I liked the video so much that I found the mp3.

I don't have a problem with the "tubes" metaphor, it's more the utter incoherence of the other 98% of that speech that gives me some little pause for concern.

I don't mind the tubes metaphor.

His assertion that an email took a weekend to get over to him though is plainly ridiculous. I get the feeling that a staff member just didn't send it until 2 days after s/he was asked for it and blamed the "internets" to save face.

What's interesting about this whole net neutrality argument is that NOBODY seems to understand what its about. (That includes me) Prioritised data packets... Yes please. Extra infrastructure payed for by the money-rich likes of Google. Yes, I'll have a bit of that as well.

What ticks me off a little about the whole debate is that it's so U.S. centric. I want net neutrality and I think that the current financial situation which charges countries outside the US for packets flowing into & out of the US is anti-ethical to the whole concept of net neutrality.

Of course, the fact that non-US countries are unduly charged for these packets hardly ever raises a blip inside the US.

it's all a genius viral marketing thing.

look, you have a basically unknown -- even in the US -- politician.

1 - you hire a comedy writer from The Onion, commission a jewel of a speech

2 - you hire a good standup comedian, teach unknown politician how to deliver the speech for maximum comedy effect

3 - unknown politician delivers speech, is filmed

4 - film travels around the world

5 - hire a DJ to sample the speech, put the mp3 all over the P2P networks

6 - sit back and enjoy your client's newfound world popularity

I don't have a problem with the tubes metaphor either. I think it's ridiculous to say that he has a deep understanding of technology. And I like the song.

"Extra infrastructure payed for by the money-rich likes of Google." Problem with that, seanyboy is that the likes of Google will be able to pay for priority while places like Metachat will not be able to. If you don't have the bucks to pay the big carriers you become second class on the web.

Basically, big companies are saying, "Look, we're a capitalist state. If we are willing to Pay more (than Metachat), then we should Get more (than Metachat) - more room on the tubes." Unfortunately for them, the internet isn't set up that way - yeah, companies and individuals can pay for more upload speed or more download speed, but that doesn't mean the end user (me) gets served the content from Google or MSN or NYT.com any quicker than the content from Metachat. The companies who own the phone lines want this, too, because they'll be able to make more money from big content producers. (or something like that...)

Actually muddgirl, it's the telco/backbone providers pushing for this. The big firms would be paying not for upload or download speed but for the speed in which thier packets move across the internet peering points and backbone fibre. With protocols like MPLS it is easy to prioritize traffic like that. In the end it means a big firm like Disney will be able to afford to have thier pages move to you very quickly while Metachat pages will have to wait in line. I would expect an VoIP surcharge would be next.

I also expect that the backbone providers will lobby to slow or block peer to peer traffic at some point. All in the interest of national security or something.

I wish the internet was trucks. :(

But, seriously, media/telecom companies are run by assholes. They've become such monstrosities through endless mergers, acquisitions and financial complexity that they cannot be managed by any creative force. Rather, they're managed by people whom Wall Street deems to be good sheperds of capital and can meet quarterly earnings estimates (often at the expense of long-term value). Or, even worse, they're managed by financial people who still want the industry to be sexy--so, they find ways like destroying net neutrality to generate growth.

Companies like Google and Yahoo appear so progressive in comparison because they're still run, I think, by people who give a shit about the actual business. They're not slaves to their share price or to Wall Street.

The broadband industry should be run more like a highly-regulated utility and less like a growth industry.

His assertion that an email took a weekend to get over to him though is plainly ridiculous.

Not necessarily. If mail.senate.gov or whatever was down, and his staffer was sending their mail via the mailserver at the staffer's ISP, that email would queue up until the Senate IT staff got their shit worked out.

The tubes metaphor still sucks, though, and leads to really simplistic thinking about a pretty complex issue.

Tubes or even pipes is a terrible way to think about the Internet.

Vint Cerf: "The remarkable social impact and economic success of the Internet is in many ways directly attributable to the architectural characteristics that were part of its design. The Internet was designed with no gatekeepers over new content or services. The Internet is based on a layered, end-to-end model that allows people at each level of the network to innovate free of any central control. By placing intelligence at the edges rather than control in the middle of the network, the Internet has created a platform for innovation. This has led to an explosion of offerings--from VOIP to 802.11x wi-fi to blogging--that might never have evolved had central control of the network been required by design."

We need to get politicians to see the Internet not as a content delivery tool but rather as a space or place where people come to buy, sell, talk, or just hang out. There is room for profit to be made by firms providing the building and maintenance of that place but no room for those same firms to decide who gets to speak and in what fashion.