Google and Verizon

Stephen Downes and Jay Hathaway are upbeat about this, but I share the doubts expressed by ‘saltrix’ and ‘Alain’ on Jay’s posting, and by the critics quoted in the NYT’s more recent article. Namely “protecting the internet” won’t mean a damn once there’s a new “differentiated” network on which the anomaly of relatively cheap publication costs for small independent sources can be done away with. At present the internet is supported by the traffic of big and small transmitters, but if the big ones leave it may get squeezed – and if the big corporate entities find it more congenial to ‘competerate’ with one another rather than with the less predictable challenges afforded by upstarts, then squeeze they will.