My Problem with the internet
 

Long ago I was told about the internet. Now the exact nature of this conversation has escaped me, but what I can clearly remember is that it promised me something all together new and wonderful: Freedom.

Freedom, however, is a tricky word. It can have many means and most troublesome these meanings can be personal. What I am getting at is that not everyone defines freedom the say way. The prefect example of this is my overwhelming desire to hit people when they say or do something incredibly stupid. Now to me, freedom means that I have a right to act upon this impulse. Others will contest this and say that people have a right to say what they want and the right to an existence without my fist in their face. Turning back to the point, despite it being this indefinable mass we can all agree that freedom is a good thing. This is why I loved what the internet was suppose to be. Yet somewhere along the way it has all gone wrong.

In recent months my internet provider seems to think that I am no longer allowed to do whatever I want with my internet connection, mainly they have prevented me from downloading using torrents and other peer to peer programs. I admit that this seems like a very small problem at its start but it offends in two ways. First, I am a paying customer. I don’t see how it is fair for them to tell me what I can and cannot do with the service I am paying for. Second, this is just masking a larger issue. The internet is suppose to be place of freedom. I should be able to use it as I want. I hate to break it out but this seems like the prefect place to apply the classic “slippery slope” argument. They are stopping us from using these programs now but who is to say that they don’t plan on censoring the internet by blocking our access to certain sites in the future.

I don’t know, maybe I am making a bigger issue out of this than I should be. It just somehow seems so very wrong to me.

Freedom (and the free market society) allows you to pick another new ISP if you do not accept the things they do. Competition alone will bury Comcast if they continue to adopt such practices.

QFT

get a different ISP, tell comcast WHY you are canceling make it clear that it's bullshit.

but secondly, there is an option with the utorrent client that will let you get around that I think. Might be the "Protocol encryption" option, not sure what they call it now.

Who is to say indeed.

While undoubtedly you are angry at such infringements of your service, I might start with looking at it from their perspective.

First, it is a pay for service enterprise. You pay them for a service. They have decided that they will no longer offer you some services. If your lawn care service decided they were no longer going to pick your dandelions from your yard, you might look for another lawn care service, if that was something important to you, and in this case you should look for another ISP.

And I would say, almost with certainty, at some future time even ISP's based in semi-free countries will block some sites. This would be an economic decision, and as such you should make your own. It is not a government edict though that is what I am afraid you may be asking for in regards to internet services.

Remember the same powers which can force an ISP to do what you want via imperial edict can be used against you, ask our members located in the UEA and you can see this is not a slippery slope but a real event. When that happens, you no longer have a economic choice but a political issue, and it is far easier to simply find a new provider than overthrow a government.

I think comcast is just on the take from the RI/MP AA

My choices are actually only Rogers and Bell. Both of which have adopted the same policy of blocking these programs.

I definitely don't agree with P2P and torrent blocking but you gotta see it from their perspective. What are most P2P and torrent apps used for? Breaking the law. That's a fact. ISPs letting these applications run unhindered are letting their users break the law and they can get in trouble for that. I do think that it is going overboard to block them completely because you haven't been charged of the crime yet but it does seem sort of odd to let people break the law just because they're not doing it "in person," but behind their monitors instead.

Bell doesn't block p2p programs entirely, but there's a throttle on them. Overnight they run full speed, but between 4 pm and 2 am they're capped; this is theoretically to prevent congestion during peak hours.

I suggest you check out the net neutrality debate if you haven't already for further reading.

Why would most people buy high-performance sports cars? To drive faster than the speed limit. That's a fact. So do we ban sports cars?

I'm not saying that you are advocating for Comcast; I'm only illustrating a point.

Comcast is not limiting P2P because they are afraid of "getting in trouble" they are doing it because they are a media company (Cable) and their bottom line is hurt by people downloading movies rather than subscribing to premium channels (HBO, Cinemax etc.). Plus, there is more than likely pressure from the RIAA/MPAA ... probably in the form of higher rates for those same premium channels and the music channels.

I still use Comcast 'cause it's the only game in town besides DSL (which is terrible in my region). However, I did cancel the cable TVV part because there was never anything good on anyway--and I made it clear as to WHY I was canceling.

I'm still waiting for FiOS to get here ... come on Verizon.