Re: Information Wants to be Free

There are a number of serious faults in this article. Here they are:

1) Like so many things advertised, the "alluring digital lifestyle" is more of a fiction than a reality. Just like beers that promise you an exciting lifestyle filled with hot young sexy people, or automobiles you may drive at high speeds on roads you have all to yourself. 2) A substantial part of our demand for high capacity is channels results from the GARBAGE in the information we seek. Text and simple photographs require very little bandwidth and a 56k dialup would be more than adequate if that's all the content consisted of (14.4 if text only). But the computer industry wouldn't be very profitable at that level since none of us would need to buy new machines very often.

As Alfred Sloan did at GM many years ago, the computer industry has us sucked into planned obsolescence. Internet screens are continually made more complex and more bloated so we need to buy faster computers and heavier channels to function. Software only a few years old won't work; modern browsers won't work on older machines.

3) This writer's first premise "information wants to be free", is nonsense. If I want a hard copy of his article, I'll have to buy the New York Times, which is $1.25 where I live. If I look at it on line, I must subscribe to services to provide it to me. Note that I CAN'T simply dial up the NYT directly (like an old BBS) and look at their stuff. Further, to look at their stuff I must also download NYT advertising, which is one of the reasons expanded bandwidth is necessary. 4) The "anyone can publish culture" is also a myth. In the days of the BBS, they told us "shareware" was new wave of the future. The reality was that everybody downloaded shareware or bought disks at computer fairs, but very few paid for it, and very few made any money out of it. Very few authors gain wide readership on the 'net. They also told us BBSing was the new communication wave of the future. It never was. The reality is that a very small part of the population gets its information from these sources. Sure, anyone can open a website and create a blog. But how many people will actually read it? The reality, outside of very rare exceptions, most of us would do better standing on a street corner and handing out leaflets to passers-by. When a site does do well it's because it was publicized by another _media_ source. Hey, if my local [traditional] newspaper wrote that the leafletter at Broad & Market had something worth reading, I'd be well known too. 5) Whether the author likes it or not, "plumbing" costs money. This author seems to think communications lines, junction switchers, and ongoing maintenance should all magically appear for us, for free. That's ridiculous. 6) Maybe we really don't need truly fast service.

Let me note the failed promise of cable television. That was another "wave of the future" that would revolutionalize our lives. Gee, so now I can watch young buff bodies on MTV living together. That has some entertainment value, admittedly, but is that an "information revolution"? Nope.

Let's also remember the skyrocketing cost of cable television. We're now paying DOUBLE for it. We pay to subscribe for the content, but then the shows almost all have a great many commercials. Indeed, most have more commercials than traditional commercial TV which comes through for free (though that has more commercials now, too.) Some cable channels have five minutes of commercials for every five minutes of content. We have "Modern Marvels" on the History Channel, which has some educational merit, until a closer look is that it's essentially a propaganda piece for the industries its covering. A report on buses, for example, mostly focused on the wonderful work of one particular school bus builder. When the stuff comes through at high speed, will we be getting quality or just more commercials?

7) Verizon had to build an entirely new fibre optic cable delivery network to provide this. Any other entrapreneur could do the same thing. Don't tell me Verizon had an advtg as an existing company. Business history is filled with newcomers upstaging old established companies. Indeed, Comcast is very new compared to Verizon. Microsoft is new compared to IBM. 8) The Internet is a free form network of networks with very little central control. That has been debated here, and many people are extremely passionate about keeping it just that way. Well, free-form is by no means necessarily better. 9) "Network neutrality" simply does not work. Never has, never will. Here's why:

a) "Limitless choices" is not necessarily a good thing for consumers. First off, many of those choices are just plain garbage. Consumers don't have the time to go through every "choice" to assess quality. For example, I just tried to find out about a new medication on the Internet. My seach result innundated me with garbage -- a great many sex/p*rn sites include buzz words so search engines always pick them up. Then, there are political activist sites that do the same thing. There were anti-medication sites. Finally I found the manufacturer's site, which had very little to say.

Second of all, a key function of information delivery is editing. The editors of my local newspaper choose what stories to run. Certainly this process has problems, but the alternative is absolute chaos--I'd get a newspaper 1,000 pages long every day. Getting a web screen of 1,000 frames is no better.

TV networks buy show pilots and later decide not to use them. Such shows are burned off late at night or in late summer (or not shown at all). I used to be curious and watch such shows, but it was quite clear why they weren't picked up -- they were pretty lame. For all the criticism, TV executives aren't as stupid as claimed -- they do perform a necessary culling out function.

b) Another big problem with "network neutrality" is that society -- civilization -- functions best by a set of rules. We call them manners and the law. But on the Internet, bullies and malicious vandals are free to mess up everyone else. We have the obvious very expensive problems of spam and viruses. (Adding bandwidth will only make those worse). On discussion groups, we have bullies fouling the discussions. Our moderator, Pat, often tells of his need to sift through temendous amounts of garbage every day.

When everyone is talking at once or trying to outshout another, nothing can be understood.

Nobody likes censorship. But the internet is increasingly being used to hurt innocent people through theft and exploitation.

The gift of the invention of the automobile was freedom -- freedom to go anywhere at any time. But then we had cars crashing into each other, so we enacted rules -- rules on how to drive, rules on the vehicle we drive.

10) Of course not. Broadband carriers are in business. The principle set forth at Bell System divesture was FREE MARKET -- everyone is out for themselves. Well, a free marketplace has winners and losers. Those who are more efficient will win out at the expense of the less efficient. Economices of scale exist. Every business wants to maximize its market share to increase its efficiency and profits. If you find that basic economic fact unpleasant, then you shouldn't have pushed for a free market. 11) Sounds like "regulation for thee, but not for me."

In other words, _other_ companies can do as they please, but the phone carriers are locked into restrictions and discount services to benefit others.

Actually, the business history of successful companies is filled with examples of a company in one line of work switching to another. My local video store evolved into a computer service store and accounting service. If say Verizon wants to open up its own e-store, it should be free to do so.

Indeed, many people feel Comcast is charging too much for cable TV service and now Verizon, freed from regulation, is entering that market. That's exactly how free markets are supposed to work.

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