Re: [dvd-discuss] EFF opposes blacklisting spammers

[Bryan Taylor <bryan_w_taylor(at)yahoo.com>]

--- Jeme A Brelin <jeme@brelin.net> wrote:

> > and is almost uniformly agreed to be a good thing.
> 
> Maybe in your circles, not in mine.
> 
> In my country, we still pay lip service to the concept of democracy.  And
> secret meetings and bribery that end in public assetts being taken from
> the public are in direct violation of the public trust.

What specific assets do you allege were taken and who specifically authorized
it? If you are alleging "bribery" and payoffs, then you are alleging criminal
wrongdoing. That's ironic, since you are the one who doesn't want to see lists
of alleged child molesters.

> Also note that the type and manner of internet communication declined
> sharply following this change.  The drive by the new private backbone
> carriers was to provide for commerce at the expense of community. 
> Spam was introduced.  And the great old web and gopher sites that carried
> information freely distributed by hobbyists and specialists became
> obscured in a morass of keyword-loaded pay sites and sales pitches.

I'm sorry that some people exercise their free speech in a way that you don't
like. It must be a bummer for you to want everybody out there to be just like
you and to realize that it isn't so. It sounds like you just plain hate
business. That puts you way out on the fringe.

> USENET, for a while, became all but unusable for all the spam and
> cross-traffic.  Archie and Veronica were just too useful in getting things
> for free to survive in a commerce-driven network.  And machines on the
> network that are passive and provide no services far outnumber those that
> do provide services where once they were a small minority.

USENET isn't gone, it just split it's audience with web archived mailing lists
(like this one) and web forums like Slashdot. Frankly, the result is vastly
superior. Gopher, archie and veronica were innovative ideas whose time has
passed. They decayed because html and http are superior protocols at garnering
mind share.

> I've recommended it before (I think to you), but I'll do it again.  Pick
> up and read a copy of Robert W. McChesney's "Rich Media, Poor Democracy"
> and read his chapter on the internet.

You've mentioned this twice, so I might take you up on it. As a counter, I'd
suggest you pick up a copy of Ayn Rand's "Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal".

 
> > There is rather healthy competition between the telcos and backbone
> > bandwidth has grown at a pace that is truly staggering.
> 
> Is this the healthy competition that's causing lay-offs across the
> industry and conglomeration at an unprecedented rate? 

Yes. 

> Where CLECs
> (competitive local exchange carriers) are rapidly going extinct as they
> are bought out by Time Warnet Telecoms, Qwest and AT&T?  Where the local
> ISP is now a "member" of Earthlink and AOL disks literally litter our
> streets?

The market is picking the systems that create value the most efficiently. The
USENET that you nostalgically recalled above had it's share of AOL'er asking
FAQ questions in all caps. 
 
> Yes, bandwidth is more plentiful and cheaper.  But socially, we're no
> better off.  The power is still in the hands of the same old powerful and
> the public has lost its means of creating community via the internet.

Gosh, I think it's improved greatly. Twenty five years ago AT&T used to be the
only telco and there were three broadcasting networks. 

The number of people who feel part of some online "community" has grown and
continues to grow at a staggering rate. I see the DMCA and the SSSCA as the
desparate last gasp of an old school that can't fight the paradigm shift.

> Privatizing the internet has brought no real improvement to our society or
> culture.  It did not improve the general standard of living (in fact, the
> naive faith in ludicrous dot-coms helped speed us to the current
> depression).  It did not enlighten us, generally, and decrease
> intolerance, fear or ignorance.  We are not more just, kind, loving,
> healthy, or strong.

We've had a decade of unprecedented growth and suddenly we're almost in
recession and you are crying like the sky is falling. We actually haven't had a
single quarter of negative growth yet, a "recession" is defined as two in a
row. To call this a depression is absurd. 

> I'm not just writing about email here.  The ability to provide web
> services on a particular machine was once inextricable from the set of
> abilities that allowed one to send mail or browse the web.  The
> peer-to-peer nature of the network changed when NSPs (those that provide
> network connections to ISPs, most of them backbone carriers
> themselves) realized they can impose assymetrical bandwidth restrictions
> that make it cheap to listen, but expensive to speak.

I have a static IP at my house for the first time ever. This makes me happy.
 
> Ah, but an assymetrical connection is CONTENT NEUTRAL.  You can say
> whatever you want, if you pay for the right to speak.  We're not
> restricting speech based on content, just on ability to pay.

Someone else is making the exact opposite point about spam. Perhaps you two
should form a new thread and duke it out.
 
> Yep.  How many are left?  The "free market" has done what it always
> does: brought about oligopoly and monopoly and destroyed competition for
> all but those who can afford the high barriers to entry.

> > You should start one if you are really worried about the problem.
> What do you think this is, 1994?

Hey, there are still people who run BBS's. 

> I know literally dozens of people who started small ISPs and absolutely
> all of them are out of business today.  Mostly they ended up closing at a
> loss because the RBOC was shafting them for telephone lines (just biding
> their time and keeping competition at bay until they could get the
> deregulation they needed to provide service themselves) or a nationwide
> megalith was providing service at a loss to drive out competition.  A
> couple of those people ended up selling their (unprofitable) business to a
> larger ISP or just a wealthier one that was hoping to be the Last Man
> Standing.

Hey, I never said you could get rich.

> In the end, it was predominantly those who started out on top that stayed
> on top and competition was totally destroyed because, as we all know, it's
> bad for business.

No, it's bad for business when a monoply forms. It's actually good when less
capable businesses are replaced with more efficient ones.
 


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