Why does everyone assume it's Google's responsibility to save the internet?
Yes, they do extremely great things for the world, the internet, and to protect privacy and people's rights, but rather than criticize them when they don't step up to the plate every single time, why not criticize other companies for not even considering it and failing to ever act.
I've seen over 75% of the people I know give thousands of dollars to Apple, but Apple gives back nothing to the world, they should be the ones criticized.
How can a company such as Apple have hundreds of billions of dollars and not even consider helping the world with all of that extra money? Imagine the amazingly great things they could do if they weren't so focused on hoarding cash and ensuring nobody "steals" their rounded corner idea.
The original article title is just link-bait anyways, it even says at the bottom, "Google hasn't gone completely silent. It and Facebook are members of the Internet Association, which in April urged the FCC to adopt open-Internet rules." So then what's the point of the article? To say that Google has been fighting for open-internet for 8+ years and that it helped form a group to help achieve that goal?
Edit: If you disagree then please comment. I knew this wasn't going to be a popular thing to post but I think the discussion is more important than the karma points.
Apple has never had any pretense of caring about people or society, including its own customers. Google has. Google has also made a fortune through the open, equal access nature of the internet (search), open protocols, etc. Apple would prefer if iDevice owners had to buy their iNternet through Apple, and their many loyal customers would buy it, and the stockholders would be happier for it.
I think people are clinging to the idea that Google is greatly morally (or at least strategically) different than Apple. They're anthropomorphizing. Corporations have no personalities, they have brands. Decisions are made by designated people within them, and the mix of decisionmakers at both companies are fairly identical in temperament.
> Apple has never had any pretense of caring about people or society, including its own customers.
Very true, and it hasn't held them back in the slightest. I bet a lot of people have a closeted respect for that- Apple doesn't try to hide its corporate greed.
Everybody knows Apple is a shark, but Google really hustled us.
Not defending google. Actually just slightly ranting on a tangent... Google today is not google 5 years ago. There are different employees, different managers, etc. To say that google (an entity with a single agency, as if it was a single person) "hustled" us by going through these changes is just not an accurate statement .
> Why would middle management changes affect their culture and principles significantly?
Because middle management acts as a filter on upper management's view of operations, and a filter between upper management and the people actually doing the work when it comes to directions going the other way. The effect Bruce Webster calls "thermocline of truth" [1] is one significant manifestation of this.
Very untrue. Apple's target demographic is the arty/greenie/little-bit-leftie. Remember the furore over the factory conditions in China? A large part of that was targeting Apple rather than other vendors because Apple were seen as being egalitarian (for some bizarre reason) and hence above that.
Apple certainly does have a pretense of caring about people, society, and it's own customers... but only if they're using all Apple gear. Apple's whole 'curated garden' approach is about this. I mean, how can you say they have no pretense of caring about their own customers when they're the only hardware vendor with plenty of branded retail outlets that dispense plenty of free tech support?
Because they determine the level of access that their customers have to their own devices based on strategic business reasons rather than for reasons that benefit their customers. They construct their devices specifically to thwart user-serviceability. Their phones don't have battery doors. They don't allow for any usage of their devices independently from their ecosystem. These decisions are aimed directly at restricting their customers, no one else. This is not done for the customer's own good, but Apple's own good.
>they're the only hardware vendor with plenty of branded retail outlets that dispense plenty of free tech support?
There's supposed to be nowhere else to get an iDevice serviced, so without them, who?
I'm not defending their practices, and generally find them awful and elitist - they make a nice product, but at what cost? Nevertheless, the general message from Apple is "give yourself wholly over to us, and we will take care of you" - something that doesn't agree with 'they don't even care about their customers'.
Sure, but you know about that going in. It's part of the deal. You pay a premium and get a premium product with pretty well defined limits on it's features. It's a fair deal.
The problem with Google is so many of the product they put out are utterly unfit for purpose, showing a blatant disregard for and contempt of their customer's right to a reasonable product in return for their money. First near-unusable first gen Google TV, Nexus phones with fuzzy cameras, The first gen Nexus 7 tablet with not TRIM on the flash storage for a whole year leading to rapidly degrading device performance, Chromebooks sold with 2 years of free mobile service that suddenly stops after a year, encouraging the growth of a whole ecosystem around Google Reader that suddenly goes away.
I don't think Google intentionally set out to do any of those things, but equally they didn't put any significant effort into stopping them happening either. They really just don't care. Move fast, break things, iterate. That's fine for them, but it's leaving a long wide trail of broken promises and damaged users and customers in it's bull-rush into the future and it's taking that approach for entirely selfish reasons.
Google may be giving you free things, I'm a happy Gmail and Google Docs user myself, but they're not doing it because they're your friend.
I would not agree that people know about those things going in. Some techies do. Very few non-techies do. Some techies are suprised when you tell them the extent of the limitations. Some are just so used to the ecosystem that they don't even think that there might be a use case outside of it.
The problem with Google is so many of the product...
The lucky thing about Apple is that people seem so willing to forget their cavalcade of turkeys. But anyone else who makes a misstep - google, microsoft, whomever - bang! never let it be forgotten.
The first gen Nexus 7 tablet with not TRIM on the flash storage for a whole year leading to rapidly degrading device performance
And here's a case in point. Google 'has a problem' because of the design, but we happily ignore the "you're holding it wrong" event from Apple, a problem due to an astonishingly fundamental design flaw. And wow, you're listing a bunch of first-gen hardware issues, something every large-scale manufacturer has issues with.
Apple does almost all of the things you're pinging Google for in this comment, and it befuddles me that you give them a free pass for doing so. I really don't understand why Apple gets the kid-glove treatment when it comes to criticism.
I find that significant use of an Apple iPhone or iPad fore most people I meet is web browsing, email, SMS and phone usage. All which is outside the Apple ecosystem.
I can not figure out how we are going to achieve a healthy open ecosystem of apps with significant applications without a major malware problem. I'd be interested to see how that would work.
Apple actually seems to care about not selling lemons where possible (unlike other large brands I can mention). That at least gives them slightly more credibility in my eyes. They seem focussed on that over all the other supposed corporate responsibilities.
> Everybody knows Apple is a shark, but Google really hustled us.
I find this (rather pervasive) attitude quite curious. If Google had actually committed grave ethical breaches and caused gross harm to its users I would understand it. Google actually puts "don't be evil" into their code of conduct - it's part of their employment agreement with their employees and they spell out in detail what it means. That is actually a real concrete difference to these other companies. So I am curious how you think they have they "hustled" everybody? They are surely not perfect, but the way people talk like this I can't help wondering, where's the gigantic breach of faith you are talking about?
it is everybody's responsibility to save the Internet. Google is one of the companies that makes a shit-ton of money off of it, defines new standards for it, and in many ways is shaping it. That gives them an enormous amount of power, so their contribution to saving the internet should be proportionately large.
I also think Google has a moral responsibility in that the only reason they exist is that the Internet started out as an open platform that they could index and serve search results for. Not keeping the Internet open smacks of enormous ingratitude.
Because they're arguably the company most invested in an open internet. 2/3 of internet users are google users (made up statistic). That means that they're losing 2/3 of whatever if the internet is hurt.
And most of the rest have two choices. Duopoly is not significantly better for consumers than monopoly, because either a) the bigger player kills the smaller one, or b) they end up in a stalemate with roughly equivalent pricing and service, meaning there's still no real choice.
It was tried before in the 90s but it failed. I don't know if there is another side to this story, but it looks like the telecommunications companies (Verizon and ATT) stole the money ($200 BILLION). http://www.newnetworks.com/ShortSCANDALSummary.htm
That number is only so high because it is discussing 10mbps or higher, so it excludes a big chunk of DSL providers as options. If you lower to 6mbps the numbers stay the same (sadly), but if you lower to 3mbps, 97% have access to 2 or more ISPs.
Google marketed themselves strongly as a promoter of the Open internet and gained credibility and support from the Tech community for this. They promoted it as one of their values.
Now that it's commercially convenient for them they have betrayed this value, and all of the people who gave them credit for it. That is why they deserve criticism.
Also, it should be pointed out that if Google works against an open internet, there will be little chance of saving it.
Apple on the other hand, has a different set of values. You can criticize them, but they haven't pretended to be something they are not.
"Now that it's commercially convenient for them they have betrayed this value"
That's a 100% FALSE statement.
In what way have they betrayed the open-internet initiative? They helped start both internal and external organizations to support the initiative.
How would it benefit Google to have a more restricted internet?
Now that the issue is mainstream maybe they've determined that the "right" outcome will prevail, they only have so many resources, at some point they have to start dedicating resources towards other initiatives and projects.
"Google is a strong supporter of an open Internet."
"The Internet was built and has thrived as an open platform, where individuals and entrepreneurs can connect and interact, choose marketplace winners and losers, and create new services and content on a level playing field."
"One of Google’s top policy priorities is spurring the availability and uptake of affordable, open broadband Internet service."
"Broadband-based Internet providers should not be permitted to discriminate against, or in favor of, certain services, applications, or viewpoints on the Web."
Google would actually do very well with a more restricted internet. They're a big enough player that they can either pay off or threaten the various oligopolistic ISPs.
That's not as true for their competitors, especially startups. And anything that hurts startups generally will make it much easier for them to acquire good companies at low prices.
Quoting Google's marketing just proves the point about their duplicity. How do you account for them joining with Verizon to lobby against network neutrality?
A more restricted internet would benefit Google because they have huge capacity of their own and very deep pockets to buy priority where necessary, so they would be further protected against competition and their own products would be advantaged.
I can't find anything about Google lobbying against net neutrality, do you have any sources?
4 years ago Google modified Verizon's proposal after years of stalemate, moving forward was in the best interest of everyone involved, including consumers.
Would you not agree that it's better that Google be involved in the Verizon (or any telecommunications company) proposal rather than be absent from it? It seems like a reluctant compromise they made, maybe they regret being associated with it, but they were in no way against net-neutrality.
>Would you not agree that it's better that Google be involved in the Verizon (or any telecommunications company) proposal rather than be absent from it?
> Why does everyone assume it's Google's responsibility to save the internet?
It's no one's specific responsibility, but it's a sensible stance. And Google seemingly changed theirs from vocal advocate to indifferent observer (in this case).
It is Google's responsibility to be a positive actor in the Internet ecosystem on behalf of end-consumers. If not because it is the "right" thing to do and also essential to the long term vision and success of the company.
Let me be expository on this for a moment, please.
Right now there are three competing visions for the future of the internet:
1. The GNU vision: the internet becomes decentralized and every individual has the tools to replicate and manage small, individual infrastructural tasks.
2. The Google/Microsoft vision, where a series of non-government economic entities create centralized and competing infrastructure while being supervised by governments in the jurisdictions they operate in.
3. The Centrist vision where the internet is essentially a public utility and operated by a quasi-governmental agency or a series of joint governmental agencies.
Currently our Internet is somewhere between 2 and 3, with a lot of talented individuals trying to write software and doing research to make #1 more feasible.
But #1 is inherently never going to work. Moore's law should tip us off, if not the current state of affairs in the world. As software and computing get better, its rate of improvement (or just change, take your pick) increases. This means that it's progressively harder to stay abreast of security, devops, and software products. With the best of intentions but a quintessentially first-world outlook, #1 simply creates a series of digital under-classes and rewards the people with the huge time investment and economic support structure implied by people who are currently good at computers.
#3 could work, but it assumes that Governments ultimately start to shape up and actually reflect the collective will of their population (as contradictory as that can be). It's possible, but I'm a sceptical.
#2 is the closest to working, providing a tension between government and corporation that resembles the tensions present in the American constitution. What's more, economic and technical concerns reward this approach. It's cheaper to centralize computer infrastructure and when done correctly it's a huge cost and materials savings. Competition between said environments also works to keep Corporations focused on the people abandoned by approach #1, keeping their products approachable and with low overhead for starting up.
But if Google is seen to constantly violate their user trust and not act as a sufficiently strong user advocate, eventually the populace will demand scenario #3 be enacted (or something with so much governmental input that it is indistinguishable from #3) and we'll be in a terrible situation.
The biggest benefit to the current system is that Google, Microsoft, and even Baidu all have so much to lose. They need to be receptive to government arguments while all competing with each other.
So yes. Google needs to be a white knight in shining armour because they benefit from user trust in a big way. The benefit in the short term with better engagement and margins. They benefit in the long term with superior positioning and longevity for their corporate rights.
First, I disagree that the "GNU vision" (although that is stereotyping, there are a lot of non-gnu or anti-gnu communities and individuals who would like the internet to fullfill it's original premise of decentralized communications) will fail. Because the race to complexity is not inherent, it's contrived. Either a) corporations use technology in increasingly complex ways, which is a reflection of a bloated equities market and societal excess, OR b) technology providers intentionally make things obfuscated. I work as a devops contractor and I've seen this my whole life. Half the complexity in the world is because someone decided to re-write unix, "only different" (meaning, poorly). The "GNU" vision shares thoughts with the unix philosophy of do something, do it well. One shouldn't needlessly rewrite and re-create in the hopes that you'll get lucky and pull a zuckerberg before the next crash. Instead, invest in well-done, simple technology. As you said, many talented individuals are already working to this end.
They will join the heritage of Donald Knuth, Ritchie, Ken Thompson, RMS, ESR etc etc. They existed in a time when there were thousands of engineers writing very complex systems for large companies. All those systems are gone, never to be seen again. Useless. gcc, emacs, vim have their source code in thousands of git repos around the world and are used daily all the time. The next step will be possible!
> Half the complexity in the world is because someone decided to re-write unix, "only different" (meaning, poorly). The "GNU" vision shares thoughts with the unix philosophy of do something, do it well. One shouldn't needlessly rewrite and re-create in the hopes that you'll get lucky and pull a zuckerberg before the next crash. Instead, invest in well-done, simple technology. As you said, many talented individuals are already working to this end.
I'm sorry, but the problem is not the talented individuals or their efforts. Its that fundamentally new and different ways of computing and approaching computing problems arise as technology continues to progress.
We can sit here and grouchily state that reimplementing UNIX is the problem, but even within the ebb and flow of Linux we see substantial change and reformation over the arc of 5 years. And that's ignoring the actual GUI toolkits which have been in a constant state of flux and only partial levels of functionality.
These are challenges that the community has been happy to dismiss even as they create increasingly obvious and increasingly difficult barriers to entry in the community. They do so because they do not inherently feel the problem as acutely, they're the beneficiaries of education and opportunity (or more succinctly, privilege) that they are happy to dismiss as something that anyone could have. It is not so, but try telling them that.
I'm curious, as you've mentioned barriers of privilege twice now: are you referring to 3rd world disadvantaged individuals who don't have access to electricity and a PC and internet, or are you referring to millions in first world countries with ADSL 3 tablets, 2 smartphones and a PC gathering dust in the garage? I think it's simplistic to say "there aren't enough people on board because of poverty". I don't know why one suberbia can produce both an RMS and also facebook drones.
> I think it's simplistic to say "there aren't enough people on board because of poverty".
I think that is a part of it, for sure. But even in first world countries like America you see lots of kids with inadequate nutrition, no access to modern education, and no cultural inculcation. And of course, that sort of pretends IQs themselves don't fall along a normal distribution and that there aren't gender and racial issues discouraging a large class of people from pursuing an education in this field.
Even if these issues were addressed socially, I think economic barriers are hard to ignore.
First, even though I disagree with several of your points (GNU vision failure, your teleological view of innovation), I don't disagree with all (what's good for Google, #2 being strong currently).
Change (innovation) is hard to predict, and tends to happen in areas we least expect[1]. In particular, I fail to see why the people in the Free Software community would be any worse than those doing similar work in the corporate or government environment in security or other areas. In fact, there are several data points that suggest that are better in some areas.
The fallacy, I suspect, is the assumption that those supporting the "GNU vision" are a distinct group from the others, when in reality there is a lot of overlap between your three categories. A good example is IBM, who - upon remembering they are in the business of selling "solutions" and service contracts - opened up a lot their software, and participated a lot more in the FS and OSS communities.
Also, I'll mention that we should hope some version of your "GNU" future happens, at least where communications over the internet is concerned, as "proprietary" and "encryption" don't really work together if you ever want to trust it.
An alternative, vision of the future you may want to consider: most software is (and will be) fancy plumbing.
In each field, once you have the initial discoveries made (e.g. Knuth's tAoCP, the basic hydrological theories necessary to move water that we take for granted today) the rate of real discovery slows down considerably and becomes much more specialized. Innovation happens in both. New valves and fixtures are made, etc, but most of the time you just need to hire some plumber to setup your building, or you need to hire some software professional to keep your data backed up and your invoices generated properly.
To achieve this, just like how "standard parts" are far more common than proprietary parts in plumbing, having an free and open body of software to draw on makes the equivalent job in software far easier, too. I suspect this will be true with the internet and without.
None of this suggests the corporate or government players will go away - they will simply gain the benefits a free and open library as well.
> Also, I'll mention that we should hope some version of your "GNU" future happens, at least where communications over the internet is concerned, as "proprietary" and "encryption" don't really work together if you ever want to trust it.
While this future would be advantageous for me, I am not sure I am onboard with everyone being responsible for their own infrastructure. Not only is it quite wasteful in terms of physical resources (and very sub optimal on energy consumed), but it requires that every individual community have several experts with a high degree of skill (for reasons previously discussed of which I see no actual rebuttals)
> To achieve this, just like how "standard parts" are far more common than proprietary parts in plumbing, having an free and open body of software to draw on makes the equivalent job in software far easier, too. I suspect this will be true with the internet and without.
This is not an impossible future, but people have talked about it over and over, and every time a new language or paradigm comes out that is supposedly the "key" to unlocking truly modular and reusable software. Heck, even Brad Cox thought he was doing it with Objective-C and look at how much code is duplicated between iPhone apps.
So you'd suggest we go back to the Ma-Bell model where you couldn't plug anything into the phone network yourself? Or do you like being responsible for your own phone and modem? While it was a clever hack, the acoustic coupler should never have been necessary.
> but it requires that every individual community
No, it only requires enough communities have such experts such that a "herd immunity" is established.
> I see no actual rebuttals
Your decision to totally ignore my point about these groups having a high degree of overlap is noted.
The assumption that "expertise" only happens with "commercial" (or government) was disproved a long time ago.
> modular and reusable software
"standard parts" isn't really about modular programming - I mean stuff like: Apache, glibc, zlib, etc.
Really, I'm just sketching out what is done every day to meet the mundane needs of "business software". A typical business generally doesn't need someone to invent a new data storage technique - they just need someone to make the necessary tables in postgres/oracle/whatever and the necessary forms/report-generators.
These needs never go away, and are the kind of task that benefits greatly from having a collection of commonly-used tools to draw from.
Because Google and its acolytes like to portray the company as the omnibenevolent curator of all that is good with the world(by world I mean everything online)?
> The rules have attracted more than 600,000 comments to the FCC’s website, including some filed after HBO’s John Oliver told his television audience “the Internet in its current form is not broken, and the FCC is currently taking steps to fix that.”
That could backfire. The courts struck down the FCC's net neutrality rules. We are currently operating without net neutrality. The FCC is trying to restore net neutrality, using the same regulatory authority it used before, but this time consistent with the limits placed on it by the courts.
The complaint of some net neutrality advocates is that this regulatory authority is not powerful enough after the limitations placed by the courts (it can prohibit "slow lanes", but cannot prohibit "fast lanes", only require that they be offered on a commercially reasonable, non-discriminatory basis). They want the FCC to switch to a different, more powerful, regulatory authority.
If people submit comments to the FCC modeled after what John Oliver said, saying that the internet is fine as is, and the FCC should not make changes, they are in effect saying that they do NOT want net neutrality.
It's tough for people like John Oliver to communicate to his audience anything other than, "Don't break the Internet." Indeed, part of the problem with net neutrality is confusion regarding what we mean by it. It's tough, but most people who are pro 'net neutrality' generally have the same idea of what they mean. They just might not understand how the Internet works, or how that relates to the FCC.
I can't help but worry this is because Google knows how much a "fast lane" could help it. They've got the cash to deliver their product at super speeds and get a leg up on everybody else who doesn't.
Big companies like Netflix benefit from their 'peering' deals. Sure costs go up, but they also create a walled garden to keep out any upstart competition.
If that's their attitude, it's short-sighted on Netflix's part. No matter how much money they can throw at ISPs, I guarantee Amazon can throw more. So if streaming video performance comes down to who can throw the most money at ISPs for preferential treatment of their packets, it's hard to imagine Netflix not getting clobbered in that contest.
I think it's a mistake to consider streaming performance the only variable on which success in that business is predicated. Content and customer relationships have to be factored in as well, probably much else.
Your point is valid though. Maybe the conclusion is that such walled gardens aren't useful in competition between established players, merely to make disruption from a a startup of little means but good ideas more difficult?
At the same time, it's not like Google is arguing against net neutrality either. For a large company like Google, some services (like, say, Youtube, which is bandwidth-intensive) may have a lot to gain from a "fast lane," but that company may also have a lot of smaller services that do not stand to gain as much. I do not think Google will see net neutrality policies as equally impacting all of its products, but as an issue that affects different products in different ways. Likewise, a "fast lane" costs money, and I suspect it will cost more money for a larger, high-bandwidth product, so for Google the concern will be whether or not pricing works in its favor.
Interesting point, but I think that even with their smaller products Google will almost always be in a position to out-spend their competition if they so choose.
I see it as almost like having an ace up their sleeve. It's always there, but they'll only play it when they feel a product is sufficiently threatened.
They're hedged against net neutrality and are covered either way, so it's not going to hurt them whatever happens.
It's like Microsoft on patents. Strengthening software patents will make it more vulnerable to patent trolls suing over MS products but it also makes their licensing play stronger. Weakening software patents will make it easy to defend against trolls but will weaken licensing as well.
So they have to walk a fine line, just like Google with net neutrality.
A lot of Google's work on QUIC and SPDY is oriented towards the weaknesses of the LTE networks that AT&T and Verizon want to force most Americans to use.
What exactly is a slow lane? Does the Internet work in a slowlane? What speeds are we supposed to envision when we think of a slow lane? Dial-up? 10mbps? 20?
The slower the speed, the greater the price an ISP can charge websites for access at normal speeds, so it would be a balance between slowing down more, and maximizing revenue from content providers, and keeping speeds high enough not to lose customers. The customer would be both a subscriber, and an extra member of an audience which could be sold to a website.
If you're talking about a situation where the ISPs are monopolies within a particular geographical area (at least for wired internet) that balance could mean very significant speed reductions. If the revenues from content providers reduced subscription costs by a meaningful amount, it would probably mean quite a significant slow-down even when there's competition, because I suspect many consumers would pick the lowest cost subscription regardless of other factors.
So what you're saying is below 56kbps? How long do you think a "slow lane" website will take to load? What would viewing resolutions be for something like Netflix in the "slow lane"?
Why are you being intentionally obtuse on this issue? I can't tell if you're trolling, shilling or just using poor rhetoric to support a genuine opinion.
Ending net neutrality is an opportunity for the very few large Telco companies to profit from their monopolistic position in the market at the expense of all customers.
Aside from the direct and immediate impact of a degraded experience for internet users, in the long term it also kills innovation by making it harder or impossible for new services to compete with existing companies that can afford to pay AT&T, TimeWarner, etc their extortion.
No, it's not just about video. Yes, your latency playing Starcraft will be effected (either blizzard pays your ISP to let you access their servers on the fast lane or your traffic gets deprioritized and you get more lag). No, you can't circumvent this by using a VPN and most importantly, you shouldn't have to even think about using a VPN to route around your own ISP intentionally degrading your connection to force payments from the services you're trying to access.
I want a legislative solution that doesn't stab me in the back, which is what I think I'm going to get if we don't talk these things out.
I don't think it's as simple as, "No more peering agreements" (the internet infrastructure would be overloaded) or "every ISP must accept all peering agreements" (one-sided peering agreements are something that needs to be addressed somehow -- Netflix can't keep flooding Comcast's network with impunity).
I absolutely don't want to pay extra to my ISP just to watch Netflix in HD, but I don't want to have my Netflix degraded to SD just because Comcast and Netflix aren't legally allowed to make deals together anymore. There's a middle ground here, and everyone seems to be ignoring it.
People seem to have a chicken little view of this, and won't accept any dissent or disagreement whatsoever. Look at how you wrote what you did! You just threw in like 5 or 6 very uncertain things, and pretended like they're undeniable fact. That's not how a discussion happens.
It's too bad Hacker News doesn't appear to be a place where a discussion can take place. It's sad, because if we can't get our heads out of our asses about this, there's zero chance anyone in congress has a hope of doing so.
> Netflix can't keep flooding Comcast's network with impunity
You mean, Comcast's customers can't keep causing Netflix to flood Comcast's network with impunity. Netflix only sends traffic that Comcast's customers request. I don't think the issue was a "one-sided peering agreement"; I think this issue was Comcast using a monopoly position to extract more rent. Your own next comment explains why:
> I absolutely don't want to pay extra to my ISP just to watch Netflix in HD
In other words, Comcast's customers don't want to pay for the extra bandwidth to watch Netflix in HD, so Comcast is trying to get Netflix to pay instead. Which, of course, means Comcast's customers will end up paying anyway, by paying more to Netflix...what was it you said you didn't want to pay for, again?
Why should the cost of Netflix traffic be put on all of Comcast's customers, instead of just the ones with Netflix?
The solution is to charge Netflix. That way, Netflix customers are the only ones paying for the extra traffic, in the form of price increases, instead of Comcast customers who don't pay for Netflix at all.
This is like business 101, why is this even an argument?
Because Netflix is not the only application that requires more bandwidth than Comcast' network can support in high volume. So what will end up happening is that Comcast will get paid multiple times for the same bandwidth, because they will pull the same sort of scam that The Producers did: sell the same "bandwidth" to ten different applications, so they get paid ten times for a network upgrade that they only actually have to do once.
What's more, it's not always predictable what applications will need more bandwidth. Forcing individual applications to make individual deals with ISPs to get faster service puts a huge roadblock in the way of new services.
Finally, as I posted in another response to you upthread, Comcast and other ISPs have been extracting monopoly rents for years, and a major reason why they were allowed to do that was their own claim that they were going to use that extra money to keep the capability of their networks in line with demand. They have not done that. Why should we users now have to pay for something we already paid for?
> Because Netflix is not the only application that requires more bandwidth than Comcast' network can support in high volume.
Netflix and YouTube, but the argument is the same. Why should people who don't use Netflix and YouTube pay for the upgrades that help only users who make use of these things? If I don't use any streaming video services, why should my money go to upgrading the systems those services need?
As for the monopoly discussion, that's different than this one, though ultimately it does effect this (if there were alternatives, we'd just all move over to them and Comcast would rot).
I explained already, multiple times, why this makes sense. Once you assume the costs will all get passed onto users, then why should I, Comcast customer who doesn't have Netflix, have to pay for upgrades that ONLY help out Netflix users? If the costs are shifted to Comcast, then that's what happens - EVERYONE pays for Netflix. If the costs are shifted to Netflix, then only the users who actually HAVE Netflix have to pay.
And multiplayer online games, and others that have been mentioned in this thread, and... The basic error you are making here is to think that the set of applications with these bandwidth requirements is small and easily predictable. It isn't. And it will get less and less so as time goes on.
> Why should people who don't use Netflix and YouTube pay for the upgrades that help only users who make use of these things?
They shouldn't, and they aren't. They just buy a cheaper, lower bandwidth Internet plan from their ISP. They're doing that already--certainly I am. I don't want or need Netflix so I don't pay Comcast for that level of bandwidth.
If your reply is that that money still ends up going to pay for network upgrades that I don't need, first of all, if that were really true, Comcast wouldn't have had to try to charge Netflix for the privilege of faster connections, because, as I said before, they would have actually been using the monopoly rents they've been extracting for the purpose for which they were intended--network upgrades to keep pace with demand.
But more importantly, network upgrades that increase aggregate bandwidth benefit everybody, not just Netflix or Youtube users. Except for the "last mile" connection to each individual house (which is not affected by deals like the Comcast-Netflix deal), everybody's traffic travels over the same network, and network upgrades speed up all that traffic. Which is precisely what net neutrality is trying to preserve, and what Comcast charging Netflix for faster connections does not preserve.
In other words, your claim that passing the costs on to users will make everyone pay for Netflix will only come true if we allow ISPs to privilege Netflix traffic over other traffic. Otherwise everyone is just paying for increased aggregate bandwidth from which everyone benefits. And if everyone pays just for the bandwidth they need, what's the problem? Everyone then contributes their fair share to keeping up the network that everyone uses.
> So every single Comcast customer should have to pay for what just the Netflix customers use?
How did you get that from what I said? I was merely pointing out that you are not paying Comcast for guaranteed bandwidth; you're only paying for some nominal bandwidth that isn't actually guaranteed. That's true regardless of what the bandwidth is used for.
But that doesn't mean every Comcast customer has to pay for the same nominal bandwidth; AFAIK Comcast, like pretty much every ISP, has several "tiers" of service with different nominal bandwidths. If you don't need to watch Netflix, you pay for a lower tier of service.
The real question is: would you be willing to pay Comcast more for bandwidth that was guaranteed, instead of just nominal? If the answer were "yes", then Comcast could just charge its Netflix customers, who really want the guaranteed bandwidth, more, and use the proceeds to upgrade its network. But from what you've posted in this thread so far, I would guess your answer is "no", because you think you're already paying Netflix for the service, when in fact you're only paying Netflix for access to its content; you're not paying them for the bandwidth you actually need to watch the content, because they don't provide you bandwidth, Comcast does.
The fact that Comcast is going after Netflix for that money instead of its customers would seem to indicate that Comcast thinks the answer is "no" too; they think (apparently correctly) that their customers either don't realize or don't care that the Comcast network they are currently paying for is not sufficient to stream Netflix content to the number of Comcast customers that want to watch it. So since, from Comcast's point of view, they can't get their customers to pay for upgrading their network to handle Netflix traffic in high volume, they're trying to get Netflix to pay instead. Which ultimately means the customers (i.e., you) are going to pay anyway, since Netflix is going to pass on the increased cost of accessing Comcast's (and other ISPs') network somehow.
(Btw, please bear in mind that I'm stating all this from Comcast's point of view, but that doesn't mean I agree with Comcast's point of view. From my point of view, Comcast should already have been upgrading its network, using the extra money they've been getting by extracting monopoly rents for many years now. But the fact is that they haven't, so there is now a capability gap that needs to be filled somehow. Filling it by allowing Comcast to charge Netflix for faster access to its network just means Comcast's customers end up paying, as I said above. Net neutrality is at least an attempt to make ISPs, instead of users, pay for the upgrades they should have already done but didn't.)
You're not paying to receive traffic from the internet at a minimum designated speed? Than you aren't buying an internet service good enough to receive streaming data from netflix or other similar services. Your options are to either pay more and get decent internet service or make netflix pay for it (and charge you via their fees). That second option would destroy the internet as we have it today.
From the Internet? Yes. I pay for a certain speed (up to, but whatever), but Netflix->Comcast doesn't go through the Internet. Currently, Netflix uses some of the 8 bucks I give them to ensure my videos are in HD by entering into peering agreements with my ISP.
I'd like to not have to pay Comcast too, as they already charge Netflix.
That's not what's going on. Netflix wants to plug a cable into Comcast's network so that you can receive the data quicker. This would save both Comcast and Netflix money because they don't have to pay another company's bandwidth fees. Regardless, Comcast wishes to charge for Netflix for the priviledge of connecting to their network. They want to charge Netflix access to Comcast's customers (you, the one already paying the big bucks for the service), not to plug a cable into a router.
Yes except the gun is used to kill anybody who doesn't pay up.
I think the general idea is that yes, all your services will degrade in quality except for the services that pay the ransom. Sure your VPN will make everything equal, except eventually if the QoS scheme works well for the ISPs they could also move to datacaps that don't get used up by the services that pay the ransom.
I don't think I ever said that all ISPs are going to do this. I also don't think any ISP needs to charge customers twice for accessing the internet (eg, own the gun in the first place).
I think this is where the gun simile breaks down because while a gun may have valid uses relating to protection, internet non-neutrality has no uses except to line the pockets of monopolies.
The whole point of the gun analogy is to illustrate how terrible the, "just because they can, means they will" argument is. That's it. Think no more of it beyond that.
FCC proponents will say what you have now. The rule says “sufficiently robust, fast, and dynamic for effective use by end users and edge providers.”
Opponents say that it will kill innovation.
I think the opponents have a point, but I'm actually okay with a "fast lane" approach.
Some degree of traffic shaping is probably a good thing. It doesn't make sense to equally prioritize by dropbox update and my VOIP traffic. I want that VOIP to have low latency and high enough bandwidth. Dropbox update can wait. I'd rather have my FPS game have a low latency connection than my neighbors bittorrent connection.
I'd propose a fast lane but also ensure the slow lane isn't intentionally slowed down for no reason. Punitive throttling shouldn't be allowed.
It might be more effective if the tech community made thoughtful input in the rulemaking process instead of pure rage and outlandish demands.
The issue with allowing net non-neutrality isn't packet shaping: it is that an entrenched player (say, Vonage) will be able to pay for a fast lane that a startup (in this case a VOIP competitor) wouldn't be able to afford, thus preventing incumbents from being disrupted.
What if the telecoms (who still make money on phone calls) had charged Skype more for bandwidth than other companies? They could have easily put Skype out of business and consumers would be much worse off for it.
I'm not saying the telecoms should be allowed to block or punitively degrade a company like Skype. I'd be okay with a "no discrimination policy." The telecom shouldn't be able to charge Skype more than it charges Conde Nast. And of course Antitrust law would still exist. Blocking Skype for anti-competitive actions is already illegal.
But I don't have a problem with them paying for priority.
That happens in virtually all industries. Amazon pays for faster shipping than a small webstore can afford. McDonalds can afford a better location than a mom and pop burger store.
It's just part of competition.
Sure its not ideal for start ups, but why should you have the right to make a law to tell Comcast how to use their network just so it benefits your start up?
Start up culture doesn't seem like regulation itself (Air B&B, Uber).
And it might actually benefit web start ups. If Netflix and Amazon pump in more cash to telecoms in exchange for faster service, that means the telecoms will build faster networks to make more money.
Net neutrality is the non-discrimination policy you want. It is also what has existed since the internet began.
Anti-trust doesn't help small companies when they go out of business before they can afford a decade-long court battle with a telecom. It also doesn't help if whole industries (VOIP, video streaming) are targeted.
"And it might actually benefit web start ups. If Netflix and Amazon pump in more cash to telecoms in exchange for faster service, that means the telecoms will build faster networks to make more money."
Or, given past US telecom behavior, they just shift more of their existing infrastructure to supporting the 'fast lanes', degrading performance for everyone else (which further incentivizes companies to pay for fast lanes) and enjoy larger profit margins. (Remember, most telecoms are in non-competitive markets, so they have little incentive to compete.)
But the fact is that you can't snipe tiered website access without also hitting packet shaping and the same peering agreements that make the Internet a useable tool for moving even reasonable amounts of data.
If you read the net neutrality proposals made by the EU and elsewhere, QOS is perfectly allowed and within the normal operation of networks. The Net Neutrality discussion has always been about punitive throttling, and if ISP are allowed to intentionally throttle a network service solely based on who and who hasn't paid them.
Thoughtful input in the rulemaking process has thus been done! Combat congestion is good thing, and no one is objecting to prioritizing VOIP traffic over bittorrent. Fastlane and slowlane has nothing to do with QoS.
The Net Neutrality discussion has always been about punitive throttling
Not on HN. Some here on HN insist that any interference with bits-in-bits-out, including QoS, violates NN.
I've mostly given up on NN debates. In addition to debating the merits of the various positions, we also have moving names for each position, and people really insistent (not you that I've yet seen) that their definition is the "right one."
That's what I mean, aren't there already "fast lanes" in the sense that Netflix doesn't have to use the "slow lane" we call the greater Internet to get its content to the Comcast network?
Yes. This isn't something many net neutrality proponents want to talk about, but allowing netflix to have sweetheart peering deals or offering rack space for caching at no cost inside ISP locations IS treating traffic differently.
I definitely want to talk about it. If an ISP is caching by using an algorithm that contains hardcoded urls, that is something other than just caching.
If folks here are in opposition to peering, they're attempting to literally destroy the Internet.
If we abolished peering agreements (setting aside the legal nightmare that'd cause, telling people what they can and can't do with their private networks), the subsequent Internet traffic that'd be generated would literally destroy the current Internet infrastructure.
I would mark the turning point for Microsoft from the great disrupter of the mainframe and minicomputer age to sclerotic incumbent at the point where they fully embraced DRM and announced Palladium. At that point, "disruption" was limited to what content publishers would approve of.
A Google that kowtows to Comcast will be similarly uninteresting.
Not to mention that Chromebooks are one of the most heavy handed uses of DRM in the wild without even native apps with an App Store like iOS or Windows RT has.
A Google sign in is needed even to login and the only native apps are Google's own. How is this different or better than Palladium?
They also include the WideVine DRM that they acquired and use for Netflix which is not compatible with desktop Linux which is still forced to use a Silverlight port.
The only redeeming feature is that you can jump through hoops and install Linux(while suffering through an annoying prompt at every boot), which can be done on any Windows PC anyway, but >95% of Chromebook buyers are going to be locked in.
IE, Chrome and Safari teaming up to implement HTML5 DRM forced Firefox(which can't afford to be bundled in with every Java, Flash and Acrobat update/install like Chrome is) to follow suit.
And they only recently stopped parsing e-mail in Google Apps for Schools(which they give away for free) and Business(paid) to build ad profiles to show in other Google properties after they couldn't continue telling the lies they were telling to the public in federal court.
They also have a program where they track Android and iOS users to detect when they enter a store for ads tracking.
Which part of all this is about the open internet again?
> Chromebooks are one of the most heavy handed uses of DRM in the wild without even native apps with an App Store like iOS or Windows RT has.
Chromebooks are supposed to be for running web apps. IMO it's something of a failure that there are any native apps on the Chromebook (besides Chrome, of course). Although now that you mention it, the only one I can think of is the file browser. I don't use the others.
> A Google sign in is needed even to login and the only native apps are Google's own.
Not true. I use my Chromebook in guest mode all the time. No sign-in necessary.
You're misunderstanding why ChromeOS is so locked down, and why you must "jump through hoops" to install arbitrary software. It's about security and trust. If you boot up a Chromebook and it doesn't display the scary "Developer Mode Enabled" screen, you can trust that it is running a Google-signed version of ChromeOS that has not been compromised by a spyware, adware, or other malicious actors. This is one of the key selling points of Chromebooks; you can buy one for your computer-illiterate family member and you don't have to worry about their system being compromised.
I don't know much about any of the other stuff you mentioned.
> A Google sign in is needed even to login and the only native apps are Google's own. How is this different or better than Palladium?
In a technical sense, it's very different from Palladium. Given the machine is sold as a device to better connect to Google's services and you can in fact get things done without a Google sign on, it seems qualitatively different as well.
But why inject fact into a marvellous diatribe?
> They also include the WideVine DRM that they acquired and use for Netflix which is not compatible with desktop Linux which is still forced to use a Silverlight port.
This is Netflix's decision and stipulation. Google has their own suite of technologies they'd surely prefer (or even better, for Netflix to integrate with Google's cloud platform).
As for Firefox's dilemma, I'm not sure anyone cares how they feel or what they do. They've systematically failed the consumer marketplace as a force for openness for years now. Any cred they may have had here was spent long ago.
> The only redeeming feature is that you can jump through hoops and install Linux(while suffering through an annoying prompt at every boot), which can be done on any Windows PC anyway, but >95% of Chromebook buyers are going to be locked in.
Again that's not entirely true, although in this case it depends on the model number. What's more, you can also run ubuntu's environment alongside the chrome OS without requiring a full reinstall.
> And they only recently stopped parsing e-mail in Google Apps for Schools(which they give away for free) and Business(paid) to build ad profiles to show in other Google properties after they couldn't continue telling the lies they were telling to the public in federal court.
That's a curious interpretation of the case. It mostly stems from this interesting legal idea that using the corpus of a text for ad processing is somehow akin to the full violation of privacy that a human scanning the document would have.
I am not sure any of us are entirely comfortable with either interpretation, but ad targeting for gapps has never not happened nor has it ever been anything but an obvious monetization model for an otherwise free service. So... yeah. Death of freedom I guess.
> Which part of this is about the open internet again?
When did we start conflating "the Open Internet" with "using analytics for advertising?" by the way. I don't see a contradiction between the two. The internet can be "open" and vendors can watch their wifi routers for when known device ids try to connect and build profiles and sell that data. They're orthogonal.
>As for Firefox's dilemma, I'm not sure anyone cares how they feel or what they do.
>that's not entirely true
>That's a curious interpretation of the case.
>They're orthogonal.
Your response is a mixture of FUD and bald-ass assertions. Are you paid to anonymously defend Google? Serious question, because this reads like bad PR.
It's pretty outrageous you'd accuse me of this given that I'm responding to literal, textbook FUD with derision (the preferred mechanism for said things).
E.g., claiming that a google login is required is strictly false and has never been true. Claiming that Linux is not a realistic option when Linus Torvalds himself has a series of trivially searchable articles about why he wants to use a Chromebook Pixel as a dev machine.
Meanwhile, there is a publicly acknowledged and jointly-funded anti-Google ad campaign that's been running for several years. So we factually know that the counter-case (i.e., that there is a very high probability people are paid to write anti-google sentiments here) is actually the one receiving funding.
But again, why inject facts into marvellous diatribes.
>, but ad targeting for gapps has never not happened nor has it ever been anything but an obvious monetization model for an otherwise free service.
I'm very surprised that you think it's obvious for people who use the paid Gapps for business that their business emails were being datamined for ad keywords to show on other Google sites even if the admin unchecked the "Show ads" checkbox(unless I am reading you wrong). It's not a "free service" like you claim. Perhaps some Gapps users can chime in? Can you tell us whether docs on Drive are scanned as well? How do we know?
Edit:
I'd be okay with scanning if it was properly disclosed like in the free Gmail. There is such a thing as informed consent, but looks like was a lot of misleading statements going on about GApps.
The below is about Apps for Education, but looks like it applies to Google Apps for business as well, since they stopped the practice recently for both.
"As part of a potentially explosive lawsuit making its way through federal court, the giant online-services provider Google has acknowledged scanning the contents of millions of email messages sent and received by student users of the company’s Apps for Education tool suite for schools.
In the suit, the Mountain View, Calif.-based company also faces accusations from plaintiffs that it went further, crossing a “creepy line” by using information gleaned from the scans to build “surreptitious” profiles of Apps for Education users that could be used for such purposes as targeted advertising."
"A Google spokeswoman confirmed to Education Week that the company “scans and indexes” the emails of all Apps for Education users for a variety of purposes, including potential advertising, via automated processes that cannot be turned off—even for Apps for Education customers who elect not to receive ads. The company would not say whether those email scans are used to help build profiles of students or other Apps for Education users, but said the results of its data mining are not used to actually target ads to Apps for Education users unless they choose to receive them."
...
"Student-data-privacy experts contend that the latter claim is contradicted by Google’s own court filings in the California suit. They describe the case as highly troubling and likely to further inflame rising national concern that protection of children’s private educational information is too lax."
"Mr. Thiele said his district has used Google Apps for Education since 2008. Officials there have always been aware that the company does “back-end processing” of students’ email messages, he said, but the district’s agreement with Google precludes such data from being used to serve ads to students or staff members.
As long as the company abides by those terms, Mr. Thiele said, “I don’t have any problem with it.”
In an emailed statement provided to Education Week, Bram Bout, the director of Google Apps for Education, said that “ads in Gmail are turned off by default for Google Apps for Education and we have no plans to change that in the future.”"
...
"Those plaintiffs in the California lawsuit allege that Google treats Google Apps for Education email users virtually the same as it treats consumer Gmail users. That means not only mining students’ email messages for key words and other information, but also using resulting data—including newly created derivative information, or “metadata”—for “secret user profiling” that could serve as the basis for such activities as delivering targeted ads in Google products other than Apps for Education, such as Google Search, Google+, and YouTube."
"The plaintiffs allege that Google has employed such practices since around 2010, when it began using a new technology, known as Content Onebox, that allows the company to intercept and scan emails before they reach their intended recipients, rather than after messages are delivered to users’ inboxes, regardless of whether ads are turned off."
"While the allegations by the plaintiffs are explosive, it’s the sworn declarations of Google representatives in response to their claims that have truly raised the eyebrows of observers and privacy experts.
Contrary to the company’s earlier public statements, Google representatives acknowledged in a September motion to dismiss the plaintiffs’ request for class certification that the company’s consumer-privacy policy applies to Apps for Education users. Thus, Google argues, it has students’ (and other Apps for Education users’) consent to scan and process their emails."
"In November, Kyle C. Wong, a lawyer representing Google, also argued in a formal declaration submitted to the court in opposition to the plaintiffs’ motion for class certification that the company’s data-mining practices are widely known, and that the plaintiffs’ complaints that the scanning and processing of their emails was done secretly are thus invalid. Mr. Wong cited extensive media coverage about Google’s data mining of Gmail consumer users’ messages, as well as the disclosures made by numerous universities to their students about how Google Apps for Education functions."
I'm not sure if I care about people's surprise as much as I care about the inoffensiveness of it. People are and will continue to be surprised by technology. It's an inevitable consequence of technological acceleration.
Lots of companies have lots of data about me that is sensitive. So long as they do not betray said trust or suffer a security breach then I'm content with that state of affairs.
Not sure I am understanding you, but are you implying that it'd be okay for Microsoft to upload all your keystrokes and all your data on your laptop(without letting you know about it) on their servers and show you ads based on them as "long as they do not betray said trust or suffer a security breach" ? Where do you draw the line(if you draw one i.e) ? Or is MS somehow more evil than Google, so the same happening in Chromebooks is okay? Or is that "the inevitable consequence of technological acceleration" ?
The funny thing is that they're not even obligated to tell you if someone who wasn't supposed to look at your data did so. It's likely that you wouldn't even know if Schmidt or Nadella read your email this morning and traded stocks based on the information in it and you'd have no legal claims.
> Not sure I am understanding you, but are you implying that it'd be okay for Microsoft to upload all your keystrokes and all your data on your laptop(without letting you know about it) on their servers and show you ads based on them as "long as they do not betray said trust or suffer a security breach" ?
This is a false equivalence. This is not what Google did, nor is it even on the same order of conceptual magnitude as what Google was accused of doing.
> The funny thing is that they're not even obligated to tell you if someone who wasn't supposed to look at your data did so.
We are in agreement that this is wrong.
> It's likely that you wouldn't even know if Schmidt or Nadella read your email this morning and traded stocks based on the information in it and you'd have no legal claims.
I suspect given the current political climate in America and the degree of difficulty Google is having with retention, this is not the case.
The problem with the song and dance of a principled company is that you tend to piss off employees that signed up based on that. And inevitably, that kind of activity will be exposed to employees at some point.
Just because the front page isn't changing doesn't mean the rest of the site isn't. This page was forwarded a month ago by signing up at the page above.
That first graph in your link is number of lobbying reports mentioning net neutrality. The article says Google was the second biggest spender in support of net neutrality, and the only one in the top 5 on the pro side.
Google shows ads for other companies, on their own properties (including YouTube) and on partner sites. Could they run ads about net neutrality on their large ad network?
I actually want to propose a slightly different reading on Google's "silence." Google isn't that silent to be honest. It did and still running campaign on their social media accounts to urge people to fight for net neutrality. At the same time, they are not the most notable foreground fighter either.
Google is now called evil these days after many accusations (most recently the Google map accusation, previously NSA allegations).
So here is a catch. They will spend money lobby Washington and engaging online campaign, but they won't do too violently. They can still claim they did something (which in reality they do) and at the same time they can get away with the image that big corporation always wins. In the end, they can still benefit from net neutrality. If people lose, Google may still be able to gain something out of the lost (for example, some business gain, or pointing finger at D.C). If people win, so does Google.
It's somewhat dumb to suggest this reading, but it may be true. On the other hand, one can argue that it is OKAY for a big corporation like Google to step in in a time like this and spend millions to lobby D.C (as opposed to other time, say, urging to pass a "monopoly protection bill" or "tax reduction bill").
I think it's worthwhile to remember that Google isn't dumb (it hires so many "top" and talented people). The policy team isn't made up of a bunch of 18 years old.
Google is responding by building it's own physical network infrastructure nationwide. Google Fiber is a big middle finger to the telecom industry. If Google is good at anything it's protecting Google.
Google with its 60B cash - $500 per US household - can build its own internet. Given Apple's 140B, MS's 80B cash, etc... and the likes of China and Russia building their own "Internet continents" - the "Open Internet" is pretty much gone (tomorrow definitely). Instead we need to prepare to how to live and do business in that new environment or build a new one - crypto, Tor, mesh, satellites, etc...
Net neutrality proponents regularly couch their rhetoric in being an issue for the public's interest. To me it seems like one industry (tech/web companies) jockeying over another industry (telcos/cable) to accrue the benefits/cost savings to themselves. Start ups and other businesses that exist on the web don't like the idea of sponsored data because it could possibly raise their costs of doing business, but it isn't something the public should care about and that government should step in to prevent. No one is providing Jolla with protections or subsidies to better compete with Apple or Samsung, but yet the web companies in pushing for net neutrality (and waging a great PR campaign that enlists the greater public to their side) are essentially asking for one. Maybe your music start up will have to pay carriers to better compete with Spotify or Apple, that's really your problem and perhaps you'll have to suck up the additional operating expense.
As for Google, they're staying out of this fight not just because they could benefit from sponsored data, but also because they seem intent on getting into the ISP business themselves. They recently added a new executive in charge of "Access and Energy"[0]. This could be their first real business outside of advertising. I think it's befitting that a company, that is essentially a utility on the net, is getting into another utility-like business.
The problem is that companies don't suck up the operating expense. They pass it along to consumers. Most Internet companies have enough competitive leverage that they'll just raise prices or show my ads - tech is winner-take-all, so it's not like consumers have a lot of choices. And those industries that don't have this leverage (like Internet radio or podcasting) will simply cease to exist, which is also bad for consumers.
The public would prefer to have the most possible value out of their internet service. While charging content-hosts extra for bandwidth can increase the quality of those services, it risks degrading the breadth of content, the ease of small-business- and user-publishing, and the level of competition in the content- and data-service market. It's a trade of dubious value for consumers and for data services.
Yes, they do extremely great things for the world, the internet, and to protect privacy and people's rights, but rather than criticize them when they don't step up to the plate every single time, why not criticize other companies for not even considering it and failing to ever act.
I've seen over 75% of the people I know give thousands of dollars to Apple, but Apple gives back nothing to the world, they should be the ones criticized.
How can a company such as Apple have hundreds of billions of dollars and not even consider helping the world with all of that extra money? Imagine the amazingly great things they could do if they weren't so focused on hoarding cash and ensuring nobody "steals" their rounded corner idea.
The original article title is just link-bait anyways, it even says at the bottom, "Google hasn't gone completely silent. It and Facebook are members of the Internet Association, which in April urged the FCC to adopt open-Internet rules." So then what's the point of the article? To say that Google has been fighting for open-internet for 8+ years and that it helped form a group to help achieve that goal?
Edit: If you disagree then please comment. I knew this wasn't going to be a popular thing to post but I think the discussion is more important than the karma points.