nbhuik

Neither Tavis Ormandy nor Google have a good track record when it comes to pragmatic security. Google's business model is incompatible with proper security. Chances are that you know Tavis from him being arrogant on project zero so everyone who runs old versions of something, like all the millions of insecure android handsets, can get owned by script kiddies. People have been listing alternatives, but the whole point of giving something like gmail away for free is so there won't be any real alternatives. It isn't like it is going to make a difference either way, since Google's position in the market mean most people won't switch.

> Behind a very thin veil of social liberalism, we are in fact living in a profoundly conservative and conventional era.

Maybe. Or it might be that social liberalism, at least in its current form, isn't that nice. Social liberalism compared to something like social democracy, or even various forms of "capitalism", takes the position that favorable rules are what grants you personal freedom. But it seemingly turns out that a lot of the things we care about exists in the practical realm. Having spent some, but fortunately not a lot of, time in oppressive countries it is always disappointing when you get back to the west and realize that overall it is still remarkably similar.

A lot of people don't use the Internet that much. $50-$100 is expensive for receiving e-mail, looking at news and some videos. Fiber deployment might very well stall in a lot of countries because of this.

As far as I know most of those are already happening today.

You can have whatever opinion you want on what the Internet should be, just like I can. But the Internet today is different networks settings their own policy. Google can say "connect to us and we won't charge you for YouTube traffic", but that doesn't stop someone else from saying "no, pay us for access to our networks instead". It doesn't really matter if something is available or not as such because the whole model is based on exchanging access to infrastructure.

At the end of the day what you are describing is some sort of regulated nationalized Internet backbone. Which would to a larger extent support such features. As it is now if you don't like the "mix" of access you are getting, you should change providers (which could of course be a problem, but that is another issue).

The article is about mobile carriers, not wisps. There is no point carrying on this "conversation".

It just doesn't make any sense. It is like saying that UPS should deliver to everywhere on earth in one day for the same price, despite large differences in cost between local delivery and e.g. air freight to a war zone.

The Internet is a bunch of interconnected networks. Any of those networks can largely have whatever conditions they want. That is what the Internet is. Do I think it should be different, yes, but a lot of people don't. Especially those arguing against things like throttling.

Not with wireless. That depends on geography, interference, temporary usage peaks etc. Much more variable, limited and costly than a "static" line.

Yes, it isn't particularly hard to figure out why they are throttling. Video services especially will take up all the bandwidth when they can and then annoy people when it inevitably gets downgraded again. For most people "speed" is "does my video load" and "does this file complete fast", not "4k everywhere". This should be fairly obvious for anyone who have even shared a connection with a couple of people. And unfortunately the Internet is lacking in support of adaptive anything.

Your scenario isn't particularly outlandish. That is how a lot of economy services work. And also why you can usually get other deliveries while many other packages, e.g. from China, are waiting to be processed. Not that deliveries are much like the Internet.

That is just how the Internet works. Everyone is selling and buying access to networks. Whether directly or in the form of agreements. And most people are of course trying to get more for less. One could certainly wish that things would be different, but it isn't like they are doing something especially nefarious.

This is obviously a long discussion, but in summary the world is changing and if one wants to have a say in that new world one can't pretend that it isn't happening. China is working on all fronts while the west is coming up with excuses why it doesn't matter.

This is a very generic article. I would say made up even. China has a ton of problems. Unfortunately most Hong Kong based analysts spend more time partying in Hong Kong than in southern China. If the west wants to have a long term chance against what is happening in China we really have to stop with this feel good journalism.

Not to be all "the market will sort things out", but in general if there is incentive to serve traffic there is at least a lot more potential to fix these things. If you lose potential revenue by congestion, you want to invest in more infrastructure to capture that revenue. Whether that is more base stations for LTE, wifi on public transport or something else. Today that is a cost that you have to recoup from the consumer.

If you are getting paid to deliver traffic to consumers then you would have a lot of incentive to not have congestion, since that would be losing potential revenue. That would if not solve at least improve the last mile issue.

Not sure what you are saying since the whole issue is about who is going to pay. In the west you are paying $40-$80 as a consumer while a lot of companies make money. In Asia it is common that high speed Internet access itself is cheap, but traffic costs more money for the companies providing services.