Raw

I just watched this cartoon on how the Information Superhighway needs separate lanes for traffic like TV. Very clearly wrong-minded from a technical point of view, questionable morally in that it was clearly motivated to further specific corporate interests. The cartoon puts forward lies. The campaign is bogus. This is potentially at the cost of the benefit the Internet has offered for the human race so far (and promises to offer in the future).

Wait though, there are guys with clout behind the US congress that want to mess things up. But this is essentially a US thing. The Internet isn't just the US. Europe's pretty cool, the East is wild , and then there's the rest of the Americas, Australia, New Zealand... It's only really American US citizens likely to become disenfranchised.

Sure, there has been big upset in the US at the way in which certain companies have been playing along with Chinese censorship. There seems to be less attention paid to local information crimes.

So anyhow, for my theory de jour (nope sorry, not French) I reckon if the deep-corrupt US politicians and marketeers want to take their county's technology back to the dark ages (as they appear to have done with foreign policy), and the people in that country are fool enough to swallow that line, then I say fuck 'em. It'll be a shame to lose such an innovative population from a unified, global, open net, but if that's the way it's going - friends, check your passports are up to date.

Even within the mindset of US capitalism, the idea is broken. Other nations (and corporates) with a clue will thrive in an environment where

Americans US citizens have lost net neutrality. Yep, sit back and use your PC as a glorified DVD player, your mobile for ordering a burger, while your economy gets left in the slow lane.

The world has a huge amount to be grateful for to American people of the US for the work behind the Internet, behind the Web. But this is the human race we're talking about, if some nation decides to go tinpot for dollars then it isn't any one else's responsibility. The Internet is bigger than the United States. The Internet was designed (in the US) to work around breakage, no matter where it happens.

PS. forgot my Geo there a bit. In the light of day, got this lot down to a short, rather more coherent, version:

What congress needs to realise before they back short-term commercial interests on this issue is that the US needs the Internet more than the Internet needs the US.

@en