Google turns to the dark side

I will never understand some peoples' (companies) constant quest for more, More, MORE - money, power, influence, whatever.  Guess I'm just not wired that way - I'm an old hippie and proud of it.

There's only so much water in the well, if you take it all for yourself then everyone else dies of thirst - and what, then, do you really have power over?

Don't get me wrong - I do NOT live in a cave, am not some hermit.  I live a comfortable lower-middle-class type life - I have the things that I need, and I would dare say most of the things I want.  But if my income suddenly jumped from $45k to, say, $4.5m, I guarantee you I would be finding ways to spend a lot of that around, do some good with it.  Finding ways to jump it to 45m, 450m, or 4.5B wouldn't even enter my mind - why would I?  The age-old question - how much is enough??

There are days when I wish that asteroid WOULD hit us - send us back a couple hundred years, reset our society.  Maybe we could get it right - at least better - the next time around.

Seriously heavy sigh, here...........

I'm afraid net neutrality never had a chance. The concept depends on millions of voters understanding an issue that they do not, and willing to get off their asses long enough to threaten complacent congress members and bureaucrats with dire consequences. The grassroots political force that would need to be generated would have to be greater than the hope for power that being on the side of the corporate owners of the internet and the potential to silence a mechanism  for anti-establishment communication to mobilize the people who want you to represent their interests. A totally unbelievable scenario.

Now if it were about taxes...

Some say who cares, Google's just trying to make buck the same as every other cyber-entrepeneur. Those people simply don't understand that this is much more important than just how long it takes to get your search results. This development affects the future of all mass-communication, including radio, television, telephones, email, and every business that depends on the internet for daily operations.

Imagine if in the 1920's RCA had secured a government-blessed monopoly on the commercial radio bands. Each radio station's broadcast power would today be determined by how much operators were willing to pay to RCA. Would the public have stood for that? No, because the belief then, as now, is that the airwaves are public property to be administered by a public authority who represents the true owners and puts their interests first.

Granted, the FCC today is not the servant of the people we'd like it to be. They're more concerned with the language people use than with restraining corporate monopolies in news and entertainment. Still, if we want to challenge them we at least can claim the moral high ground, and often, legal precedents as well.

The internet was built entirely by taxpayers. Unlike the laying of telephone and telegraph wires across the country and under the oceans, no forward-thinking corporations contributed to the internet's creation. Even now, the internet backbone is almost entirely funded by the federal government, meaning us taxpayers. It belongs to us, and we should have the last word as to how it's used.

That means if we, the internet's owners, want all network traffic treated equally, we have the right to insist on it. But through what mechanism can we exercise that right? Not the FCC, it's already been taken out of the picture through backroom shenanigans and bad management. I don't have an answer.

You really don't see the "unlimited use" model many places.

There is a big difference legally and in terms of practical results between "unlimited use" and "common carrier." Net neutrality is about the latter concept, and says nothing about the former.

If the major players in internet service are allowed to charge the end users (as they are) a differential payment for service metered in terms of speed or total data per month, they are not providing unlimited use. The carriers are limited by how much the end user is willing to pay. If they raise our cable bill to $1000.00 a month they will lose customers. What they want is to be able to charge a million dollars a month to YouTube or SoundClick in order to let those sites' customers get access to the site. Not a problem for YouTube you say, let them pay. But when it takes you two hours to download an update from Cakewalk (who can't afford the express carrier rate), or you find that your songs are not being heard because no one will wait for the download,  you will wonder why you are paying the carrier extra to provide high speed access at your end.

Essentially the wealthiest content providers will be able to serve pages at comfortable speeds, and the poorer sites will have viewers going elsewhere because the pages take too long to load. So far so good you say. That is God's will and the law of nature that the rich should have an advantage over the less rich in the business universe.

Fine if you are just pushing crap. But what if you are a Chinese dissident, risking your freedom to send your blog about religious persecution via USB drive to a poorly funded Website in Denmark, or an American who has film of government agents beating protesters or a corporation poisoning the environment? What does it do to the foolish myth that the internet might be an open communication system that would let the not-so-rich be heard?  If your film gets 1000 viewings instead of a million, you have been effectively silenced. The "democratic" internet becomes another corporate media outlet.

We long ago decided as a people that we would not let railroads, shipping companies restaurants or hotels refuse to serve some of the public unless they were willing to serve us all. The internet should no more be free from the obligations of a common carrier. In fact, because it has the potential to serve the concept and function democracy itself, a democracy should preserve the principal that is should serve us all, not just the wealthy or powerful. In a democracy, as corporate interests are increasingly aware, the power to control information and public opinion is the power to subvert the interests of the governed.

Greed is an addiction. More more more ..... never enough and it just snow balls. Bankers and corporate owners don't care about people. They want more and the more they get the more they want - it's NEVER ENOUGH   

Say what you want about Bill Gates and windows version whatever .......

he's on more than one occasion shown and said in essence he doesn't need or want as much money as he has. 


It's my understanding it's why he's not the richest person in the world any more -- he gives to charities and TRIES --- emphases on tries ---  to help education -- he even gave up day to day operations of Microsoft for those kinds of adventures 

anyway - the Bill Gates thing is a side note 


- the greed will never end   - Why would Google be different? 

I don't think they want power - I think they want money -


 politicians want power 

and now - politicians and corporations and banks are all in bed with each other and just look at the love they spread around - 

now that wall street is in bed with Washington and Ben Benake - how ever you spell the name  - just look what they've created and steered things - especially when unregulated 

everything is a mess and the corruption and ways of the world are out of control  - always have been - but now on a greater scale  

the government on any level - whenever they touch anything its turns to crap 

the economy - made worse in the long run to  government interference

education - no child left behind - disastrous

War in Afghanistan - FAIL! and un winnable  

Weapons of mass destruction - WHERE?

Social Security - In the red 

Health care - where do you start and who can understand that thing it's so huge of a document 


Homeland security - I am no safer than I was in 2001 - 

patriot act - freedoms taken away - not to mention I love when ever they present a document that goes against the Constitution they put the word freedom or patriot in front of it - like we're stupid and it's un American not to "be for it"

read my lips - no new taxes 

I did not have sexual relations with that woman 

we will hunt you down dead or alive - on bid laden 

what branch or organization of Goverenment was formed recently that works like a like well oiled machine 

when are we NOT lied to 


everything the government touches turns to crap 

and now they made up the "too big to fails" - thats a joke - no one is too big to fail - capitalism?- you go on your own merits - and when you fail - you or another company picks up the pieces and fixes it - not get bailed out and let the people who created the problem fix it after they take 80% of the bail out money and give themselves bonus and raises on our tax dollar WHAT!?


I have a two degrees -  a bachelor and master in music education -  and I can't stand working for the government anymore because of no accountability by who should be accountable -  and all blame on the teachers - in my experience if a gang banger doesn't want to do something and calls me a "white boy Mother Fu****" then thats not my fault - and YES THAT HAPPENS TO ME REGULARLY 

I am just in the start phase of my own music school and program - and I'll probably touch and change more lives than our Government will when I hit the grave 

I don't need need 2.7 million - I don't get to take that with me when I am dead 

all I need is a roof over my head and a passion to teach and change lives 


no thanks to the united states Government being in bed with wall street I'll be fine - although I expect to run into bumps and have trials and tribulations  

It wouldn't be a bad thing for MAJOR MAJOR changes in the future...maybe even becoming a different or better country  - and if some pain happens while we as a country go through those changes - that's ok and worth it  if it's done right by REAL LEADERS who want better for all 









 

bitflipper

...the power to control information and public opinion is the power to subvert the interests of the governed.

Well said.

It may be well said but it is garbage.  Herrman Goering once said it and looked what happened there, it only appeared to be true for awhile!

I've said it many times before and will repeat it as many times as it comes up.

We as individuals cannot handle freedom of anything our collective tendency throughout time is to hand our freedom back to an authority and then defer to that.  Not to be controversial but isn't that how every man-made organized religion has worked since the dawn of our time?

The reason is quite simple and based in our inherent nature, in that it relies on two things that scare us to death in order to be truly free.  First we have to think for ourselves and then ultimately we have to take responsibility for that.  No blame, blame ceases to exist as a concept if we all take responsibility for ourselves!

The internet has been an easy thing to follow because it has been all creation in a microcosm and we've been able to watch it all the way from the outset to where it is now.  There is no government or corporate power to blame here, we just couldn't handle it being neutral.  Simple as that.

The figures are probably still little different but at one time well into the 90% internet traffic was pornography, piracy of some form or another and various sundry activities from the basest depths of human nature.  But that wasn't us was it?  It was somebody else doing all that stuff it must have been, we wouldn't stoop to that kind of thing, would we?  Of course it was US there was no-one else around even it wasn't down to a few particular individuals that didn't participate in such a mire they were quite happy to allow it all to continue.

Next comes the double denial in that we now start to defer to folk such as Compuserve, AOL, Yahoo (before Google) and we go to them as service providers who will keep us protected from all this unhealthy activity by filtering our services, meanwhile we will now pay them for this service they are providing (remember which is merely masking us from ourselves so that we can feel all clean and cosy again just like when we pay our phone bill).

So a little stream of revenue starts opening up the next thing to happen is all sorts of wild claims about this new medium start to abound and anyone with enough savvy to put a few pages on-line can become a millionaire overnight.  Wild speculation and plenty of boom and bust starts to draw interest from the money men and most of them end up owning enormous amounts of moneys worth of hot air as companies get floated off.  Nothing tangible in most cases except for those that have bought into those pioneering people that are making stuff really happen.

In the contraction of all that optimism companies go broke split up and sold off and some reach humongous markets by cherry picking the E-Bays, The Googles and the like so these clever on-line presences usually developed and run by little more than visionary enthusiasts are now guests of honour on Wall Street and the big money has arrived.

The internet sales model has mostly worked until now on this very principal of keep giving it away, not because business likes to give stuff away to be cool it is so they can then start charging for it when folk have become reliant on it.  It's a method that has been built into most big web presences from that time.  And now's the time that many are starting to realise these long term aims.

Internet freedom isn't being taken away we gave most of it away relatively just a few short years ago but we've forgotten that already because it wasn't us that did it was it?

You see it all over, for example and there are countless others exactly the same, people moaning about Apple's iMarketing monopoly, yet they have a stack of proprietary format music to play on their iPhones which they can't leave home without, but lets curse Steve Jobs because I wouldn't be that stupid would I?

Herrman Goering once said it and looked what happened there, it only appeared to be true for awhile!

Oh now you've gone and done it, Jonbouy! You've got Nazis in the thread now and nothing summons the thought police quicker than Nazi references. And if that doesn't clinch it, you also inserted the "R" word!

Oh well. But at least you were spot on before the soapbox got kicked out from under you.

It may be well said but it is garbage. Herrman Goering once said it and looked what happened there, it only appeared to be true for awhile!

Are you saying that National Socialism failed in Germany because the people stopped believing government propaganda? Don't you think the allied invasion may have played some role?

There are days when I wish that asteroid WOULD hit us - send us back a couple hundred years, reset our society.  Maybe we could get it right - at least better - the next time around.

I'm with ya on that.
Maybe mankind could use a little ass-kicking. Just to bring us down a few rungs.


Mike? 

The "Dark Side" is everywhere. Why shouldn't Google do business with it? Google has no sides, only paths that you choose to take. The internet is very much like religion. The path you take and the choices of acceptance are up to you.

bitflipper

...few things in life are NOT BULLSH***

Throw me a line, here, Mooch, because I can't think of any of those things. Quick, name one. And don't give me the honest love of my grandchildren or some such Hallmark drivel - those kids are already divvying up my stuff and buying me tobacco.

hmmmmm............in that case..... I got nothing!!! (shrugs)




maybe it was better I said I WISH ALL things weren't  bullshi** - 




but as grandpa always said..... "It's ALL bullsh****"




like I said ....


wise man my grandpa mooch...told it like it was .....even at 92 years old 

Yeh, I want to go back to 1980, when my network consisted of a parallel cable between two computers and I used Kermit to transfer files between them. If some asshat from China wanted to muck about with my computers he'd have to bring mu shi pork and knock on the front door.