Jill and Jessica celebrate New Years
about: podcaster, photographer, coder, husband, parakeet owner, videographer, and consultant
[contact]
Also check out djmblog.danieljmckeown.com
Because your house could be foreclosed, why should anyone bother maintaining free roadways (and bike paths) that any visitor could use to get to the place?
By analogy, that seems to be Dave Winer's argument about net neutrality.
Or, if you really care to comb through Winer's cynicism, read the article yourself and try to figure out what's going on. Here's an excerpt:
"Net neutrality is a concept that the tech industry rallies around, but it is hypocrisy.
The idea is that the transport layer, operated by telephone companies and cable companies, must transport all bits across their lines at the same rate and cost. Nice idea, but it's hypocritical to demand that of their vendors when they don't provide it to their users. For some reason they are never called on this hypocrisy by the tech press."
I think the use of the concept of hypocrisy is a little problematic here. I know definitions vary--but maybe not this widely. Issues are then further conflated (does analysis of legal risk by private companies really require "due process?" for example) and vitriol flies, apparently because Mr. Winer has a considerable amount of contempt for the tech industry which, while understandable on the surface (I've worked in the Valley), appears to be more of a hastily built platform of self-righteousness than a well-calibrated disdain.
If your hosting provider shuts you down, can't you move your site to another host? (I know that I back up with diligence as a prepartion for that near-inevitabilty.) On the other hand, if an ISP slows or stops a user's connection to your site, you can stay up on your server all day, or move to another server, and your site is still being effectively silenced because users can't reach you. That's why net neutrality is an important matter for operators of small web sites--if it isn't defended we could lose what we already have. On the other hand I am all for stricter consumer protections for hosting and connectivity services, but those are a different set of issues and not much is really changing on that front (as companies have been getting kicked off of their hosting services for controversial or dubious reasons for years now).
It is worth restating my point--that whatever your problems with web hosting, why should the web's backbone necesarily be screwed up in a vaguely similar way (as Winer seems to be saying)? And is it always a zero-sum game between users and the "tech industry?"
djmblog.com podcast 3 show notes
guest hosts: Jessica (@JessicaMcKeown) and Jim (@jtmck)
Jessica's yoga posts on her blog are a good read.
