[governance] The End of the Internet in 2012?

Fri Dec 19 00:21:50 EST 2008

Hello Karl Peters,

On Fri, Dec 19, 2008 at 12:16 AM, Karl E. Peters <
karl.peters at bridgecompanies.com> wrote:

>     Very well stated! I might just comment that in many areas very soon,
> and in more later, it will not even be cable, but rather wireless providers
> that carry most of the freight and are best positioned to capture their
> markets.
>     In a brief moment of fairness to the cable TV companies though, they
> brought us MANY stations we would never have had, even in major broadcast
> markets, and for some more rural markets where even "local" stations were
> not clear, vastly improved viewing ability and convenience. Unlike the
> internet, however, what preceeded cable is still available for free if you
> live where you can recieve it and are satisfied with the limited choices.
>

That is a fair observation. Often in presenting the Civil Society views most
of us focus only on challenging the negative moves by business or government
that what we write reads like an attempt to depict business or government as
evil. The focus was in correcting what is wrong so the good things that
needed to be said about cable companies did not feature in my comment, it is
very fair on your part to have brought that up.

Most participants of the Civil Society are moderate, balanced people. I
haven't seen many with a "holier than thou" attitude - holier than business
and holier than governments. Multistakeholderism does not work by asking all
other stakeholders to stay out of the room. Cable companies have done a lot
of good work, telcos have done a lot of good work, proprietary business
corporations in IT and Internet have done a lot of good work, but the
problem is that many of these companies still fail to see how the magic
works on the Internet.

At a point of time when hotmail, yahoo and several email services were
running email services with rules such as log in at least once a month to
keep your account alive and pay $240 a year for a premium account with TEN
M E G A B I T S of storage, Google went online with most so called premium
features inherently bundled in (pop access,  9 months between log ins,
message forward) and threw in a Gigabit of storage for free. Why did google
do something so foolish as to give away the equivallent in a tiered storage
model of a possible $1000 or $2000 for free? Fools? Rather intelligent, very
intelligent entrepreneurs. Just that what did not reach the minds of msn and
yahoo reached the Google entrepreneurs and they had figured out that it
probably cost them less than a dollar or some amount in that realm to per
user to offer all this to the user. Even if it is a dollar per user it was
still foregoing the 'preemium' revenues that were perfectly justifiable
under the established norms of Internet business at that point of time. But
those who continued to follow the yahoolike models progressed at a rate that
paled in comparison with the revolutionary Google model. That is Internet's
magaic business model that caused the likes of Google and Skype to climb way
above the traditional enterprises with narrower models. (Here I have
refrained from commenting on some finer aspects of the Google model that
requires to challenged)

The Civil Society isn't asking the bandwidth providers shut down shop and
disappear. All that it is asking them to do is try and figure out how the
magic business models work on the Internet. Thuraya, by the traditional
model ought to have been the richest telco in the world today, because by
far its revneue model was superficially the most lucrative model - the user
had to be something in the realm of $6 per minute even if he or she was
calling the person next door. What happened? A more visible example is that
the phone companies progressed to much higher levels of inherenet networth
and market capitalization as they slided proices from a dollar or two per
minute to a cent or two per minute (India).

We are pro-business in our suggestion that the business corporations move to
the Internet model. The magic is intriguing but I can say that it works and
works well. If you don't belive in the Internet magic and instead believe in
archaic business practices and assume that you will have an internet with
free access to eBay and Amazon (who will pay to you in bulk backdoor) and
charge us to access anything worthwhile, the models will fail so miserably
that it would hurt your own fortunes.

>     Bringing this analogy back to the internet, now; can you imagine a
> discounted internet service that only brings you ".org" access, for example,
> but for a cheaper price? Of course not! This foolishness evident in limiting
> access for cheaper services in the internet is exactly the battle the TLDA
> is waging for open access to bring quality-run non-legacy TLDs to a wider
> audience, as well. We will provide a carefully researched "recommended root"
> and the information needed to make the simple and free changes to recieve
> and offer "more channels" for the same price. Just as with cable networks,
> some will carry better programming or content than others. Some may well
> never be "watched" by most people; but everything will be available for
> those that need or desire it. The only resistance will come from those with
> a vested interest in a narrow and controlled market that funnels more of the
> money to fewer end profit makers. ICANN, with its relationship with NetSol
> and a few others is the perfect example of this narrow approach, solely in
> the interest of capturing more dollars.
>

Without going into the nuances, in general, it is NOT unfair on the part of
ICANN to 'capture' a share of the money from names and numbers. The trade
reaps revenues from names and numbers and if ICANN charges at source a
dollar or two, it would help ICANN financially sustain itself in the face of
a growing administrative (or co-ordinative) burden. But in the process it
should exercise all the caution not to revert the Internet back to the era
of DNS war and cause the Internt to be an Internet of mutliple Network
Solutions.

It may well be this kind of narrowness that makes the "more channels" a
> feature the "renegade" providers can use as a lure to draw people from the
> traditional providers. ICANN has the choice to open up to the many well-run
> TLDs already operating as the initially intended "test beds" or to try to
> grasp ever tighter onto what it holds. It is the exactly that very tight
> grasp, though, that will force an ever increasing portion of their subjects
> to escape to fulfill their needs. ICANN can either lead the way as it was
> supposed to do, or get left behind with a few grains of sand in their tight
> grasp and their once controlled empire scattered all around them, running
> free.
>
> Sincerely,
> Karl E. Peters, President
> Top--Level Domain Association, Inc.
>

Thank you
-- 
Sivasubramanian Muthusamy
http://www.linkedin.com/in/sivasubramanianmuthusamy
http://www.circleid.com/members/3601/
http://twitter.com/isocchennai

>
>  -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: Re: [governance] The End of the Internet in 2012?
> From: "Sivasubramanian Muthusamy" <isolatedn at gmail.com>
> Date: Thu, December 18, 2008 11:52 am
> To: governance at lists.cpsr.org, "Fouad Bajwa" <fouadbajwa at gmail.com>
>
> Hello Fouad Bajwa,
>
>
> It is an interesting article that explains in plain language how the big
> bandwidth providers are taking the Internet closer to the cable subscription
> model. Todd Lammle draws an analogy of how the free television progressed
> (or commercially degenerated) to an expensive subscription model. I recall
> an IGF workshop where Virginia talked the commercial compulsions on the user
> forcing the user to subscribe to 96 unwanted channels in order to get the
> four channels that he or she really wants to watch.
>
> These are narrow business models, we as television viewers were bought into
> such models even before we realized what was happening. But on the Internet
> this may not really happen because we are all a little more experienced and
> educated now.
>
> What sets the Internet apart is the way the user is increasingly becoming a
> formal part of the policy making process, The user is not going to be taken
> in unawares any longer. There are moves by the telcos and other bandwidth
> providers to reshape the Internet into one with unfair business models, but
> I don't feel that it is going to be easy for these interests to achieve what
> they want.
>
> If such efforts persist and if the user is left with a sitation where there
> are no options or with a few unpleasant options, the user would not take it
> this time submissively. The unpleasant outcome for business may not manifest
> as NEO Internetworks providing pirated access - that may not happen given
> the present trends towards technologies and policies for greater security.
> What is likely to emerge is a user owned, alternate network(s) on social
> enterprise models that is (are) well inter-connected, more open, more
> legitimate and even more deeply rooted in the fundamental internet values.
>
> There are business models, well within the present framework for neutral
> and affodable access, that could keep the bandwidth providers flourishing.
> Instead of focusing on such broader business models, some business interests
> lobby and even clandestinely work towards narrower business models, but on
> the Internet any progress by such business interests would be suicidal.
>
> Same can be said of Government policies that are unbalanced. What happens
> when one Government tries to maintain some form of supremacy? Is that
> working with China? Beginning with China a few other nationas could fully or
> partially protest and that could lead to fragmentation of the Internet which
> would lead to a totally opposite outcome : rather than enhancing a nation's
> hold, it would end up totally breaking the Internet away from any
> possibility of any further benevolent influence.
>
> It is not in the commerical interest of business coporations to work
> towards a cable-like model and it is not in the interest of Governments to
> seek to maintain an unbalanced form of control.
>
> Sivasubramanian Muthusamy
> India.
>
> On Thu, Dec 18, 2008 at 9:22 PM, Fouad Bajwa <fouadbajwa at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> An interesting article that has provoked me to even write a book on
>> the subject. What I see here is the emergence of Local or NEOn e
>> Internetworks or basically Internet NEO-Clans that will be providing
>> pirated or hacked access to consumers that will not be able to afford
>> the huge charges imposed by corporations?:
>>
>> The End of the Internet by 2012?
>>
>> by Todd Lemmle
>> http://www.lammle.com/blog/news-and-announcements/22/the-end-of-the-internet-by-2012/
>> C
>>
>>  user is driven against a wall, the adverse outcome may not really be the
> emegence of NEO clans providing hacked access, but rather an
>
> On Thu, Dec 18, 2008 at 9:22 PM, Fouad Bajwa <fouadbajwa at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> An interesting article that has provoked me to even write a book on
>> the subject. What I see here is the emergence of Local or NEOn e
>> Internetworks or basically Internet NEO-Clans that will be providing
>> pirated or hacked access to consumers that will not be able to afford
>> the huge charges imposed by corporations?:
>>
>> The End of the Internet by 2012?
>>
>> by Todd Lemmle
>> http://www.lammle.com/blog/news-and-announcements/22/the-end-of-the-internet-by-2012/
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> Regards.
>> --------------------------
>> Fouad Bajwa
>> ____________________________________________________________
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>
>
>
> --
> Sivasubramanian Muthusamy
> http://www.linkedin.com/in/sivasubramanianmuthusamy
> http://www.circleid.com/members/3601/
> http://twitter.com/isocchennai
>
> ------------------------------
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