect no compensation. When did you hear of a model rail roader striking it rich? But, piccolo players expect to be PAID for playing the piccolo? Strange . . .
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by frojack on Thursday September 24 2015, @06:37PM
I thought that artists mostly did what they do because they like it? Why are you worried about making money at it?
That must be true for just about any profession. After all, you can't seriously believe that only forms of artistry would exhibit this trait.
So the nurse, the mechanic, the programmer, the brick layer, and, yes, even the burger flipper must be doing their jobs because they like it.
See how stupid that argument sounds now?
If not, get your ass over here and mow my lawn. You know you like it, because you've done it before. Bring your own mower, and supply your own gas, because that's how you do it.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Thursday September 24 2015, @06:38PM
Sigh, idiots like you are why we can't have nice things.
To become a genius on the order of the ones I've listed takes decades of constant work. There's no way that anybody is going to attain that level of brilliance and hold down a job to finance it. You make it sound like these are people who should be living in the streets because they dare to commit themselves to their art.
And no, nobody prevents folks from finding a patron, but how many patrons are there that are willing to give an artist money for something that has no commercial value and can be copied by other folks indefinitely? I'm guessing not many as the Film and Music industries depend upon a source of income to finance operations.
Yes, millions of people have hobbies, but are you fucking serious? Out of those millions of hobbyists, how many of them ever rise to the level of a Louis Armstrong or a Jimmy Hendrix? Yes, some of them do, but it's a tiny, tiny fraction of the total because you need to pay the bills.
Are you so fucking stupid that you don't understand that people need food and shelter to live? And that attaining the highest levels and advancing the arts is more than a full time job? There are many lesser artists out there, but the ones that are commonly talked about are people that are working 60 and 80 hour work weeks and literally living and breathing their art. You hardly ever hear about anybody that was performing at that level as a part time artist. In fact, I don't think I can name a single individual who was working side jobs through their entire career and amongst the elite artists.
(Score: 1, Troll) by Runaway1956 on Thursday September 24 2015, @07:44PM
Stupid? Hurling insults indicates that you've run out of rational arguments.
I'm not so stupid as to think that anyone in the world owes me for doing something I enjoy. If people don't want to pay you, then don't do whatever it is. When I was growing up, half the guys I knew had guitars. They were happy to play for anyone who would listen to them. Has the world changed so much?
I keep coming back to this: Entertain. If you're good, people will pay you for the privilege of listening, watching, reading. If you're no good, they might pay you not to entertain them.
BTW - WTF makes Hendrix better than any dozen other contemporary artists? I understand that he impressed some music industry executives, and his individual sound appealed to a lot of people. Had he not been "discovered", it would have been some other schmuck. The industry was going to distribute some tunes, Hendrix or no Hendrix. I contend that there were others just as worthy. Don't we owe those others something? At least an honorable mention? They certainly didn't get the promotional advertising that Hendrix got. And THAT is what made Hendrix, and countless other artists.
Look around you today. Without much effort, I could name a dozen vacuous bimbos, and a dozen braindead meatheads who have all the same marketing - and none of them can sing or act worth a crap.
How 'bout them Kardashian sisters? Do you need a better example of vacuous bimbos? They have contributed just about nothing to the entertainment world, unless you count the first porn video. Personally, I don't count that as any kind of a contribution. There are better looking, more talented women living within a couple miles of my house.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Friday September 25 2015, @02:08PM
*Most* of my favorite bands do exactly that. My Dying Bride for example still works other jobs in addition to their music. Been doing so for over 25 years now. They've released 11 full albums plus a bunch of EPs and other stuff, they've toured nearly every continent, and they practically defined a genre!
[insert current pop star here] probably couldn't do it, because they're paying twenty writers to come up with a five word chorus...but real artists certainly can.
(Score: 2) by Taibhsear on Thursday September 24 2015, @10:31PM
You mean like record companies?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 25 2015, @08:35AM
I never said someone else should be able to sell your work. but why shouldn't they be able to copy it for no compensation?
if you don't want your "work" to be distributed outside your control, then don't do the "work".
but if you're paid to hold a concert, and I record your concert, what rights do you have on my recording? you're paid for playing at the concert, not for anything else. you're welcome to forbid people from recording you, and I see nothing wrong with that, although I don't see how you can enforce it.
however, if a recording is made, the owner of the recording should only demand compensation proportional to the amount of wear and tear that the copying process produces on the physical object holding the recording.
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Thursday September 24 2015, @06:40PM
So what model other than copyright would you recommend for funding the creation of the first copy of a work, such as a movie or video game?
The same model that has existed for almost all creation of first works since there was a person with the classification of artist. Don't confuse the corporate funded creation and marketing of a Taylor Swift or a Justin Bieber with the normal process of such things. Art has historically done just fine without that sort of model. Look at groups like the Beatles or the Rolling Stones, they got together as teenagers, learned to play as a hobby and spent years living a marginal existence honing their craft before they had any hint of financial success. Ditto with film makers, George Lucas did not wake up one day, decide to make movies for a living and get handed millions to learn how. He started on his own making 8 mm movies as a hobby long before he had the idea of earning a living from it.
I would also like to add that most people here I think are not anti-copyright, but they do feel strongly that the term length of copyrights has become ridiculous. It only needs to be long enough to create the next work. Anything beyond that and you are wandering into the territory of a subsidy.
(Score: 2) by penguinoid on Thursday September 24 2015, @04:47PM
it just shows you're an idiot who can't tell the difference between objects and information.
Can't tell the difference between objects and freedom. A restriction against sharing information is not a restriction against the information, but against you.
RIP Slashdot. Killed by greedy bastards.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday September 24 2015, @06:00PM
GP said the copying of information is so cheap it makes no sense to try to restrict it. that is not communism.
If anything, regulating the things I can & cannot say & do via patents and copyright is the more "communistic*" trait.
* "Communist" as the GP intends, e.g. fascists who called themselves communist.
(Score: 1, Troll) by Runaway1956 on Thursday September 24 2015, @03:19PM
You don't like working for some capitalist pig - I understand that. A lot of us don't like working for some pompous ass who bribes our politicians to make him richer, while making our lives miserable. Capitalists suck.
But - when you've gotten rid of all the capitalists, how are things going to be run in your communist utopia? Someone has to run things. Someone has to have a plan. You can't just put everything up to popular vote. If so, each and every cooperative in the country will be producing simple, easy, yet lucrative stuff for trade/sale/whatever. And, the hard shit? No one's going to do it.
So, you've got your newly minted communistic country. By vote, or some other method, people are appoint to do the very same jobs that existed before the capitalists were all killed off. You've got a CEO, by whatever name. You've got vice presidents, no matter what they're called. You've got middle and lower management, shop stewards, supervisors, whatever passes for "human relations", secretaries, production workers, janitors - the whole works.
And, who calls the shots?
YOU STILL DON'T GET TO DECIDE WHEN TO BLOW YOUR NOSE! Unless you're Top Dog in the Kremlin or whatever, you're going to take orders, just like you did under capitalism. You may or may not be "paid" as well as you used to be, but the odds are against it. WTF did China relax communism, and begin adopting capitalistic ways? BECAUSE COMMUNISM DOESN'T WORK!
Under communism, China's population remained largely uneducated (they killed off most of the educated classes, remember?) and dirt poor. Under this hybrid party-ruled capitalistic system, China's population is growing more educated, wealthier, better fed, mostly healthier. Doesn't that make you stop and think?
Russia's experience was even worse. Dogma forced them to engage in that idiot Cold War with the US, and ultimately, the combination of Communism and Cold War bankrupted them.
Remember what Einstein said? Something about insanity? And, here, you want to try again what has failed each and every time it has been attempted.
Cuba has the best track record of communist countries, and their track record isn't anything to brag about. How many tens of thousands of Cubans self-deported, to escape communism?
But, you go ahead, and campaign for communism. It helps the rest of us to recognize the morons.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 3, Disagree) by jmorris on Thursday September 24 2015, @04:52PM
Cuba has the best track record of communist countries...
True, of all countries who went as far down the road to Communism they remain the only one without millions of mass graves, mountains of bleached skulls, etc. Probably because the US mainland being so close provided a relief valve.
You may or may not be "paid" as well as you used to be..
Wouldn't matter anyway. Research the generally accepted (now) theory that under socialism the pricing mechanism is impossible so money itself is pointless. The Soviets and others could simply copy our pricing information and limp along but as the horrible truth that they couldn't actually 'win' because they absolutely required us to exist had to be a factor in their demise.
Capitalists suck.
We don't know for sure, we don't have enough samples. Most of the people associated with the word are nothing of the sort. Corporatists, Crony Capitalists, Fascists (fully in bed with the State) are the rule, not the exception. Just having a little Capitalism lifts the poor out of poverty, creates immense wealth, etc. See China. Imagine what would happen if we actually tried full Capitalism.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by urza9814 on Friday September 25 2015, @02:33PM
I was going to make a similar point, so I'll just add it on here...
Remove money and let people do what needs done. Would *you* rather sit there flipping burgers, or might you find it more interesting trying to build a robot to flip those burgers instead? It's not *easier* in the short term, but it's more interesting and more effective in the end and solves the problem for far more people. People *want* to work, and create, and help others. We wouldn't have volunteer and service organizations otherwise. Of course such a system would sacrifice some efficiency today (although I think it would be far more efficient in the end) but at least in the developed world I think we can afford that. The per-capita GDP of the USA is six figures. We can certainly live comfortably with less. You'd need to do a lot of redistribution, but that would happen the moment you abandon currency. Much harder to hoard billions when it must be in the form of physical goods. Eliminate the government too and doing so becomes entirely impossible.
Of course, I wouldn't actually advocate trying to do this overnight. But there's already a lot of talk of shortening the work week. Give people more free time, they'll use some of that free time productively. Which, combined with continued gains in efficiency, can create a feedback cycle to eventually eliminate the need for capitalist employment. The main problem is simply that businesses resist paying the same wage for fewer hours, even when those hours are more productive, because they're trying to hand those gains over to the executives instead. Some studies have found the average office worker is only productive for as little as 2 hours and 53 minutes out of an eight hour day. So what if instead of forcing these people to spend five hours a day wasting time stuck in a cubicle, we liberate that labor for more productive uses?
(Score: 1) by Murdoc on Friday September 25 2015, @05:20PM
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Friday September 25 2015, @06:35PM
Just from a brief reading of that page it doesn't seem like Technocracy is really eliminating currency. Rather, it seems to propose replacing dollar accounting with "energy accounting". I would instead prefer a more decentralized approach, which is why I generally categorize myself as an anarcho-syndicalist. The problem isn't wealth; the problem isn't government; the problem is centralization of power. Technocracy eliminates wealth, but it still seems to require a powerful central government to allocate resources. And that seems rather needless if we're considering a society of abundance. Maybe I just need to read a bit more though...
Lately I've also been considering a philosophy I'm currently referring to as "Hive Humanism" (if anyone can suggest an existing name for this I'd be glad to hear it...I'm sure there's probably something.) Given that we've already got research labs wiring the brains of multiple animals together, how long can it really be before all of humanity is acting as a single organism? Can't have a government of one; can't have an economy of one. The question is merely how we best get there from here. Because right now if you consider humanity as a single entity we've got some serious problems: Frostbite, cancers, graft vs. host disease, autoimmune disorders, etc...
(Score: 1) by Murdoc on Friday September 25 2015, @06:57PM
Just from a brief reading of that page it doesn't seem like Technocracy is really eliminating currency. Rather, it seems to propose replacing dollar accounting with "energy accounting".
They are very different things. Energy Accounting is not a currency or form of exchange. It is simply a way to measure how much people consume in order to know how much to produce, so that there is no waste or shortages. There would be no way to "accumulate" wealth, as you pointed out, because you could only try with physical items which would be burdensome (and noticeable). Some more on it here [technocracy.ca].
I would instead prefer a more decentralized approach, which is why I generally categorize myself as an anarcho-syndicalist.
Anarcho-syndicalism, as far as I can tell from my cursory research into it, may be the closest idea to Technocracy I've seen, but I still have more to learn about it.
The problem isn't wealth; the problem isn't government; the problem is centralization of power. Technocracy eliminates wealth, but it still seems to require a powerful central government to allocate resources. And that seems rather needless if we're considering a society of abundance.
Completely the opposite in fact. Technocracy does not even use any form of political government. Politically speaking it is anarchist. The "administration" that you see in Technocracy only involves itself in objective, technical matters, not subjective ones. People would be just as free, and probably more so, than they are today. (In depth look on that here [technocracy.ca].
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Friday September 25 2015, @08:05PM
OK, that's helpful and makes a bit more sense. But telling people what to produce and where to allocate it is still a form of power which could be corrupted, so I'd prefer that the administration is as decentralized as possible. Perhaps something like a global, automated search engine for labor. Instead of a government saying "We need X houses, which needs Y hours of builder time and Z feet of lumber..." the person who needs a house would find someone who knows how to build a house. And that person would know a lumberjack, or an automated tree farm and mill, or someone who enjoys experimenting with alternative composites...whatever gets the job done. The more traditional anarcho-syndicalist concept would be something like the builders union gets a request from the housing coop and they all vote if they can fulfill that request.
But a global index of labor probably wouldn't actually be much of a problem I think...that's not much more complex than Facebook. Although...let's use GNUSocial as the model, not Facebook :) The bigger problems might be organizing large-scale and potentially undesirable work. Chip fabs? Oil wells? Maybe if nobody wants to work the wells, some robotics engineer would find the challenge interesting enough, or people could find alternatives, but the challenge would be getting to that point without everything falling apart. And of course there's some societal change necessary to create that level of cooperation, although that could solve itself if we eliminate the possibility of hoarding resources. And it's also worth keeping in mind that ANY positive economic or political revolution will likely require significant societal change -- otherwise it would have already happened!
(Score: 1) by Murdoc on Friday September 25 2015, @09:40PM
No one "tells" people what to produce except the people themselves through Energy Accountung. EA figures out how much people are consuming, then uses that data to determine how much of those things to make for the next cycle. Simple as that. It's giving people exactly what they want. Centralizing technical decisions like this in no way infringes on anyone's freedoms, it's the only way to achieve the kind of efficiency you nees to create abundance.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Friday September 25 2015, @05:52PM
Remove money and let people do what needs done.
You can remove the USD, many would in fact say that would be an improvement if we replaced it with something that can't be manipulated. Some would say gold, other now argue for BitCoin. But the basic point for here is simply that a monetary unit is required to enable the most basic economic function, division of labor and specialization. None of the things you discuss can happen without money to mediate the exchange. How do you barter the future delivery of a robot to a restaurant to a chip factory for the raw components to build it from? You require money, banking and the pricing mechanism of a free market. Everything else you write flows from that ignorance and is best ignored.
Please do not vote until you correct your dangerous ignorance of basic economic concepts.
(Score: 1) by Murdoc on Friday September 25 2015, @05:58PM
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Friday September 25 2015, @06:09PM
There was a time I wouldn't have believed that much ignorance could be packed into a webpage so short it doesn't even scroll. I wouldn't have believed people tech oriented enough to be posting here wouldn't instantly see one or more fatal errors in such twaddle. I'm long past such childish naivete and know such things are all too common.
Again, I only pray you do not vote until you read a 101 level economics text by a non-marxist. Either Chicago School or Austrian School would suffice for this purpose of teaching the bottom line basics of economic activity. Heck, even most of the followers of Keynes aren't as ignorant of economics as what was on the linked page.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Friday September 25 2015, @07:05PM
You've missed my point. You don't need currency if you don't mediate an exchange. I'm starting from the assumption that we have or will soon reach a largely post-scarcity society. And in such a society there's no reason to exchange resources rather than simply providing them.
Look at open source software. Look at people who volunteer for the food bank, or meals on wheels, or amnesty international. There are plenty of examples already in society where resources are distributed or labor is performed without any exchange of currency or goods, simply because somebody saw a problem and took action to address it. So clearly such systems are possible; the question is only one of scale. Can we address all of humanity's basic needs through such systems? I'm not sure if we've reached that tipping point yet, but surely we can do better than we are today.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Friday September 25 2015, @08:08PM
So you think people will just decide to build a mine and then work it, that others will decide to just supply the resources required to dig and otherwise work that mine, that thousands of others will simply appear to help and that somebody else will just decide to build and operate a smelter and give away the finished metals and that even more absurdly, that without the pricing mechanism acting as a signal that all this will occur in exactly the right amounts to avoid massive waste. The invisible hand only works if you have a market and that includes prices, monetary units and the rest of it.
Getting some folks to volunteer time to help distribute food is wonderful, truly. But you can't build a whole economy around that sort of thing because so many tasks aren't the sort of thing you can pay people in feelz for doing. You can get people to work a food bank or soup kitchen, good luck getting them into the fields picking produce. Hard enough getting Americans to do that for money, what do you think is one the big drivers in this huge knock down drag out immigration fight? So automate that job you retort. Great, we solve a big problem, net productivity rises, etc. Great. There are still going to be a lot of jobs, at least within our lifetime, that machines aren't going to be able to do and very few people are going to just want to do for no compensation. Good luck running an emergency room on volunteers, better luck still finding the people who will keep track of the certifications of those imaginary volunteers, keep the storeroom stocked with medical supplies, etc.
Finally, lets grab the bull by the horns and deconstruct the Open Source movement. It is beginning to more and more appear it was a temporary reaction to a market inefficiency. It was more bother to monetize smaller works than the benefit of GPL brought in faster development time. So anyone developing software as a means to some other end found it of benefit to public license and the economics quickly selected against small efforts to develop and sell software as a product but still seems to permit large ones like Microsoft, Apple and Google. The Play Store seems to be bringing an end to that though. You can't download f*cking BusyBox without wading through paid apps, begs for donations, Pro versions, etc.
Again, these are 100 level economic concepts you appear to be entirely ignorant of. Please stop posting and start reading. Go get an introductory economics textbook and start on page one since you apparently know less than nothing on the subject. You know so many things that just aren't so it is going to take a major effort to simply unlearn what you have been fed by people who do not have your interests in mind.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by frojack on Thursday September 24 2015, @08:49AM
Besides, the government must let no household go untapped, no communication go un-recorded.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 24 2015, @11:31AM
Yeah, well, who cares what you think.
Oh, well that's different. I'm now interested. Where can I go to find your other historical prognostications and policy issue statements?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 24 2015, @11:58AM
The market has responded with wireless phones with internet comparable to the fastest terrestrial connections from a decade ago. Do not downplay that computing has gone mobile. Much of the second and third world will still never own a personal computer, but thanks to the free market combined with open-source software (AOSP), they will still be able to access and participate in the modern internet, on handheld devices, with incredible battery life. All for the cost of a carton of cigarettes.
With Microsoft and Apple leading the way and charging $700 a device, this wouldn't have happened. Hell, Microsoft and Apple are so scared of the new world that they team up more often than not to combat Google (see the legislation they passed in California to ban open bootloaders on phones under the guise of preventing mobile theft).
(Score: 1) by Pino P on Thursday September 24 2015, @02:20PM
wireless phones with internet comparable to the fastest terrestrial connections from a decade ago
I don't think "the fastest terrestrial connections from a decade ago" were limited to single-digit GB per month. Had that been in effect, things like YouTube would never have become popular, and Netflix would still be disc-based.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday September 24 2015, @03:36PM
My 56k was limited to about a gigabit a month. Think about it - how many megabytes can you download in a month's time? Assume the you and/or other family members might want to be able to brows a little bit while the download(s) are taking place.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 24 2015, @07:59PM
Streaming stuff wasn't all HD a decade ago. There's a HUGE difference in number of pixels sent between HD and NTSC/PAL.
(Score: 1) by Pino P on Friday September 25 2015, @01:22AM
Back when the warez scene was using the DivX stack (MPEG-4 ASP video and MP3 audio in an AVI container), a two-hour movie at 640x480 could fit onto one 700 MB CD with some artifacts or two CDs with fewer artifacts. Because the MPEG-4 AVC codec is a bit better at hiding artifacts than ASP, I'll say a streaming site serves the equivalent of one CD per movie. A 110 minute movie would then be 840 kbps average bit rate, which matches what speed testers [superuser.com] report for Netflix on Wii.
Now try to watch two 700 MB movies per weekend on a typical 5 GB/mo cellular plan. You will incur overages even if you don't do any web browsing, GPS, email, or anything else over your connection.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 24 2015, @08:29AM
Dat's rite mofos, yo cant take my torrents away from meeeeeeee.
- every proponent of Internet-as-a-utility
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 24 2015, @10:04AM
Refusing to join Facebook is a crime punishable by death.
(Score: 1) by lc on Thursday September 24 2015, @10:25AM
Why is facebook a responsibility? Are you implying that I have no right for privacy?
(Score: 1) by lc on Thursday September 24 2015, @10:28AM
Oops. Sorry. I missed the sarcasm.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 24 2015, @12:07PM
Now regulate accordingly, pls
(Score: 4, Interesting) by richtopia on Thursday September 24 2015, @02:41PM
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/broadband/6337698/Finland-makes-fast-broadband-a-legal-right.html [telegraph.co.uk]
I must agree; there are many services that you just cannot access without the internet.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Thursday September 24 2015, @04:58PM
No, there is no 'right' to the Internet, the Internet is not a 'core' utility, even if that word had any sort of real meaning.
Living in a remote unwired location is not a right, it is a choice. There are advantages to living outside the towns and cities, the clean air, low cost of living, and all that. There are disadvantages, slow delivery times, lack of utilities, etc. As usual though people want the advantages and to be able to pass off the expenses to others.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Thursday September 24 2015, @05:42PM
There are services that are being moved completely online. Even just applying for most jobs requires access to the internet. Public libraries, where they exist, do help, but for single parents, they might not have time to do job hunting for a better job when the libraries are open.
In the long run, it's better for everybody to just declare the internet to be a core utility so we don't have to maintain a separate set of things for people that can't afford it. Providing basic internet to the poor is relatively inexpensive in urban areas anyways. The real expense of this would be in the rural areas. And even there it's not that expensive if wireless is an acceptable means of providing it. a couple gigs of wireless data can be provided for relatively little in most parts of the world.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Thursday September 24 2015, @06:10PM
So? Job hunting used to involve newspapers, should those have been made a 'core' utility? Of course as government subsidized entities we wouldn't be looking forward to their richly deserved demise. The bigger point though is that lots of things are very useful, pretty much required. We should not mandate that the government should seize these things from some and give them to those without them.
Access to the Internet is already cheap and widely available in just about any location where it is economically viable to provide it and available via Sat and other wireless in the rest. If something is useful, it isn't unreasonable to ask people to actually PAY for it. Paying for things or passing them by, ie. choosing, is how the Free Market discovers prices.
If you look there are some really cheap ways to get Internet access. Slow? Oh yea. So is it your position that not only is the Internet a basic human right but that fast (as defined by who) Internet is a Right? Where does this insanity end? Is Netflix going to be a Right? When the Internet drives broadcast TV out do you change your mind? What principle governs you other than feelz?
(Score: 1) by Francis on Thursday September 24 2015, @06:28PM
Newspapers could be had for free if you didn't mind scrounging one out of the garbage. They could also be shared among a group of people easily and when the person who was reading it was done, they'd often times give it away. Back in those days folks could also walk into various businesses and ask if they were hiring.
The point you're deliberately missing here, is that it's no longer true. Most businesses only advertise online and they only accept applications online. Even if you do show up at their place of business, they probably won't accept the application.
And I'm not sure where you live, but around here you have to have a job and money to pay for things. I would definitely consider it to be unreasonable to expect somebody making minimum wage or less to be able to afford internet without being given some sort of a subsidy.
And your proposition is basically fuck those that don't have any money. I'd love to be there to see what you do if you ever lose your job and have to make use of welfare. I'd be really curious to see what the reaction is when you realize how many things you're locked out of by virtue of not having money.