Hmmm. Maybe we need the Department of Peace to step in with an intervention of some sort.

Seattle just has a liberal rep. There are corporate greedy cashmongers among us selling out our freedom on a daily basis.

Also, here is a list of how each representative voted on the net neutrality bill. Notice how reps in certain red states voted it down across the board. This looks like a party-line decision.

While you're at it, ask him about trying to revitalize Weyhouser's image after it engaged in ruthless clear-cuts of old growth forest. Or maybe ask about how he pushed the Seahawks Stadium down the throats of voters with misleading information. Or how he got exemptions from growth management boundaries for a local developer. Etc etc.

I'm thinking the red state net neutrality antipathy will last right up until the moment they find out that it'll even affect their own campaign Web sites. Or until a pack of freepers goes apeshit over blocked or throttled access to their favorite sites.

Get back to Darcy, please. We must keep our focus.

Really funny, Belltowner. This issue is much, much bigger than Soccer Mom (D-Bellevue). This affects an entire network of media and discussion forums.

In the long run, it doesn't matter, because the internet has always been about content, and the major pipelines have never had even a faint glimmer of a clue about content.

Think about it: Comcast? Sure, cable TV, high speed internet. But when's the last time you willingly visited one of Comcast's own pages for anything? I use their web interface to email a fair amount of the time, but once I discovered the hard way that it is completely impossible to have a meaningful conversation about service level with them, I regard their web services as 100% irritation. They're getting worse, too, as they continue to load up with flash animation and javascript ads and other garbage.

The other pipeline providers are the same: garbage content.

If you want to avoid the "restricted" pipeline, then you just need to get going with Firefox, loaded up with all the latest Flash and script blockers, and continue to CHOOSE the content YOU want, including the provision of same.

And AT&T can sit there and wonder why, even with special privileges, no one wants to see their preferred garbage content.

Or even if people do, seeing as how there are in fact a lot of stupid people who will never get beyond the mass-media paradigm for finding things to look at on the web, it won't affect you. It doesn't matter how many people go to iTunes as long as you still have access to SoulSeek. And you will still have that access, one way or another.

What makes people think the big media companies are finally going to get it right, after they have gotten it wrong so many times in a row?

I think the big problem kinda slipped past you, Fnarf. Based on other items I've read about this bill, this effectively gives companies the right to decide which content and websites you'll have effective access to. Sites on their network will be accessible and load quickly. Sites outside the network, if the network allows access to them at all, could load as slowly as sub-dialup speeds.

So basically, the companies can dictate what content you get to see.

No, Gomez, it didn't "slip by me". Yes, they can throttle sites that are off their network and refuse to pay some kind of proposed access fee. That's what I said. But if those sites are the ones people are interested in, because they are the sites that have interesting content, IT WON'T MATTER.

The telcos not only don't have good content, they have no clue what "good content" means or looks like. They NEED their crazy bandwidth to support the flash and scripte monstrosities they clog it up with.

Meanwhile the valuable content will be attractive enough to continue to drive the market. Good content is not necessarily bandwidth-heavy, and even when it is, if it's hot it will pull in users. How long will Comcast hold users' attention if they block or throttle YouTube, for instance?

There is just no possible way for the telcos and the cable companies to be anything except passive providers -- they can provide network TV but not USER CONTENT. The internet is not about TV; it's about USERS. Always has been.

Okay, Fnarf, how would people get to these More Interesting Sites if they're off the given network and require access through a slow, choked off connection? The connection would time out for most people. Most wouldn't bother.

And what does it matter if Comcast chokes off a popular network and turns people off to their service... if they have a monopoly on a given city? I can only get Comcast in my apartment, for example, and most people in Seattle do. The complex won't allow another provider. What do I do then, move? For fucking YouTube?!

No, YouTube loses viewership and disappears.

The telcos aren't passive if they control the rate and connection at which information flows.

cantwell is a member of the committee which will first take up the snowe-dorgan bill (pro net neutrality). it doesn't take much time to go to cantwell's & murray's sites and register your thoughts.

net neutrality is important and there is absolutely no reason both of our state's democratic senators shouldn't be fighting for this bill. with the support of both their individual constituents and microsoft/amazon, this is win-win.

Their fighting doesn't matter. The votes against net neutrality are basically along Republican party lines. Its fate is essentially decided unless you someone convince the Republican controlled Congress that it isn't good.

It's worth actually *READING* the proposed amendment, then realizing that 95% of people with opinions (a) haven't read it, and (b) have no idea what they're talking about.

Just because content sites want it - and consumers think they want it - doesn't make it good.

Some of Steve Forbes' comments are at least well-informed:
http://www.forbes.com/columnists/columnists/global/2006/0605/013.html