Net Nuetrality, and it's potential effects (or not??)
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Net Nuetrality, and it's potential effects (or not??) on servers like us.
I ain't gonna go into the subject here myself, just bringing it up, and recent situations mean it could potentially have some form of effect on connection speeds moving forward.
Feel free to research the subject yourself if this very miniscule comment intrigues you.
If the recent events do have effects, it's likely on tiny things like this place that the effects would be most felt. So there's that.
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If history is anything to go by, I think the biggest impact is going to be on peoples ability to access content– imagine having a data cap on udp packets (the type of packets most commonly used for any sort of streaming or gaming applications).
I'd do a link dump, but I think this really is something you need to research yourself as I'm extremely prejudice against corporate shills in government (and towards an open Internet). Just be aware a lot of anti-net neutrality is slanted to favor companies and is often written by them along with the legislation that the critters in government are trying to pass.
There's right and wrong with a capital r and a capital w. No amount of spin and bullshit will change that. Unfortunately, companies with money think differently. Education is pretty important on this and other issues.
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Net neutrality if overturned, will affect US servers and consumers, not the rest of the world; insofar as the site in question is not being hosted in the US. It essentially means this; that ISPs cannot favor certain connections over others. For example, if Verizon made their own online game, they could choose to speed up their players' connections when playing their game and slow down their connection to competitior games (it's not exactly as I describe, but it's an example). Sheer frustration with the competition's slow connections will drive people to subscribe to Verizon's game instead.
Naturally, this sort of behavior will favor whoever can cozy up to ISPs the most. Instead of speed being decided arbitrarily or based on some other impartial system (such as your connection package) ISPs will be able to actively control what sort of content is fast or slow. So a site paying ISPs might receive superfast speeds, while another company that cannot afford to pay ISPs will be slowed to a crawl.
It's a problem. The biggest problem is that most people neither understand it nor care, which brings the very real possibility that ISP lobbyists will have their way.
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Because he's an asshole.
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Thing is, if you look back on the history of the issue it's a bipartition (though leaning Republican) series of bills that've been introduced by one shill or another. The current administration isn't /as much/ responsible for all of it as this just being another straw in the scarecrow. If you want to spook yourself, though, look at how many positions of power within the government have been handed to people who's entire background is dismantling the protections or regulations of the institutes they're in charge of. The FCC, for example…
The other problem is that it /is/ something that's being talked about in America, but the affects and reach are completely global. Liike so many regulations proposed by governments (Right to be forgotten, for example) these are people trying to apply regional thinking to a global medium. There are already talks about balkanizing the internet (which is to say each country or continent would have its own version of the internet and all that entails) and it remains a very valid concern when you stop to think about all the economic and cultural things that this kind of thinking starts to involve-- it's actually pretty scary and that's /well/ before you get into the tin foil conspiracy bullshit. Just looking at it sensibly and nothing about this screams 'good idea' on any level for /any/ one.
But then, increasingly, we're vilifying, falsifying and surrendering things like sovereignty of information, privacy and scientific progress because people with money say it's a good idea. . . .fighting bad ideas with good ones takes a little education and making an effort. Unfortunately it's also so hard to feel as if your voice matters that many people don't. You have spam bots pumping the FCC's request for comments site with anti net neutrality propaganda and bs:
Sources:
https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/11/1562 ... -leak-data
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-39950399It's easy to be cynical, but if you ever doubt companies will behave in good faith when there is a profit to be made, I'd encourage you to please consider cases like:
http://www.indiaresource.org/news/2016/1003.html
http://thehill.com/regulation/overnight ... l-sec-rule (In an industry that already has terribly little oversight and voluntary disclosure of accident legislation, this is just sad.)And a million more.
My point, ultimately, is that while things do look pretty bleak sometimes, nobody likes sunlight shed on their dirty laundry. So do it. Repeat it and education people. It takes work to bullshit someone who's informed and if enough people are informed, they won't let things like this slide. It's a small but important thing.