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  • Posted by rbunce 6 years, 10 months ago
    A free market but since government highly regulates Internet access already, Net Neutrality law is not the only law/regulation that needs to be tossed aside.
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  • Posted by Eyecu2 6 years, 10 months ago
    NO matter whom I trust I will NEVER trust the Government. big companies will screw you and me every chance that they get but the Government will screw you every time. So go with big companies and give them as few chances as possible.
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  • Posted by $ Abaco 6 years, 10 months ago
    "I trust corrupt big business no more than I trust government. Both use government to loot others and to eliminate competition." haseloff nailed the reply to this. Who has the guns?
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    • Posted by freedomforall 6 years, 10 months ago
      The context of this is not Waco, its net neutrality. Guns, per se, are irrelevant in this context.
      Its the just-us system that is to be feared, not the guns, and corrupt big business can manipulate and control that system with an application of money, just as they control members of con-gress.
      There would be no income tax and no federal reserve bank without corrupt business manipulation and the resulting expansion of federal power. That has done massive damage to liberty and free markets and has provided the excuse for and imposition of the federal IRS police force. Prior to that, with isolated exceptions (Lincoln's war, for example) the federal government did not use guns against its own people.
      Yes, government use of force is to be feared, but is supported and encouraged by big business.
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  • Posted by $ allosaur 6 years, 10 months ago
    Who the heck would trust a government that's these days synonymous with "the swamp?"
    As for the free market, one thing about having a PC has taught old dino is that there is a far more than previously perceived horde of greedy scum out there vying in sundry ways to rip me off.
    Unlike our government that's run by a swamp of conniving career politicians, free markets do more openly compete for my dollars.
    I was a customer of CVS for a quarter of a century until two years ago I at the pharmacy counter felt insulted by a shoddy service issue. Me dino said to meself, "Why should I take any
    crap here when there's a Walgreen's straight across the street?" Guess where me dino went right then and there? Straight across the street!
    Government? A mid-70s encounter with the then Democrat of the Alabama senate Richard Shelby personally pegged him for a cowardly career politician.
    Now he is a Republican US Senator, who forever appears on the ballot. Unlike CVS, I can't get rid of him. I vote for GOP challengers, who always lose. What else is across the street? A Jackass Party way worse than it was forty-so years ago.
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  • Posted by $ jdg 6 years, 10 months ago
    I don't like being presented with false dichotomies, and this is one. There is too little competition in broadband and similar services, mostly because they are overregulated. As a result there is also too little competition in services similar to Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, and what competition there is, mostly isn't allowed to accommodate the kind of views those services refuse to carry, because the media giants control enough of the Internet to be able to block their existence, and Google and Yahoo, at least, fully intend to use that power.

    Deregulation is the only real solution, but until it comes we need effective antitrust enforcement. At the very least all mergers and acquisitions by the multinational media companies should be blocked until a lot more competition exists.

    In the meantime I strongly oppose Net Neutrality because the likes of Google will capture the regulating agency immediately.
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  • Posted by Herb7734 6 years, 10 months ago
    "Of two evils, choose the lesser."
    I think that may be the best advice in this situation. Our economic situation has devolved into the best advice that used to be the worst advice. The best would have been, "Of two evils, choose neither but seek out the good." But it looks as if there's no good left to seek out..Talk about a swamp. I expected it from the left, but since Trump, we have discovered that the right is as filled with miscreant weasels as any group, and more than most. Even those professing deep religious conviction are willing to throw their moral convictions under the 18 wheeler if it doesn't coincide with their agenda. Actually, the loud-mouthed bully turns out to be the person who follows his convictions by obeying his promises and working harder with more accomplishment than any politician of recent memory. As a certain A. Lincoln said of one of his much maligned generals, "If it takes a hard drinking, cigar-smoking, foul mouthed man to win a war, then send me more of them." Trump neither drinks or smokes but puts Grant's critics to shame. They accuse him of acts that are physically impossible, but would certainly give him negative super hero powers..Have I wandered away from Net Neutrality? The answer is simple, just ask youreself this question. Do you want to put the last true example of free speech in the hands of two-faced, underhanded lying politicians, or allow it to remain free and just deal with it.
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  • Posted by term2 6 years, 10 months ago
    I trust that companies will do whatever they can get away with in most cases. I trust government will do whatever brings them more resources and power.

    Its buyer beware. If it sounds like a load of crap, it probably IS. Always look for the hidden agenda these days, as plain honesty and integrity and personal responsibility seem to be out the window now.
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  • Posted by freedomforall 6 years, 10 months ago
    I trust corrupt big business no more than I trust government. Both use government to loot others and to eliminate competition.
    I agree that a technological solution might be more likely without government (and corrupt big business) intervention. Perhaps the solution is to encourage the big businesses to invest in developing a technology solution that provides a higher level of service for big business (at higher rates if they choose in a free market) without reducing service or increased costs to smaller users, and to guarantee such development protection from government (and corrupt business) meddling in it's free market use.
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    • Posted by $ 6 years, 10 months ago
      But the government can use force to throw you in a cage.
      AT&T and Google can't come to my house and threaten me to buy stuff from them.
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      • Posted by CaptainKirk 6 years, 10 months ago
        No but Google COULD get Chrome to download child porn, making it look like you did. Then notify the authorities, and effectively have you jailed.

        And how would you be able to prove otherwise. I am sure it would look just like you did it!
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        • Posted by davidmcnab 6 years, 10 months ago
          As an IT specialist of 30 years, I can confirm this is definitely the case. It is very straightforward for the browser to download a pile of child porn images, steganographically encrypted into apparently harmless images, then to store them on your disk with a series of manipulated file dates and credible web browser history entries.

          For any police forensic IT team, it will look like you've been searching for child porn, finding child porn sites and storing the images on your disk in covert folders, even making naive attempts to cover your tracks.

          If you really piss off big business, they could even plant the really serious stuff on your disk - mutilation, baby rape, the whole shebang, enough to buy you 10+ years in supermax, even with a rapid guilty plea.
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      • Posted by freedomforall 6 years, 10 months ago
        AT&T and Google can use lobbyists to steal from you (and hinder their competitors), use government rules to force competition out of business (possibly forcing you to do business with them instead), and they spy on you on behalf of agents in government who then may act as requested by AT&T and Google to your detriment.
        The big businesses can also destroy you in court almost as easily as government.
        No, they can't directly and legally throw you in a cage, but they may influence government to do so.
        Neither big government nor big business can be trusted to control the flow of information. That's why I suggested a different approach.
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        • Posted by $ 6 years, 10 months ago
          They can't use lobbyists to steal from me if government was small.

          I want government so small that private companies wouldn't waste their money and government wouldn't have excess power to peddle.
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          • Posted by freedomforall 6 years, 10 months ago
            I completely agree with tiny government, but net neutrality today deals with the existing corrupt system with no free market.
            Until the people take away the source of revenue and unlimited debt from government it will continue to grow and meddle and big business will become even more corrupt using government power to loot their competitors and customers .
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  • Posted by chad 6 years, 10 months ago
    Business working for profits reduces prices while government working for free increases prices and the cost of doing business (taxes) with the government for doing it for free. Will there be some corrupt businesses? Yes. The way to deal with them is to simply choose another supplier and you are free from the corruption. Will the government be corrupt? Always and you cannot disconnect from it, it will use guns and violence to ensure that you participate at the level it considers appropriate. Leave me alone. The free market is really free choices made by individuals.
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  • Posted by Temlakos 6 years, 10 months ago
    Of course I trust free markets. Third-party providers will arise to cache high-volume streaming content and thus shoulder the burden of high-demand streaming. And no amount of censorship can succeed; information will always find a way.
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  • Posted by $ AJAshinoff 6 years, 10 months ago
    Free Market. While it may be futile you can at least defend against intrusion and count on diversification because people want to you to spend money.

    Government does nothing but take, dictate, and punish. That tone stifles creativity and is never a good thing.

    Look at whats already been done to the free market at government hands.
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  • Posted by davidmcnab 6 years, 10 months ago
    Without net neutrality, expect a corrupt regime in cyberspace that dwarfs the repression most governments have ever indulged in.
    It would make the net equivalent to a telephone service that cuts you off if you say critical things about a company, or ring an enquiry or order through to a rival company.
    Without net neutrality, expect to see the rise of corporate equivalents of Pinochet, Kim Jong Un, Pol Pot and the like.
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  • Posted by $ blarman 6 years, 10 months ago
    The question being posed by advocates of "net neutrality" is actually subversive and false. The claim is that all internet traffic is the same and should be prioritized the same. I don't even have to get into content to point out that anyone who has used an IP-based phone system will tell you that this is nonsense. Just the basic use of the Internet varies and providers should be able to best serve these disparate use modes by customizing the delivery parameters - just like we do with package carriers like UPS and FedEx.

    The last thing that makes me want to pull my hair out about this is that just like we've seen with the politicization of every other bureaucracy so-called "net neutrality" will lead to government bureaucrats making the decisions on who gets service. It would only be a matter of time and ideology.
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