🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <4jsr1q$osr@eve.enteract.com> Chun Hsu, hsuc@enteract.com
writes:
>In general, I agree that this is a bad thing.  However, has anyone
>looked at the flip side of the matter?  What I am wondering is what
>will happen to internet providers if hordes of people start using the
>internet as their primary source for phone service.  Yes, the audio
>quality may not be ideal now, but assume that it improves.
  The point is that we don't NEED anyone to "look at" the matter.  If
your Internet provider starts giving you  r e a l l y   s l o w  access,
you are likely to complain, right?  And if they have any decent sort of
relationship with their customers at all, they're going to put up a
little pie chart on their Web page and say, look, we've leased a feed
with capacity X, and now with Super-I-Phone the bandwidth has doubled, or
rather, degraded performance.  And they'll ASK you, as a customer,
whether you'd like to keep the old rates, the old untimed service access,
but accept a ban on telephone-like communications enforced at the server
(and it wouldn't be *that* hard for the ISP to tell, after all, since
they can see all the data).  Or maybe you'd rather go with the new
technology, support purchase of more bandwidth, and pay higher rates.  Or
maybe you'd rather have access that charges by time or by data
transferred.  And they'll look at what their users have to say, and try
to keep as many of them as possible with the decision they make.  
  Some may not do it that way, but somehow, they'll decide, and every
possible decision will be made.
   By contrast, any sort of imposition of bogus censorship authority is
not only the door to worse things --- it ALREADY IS major damage to
Internet.  Now that this little headline has come out, do you think
anyone is going to start work on a better version of I-phone?  Are they
going to slave away to put out some new freeware audio transmission
scheme of ANY sort, whether it's for radio stations over the Net, or more
integrated sounds with your browser, or _whatever_?
   The freedom of speech is ESSENTIAL to Internet.  There can be no
compromises on this principle --- and there is no end to the cost of
defeat, or the potential benefit of victory.