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Former Black Flag frontman and inveterate ranter Henry Rollins did a serious tear on the systematic attacks on the Internet from government and corporations. The video is fantastic, profane and inspiring.
Henry Rollins rants about Internet freedom
Former Black Flag frontman and inveterate ranter Henry Rollins did a serious tear on the systematic attacks on the Internet from government and corporations. The video is fantastic, profane and inspiring.
Well, obviously, he means PAY, as in: only warner brothers and AOL can afford to put stuff up, or start saving for licensing fees, taxes, ISP's to not block your site, etc.
Besides, there are still lots of free ways to communicate(even if webhosting costs money) such as this comment, Youtube, myspace etc. and usually you get your homepage space at your ISP etc. and there is also p2p. A regulated internet is what he is talking about: someone who controls, blocks, approves etc.
I am not sure I have seen a viable business model for the internet where only 10 big companies pay to put stuff on and everyone else happily watches it and puts up with having their webspace charges going up 10000%. I think that's the difference between internet and TV.
Regulation is needed to PREVENT companies from offering different charges. That's regulation.
Yeah, cable service is so great and cheap because of business model and free market. There is a reason why telecommunications are (were) protected and available, and why Ma Bell was broken up (to be put back together again by corporafascist Bushie folks)
Number One, you already paid for the internet and bandwidth. You've been paying for fiber for years. All those extra telecom taxes, tariffs and fees. In addition part of the mergers and settlements over the years were contingent upon laying fiber or making more available.
You paid for it, AT&T owns it and now wants to turn the internet into a turnpike with toll roads and toll bridges and toll tunnels everywhere they can get away with it.
They don't like ATTsucksdonkeys.com, well guess what, their registration fee just went up (like car insurance for certain races, etc.) Oh, and their email gets lost and/or delayed in the tubes.
They regulate phone and cable, and look how brillantly that worked out. We now have tier 3 service compared to modern countries. We have crappier everything in terms of bandwidth for consumers (though, still cheaper than Canada).
To think that the corporate structure is seeking more control of the internet system for "the greater good" and better efficiency is very naive.
You do remember the Fairness Doctrine, don’t you?
If you do, you will remember that one of the arguments for its abolishment was that there were so many options in the media market, and so much diversity in our media system, that conflicting points of view would naturally be accounted for without government regulation - in the spirit of the "free market" of course. They claimed that to force the owners of television and radio stations to provide equal time to opposing political points of view was old fashioned.
The onus of fairness was too great of a financial burden to bear on the poor, sweet, innocent media companies.
So what happened when the Fairness Doctrine was repealed?
You know as well as I do: massive media consolidation.
The fat cats started buying up and eating up all of the little fish, and before we knew it, in a few short years, Fox News was fair and balanced, and CNN was the "Clinton News Network."