Neutral

The internet is, by design, a very robust system. Instead of a hierarchy that can be controlled from a central point, it’s a distributed network. So, in the words of legendary computer scientist (and Electronic Frontier Foundation co-founder) John Gilmore, “the Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.”

But there’s one real point of weakness in the internet’s design: the single pipe that connects from the distributed cloud directly to you, the end user. You depend on your mobile provider to connect your phone to the internet, or your cable provider to connect your desktop computer. Which, in turn, gives those providers unique power.

Imagine that the internet is like the island of Manhattan, and you live directly across the Hudson River in Fort Lee, New Jersey. For anything to make it to you from Manhattan, it would have to cross the George Washington Bridge.

Because the bridge is publicly owned, we take for granted that anyone who wants to can drive across. But what if that bridge was privately owned? All of a sudden, the owner of the bridge could start making rules about who could use it. For example, the bridge company could cut an exclusive deal with Domino’s Pizza, and prevent any other pizzeria from delivering to you over the bridge. Goodbye real New York slices, hello doughy circle of crap.

And that’s basically what net neutrality is about. Much like preventing the bridge company from making an exclusive deal with Domino’s, under net neutrality rules, Verizon isn’t allowed to make a deal with Amazon Prime that would then block you from accessing Netflix.

Back in 2000, the FCC put net neutrality rules in place using their Title I enforcement standard. Verizon, in turn, sued the FCC. And the courts ruled that, for the FCC to be able to actually enforce net neutrality, they would need to instead use the stricter Title II standard.

Three years ago, in a giant push that united the internet, consumers commented en masse and convinced the FCC to adopt that stricter Title II net neutrality standard. Victory!

But last month, Trump appointed a former Verizon attorney, Ajit Pai, as the new head of the FCC. And, as Pai said, “net neutrality’s days are numbered.”

Pai has now proposed moving net neutrality back to the looser Title I standard. Which, as the courts have already ruled, the FCC can’t actually enforce.

So, if you care about a free and open internet, about a level playing field in which new companies can compete against rich, entrenched players, now’s the time to act. Americans’ voices convinced the FCC to adopt a strong standard three years ago, and we can keep those protections in place by making our voices heard again today.

To help out, head to gofccyourself.com, and click the ‘express’ link. (Because of the huge wave of support thus far, the FCC’s website appears to be regularly crashing, so you may have to try again later if the site is currently down.)

Then leave a comment saying you want strong oversight of net neutrality based on Title II enforcement.

It takes two minutes, but it could have an immeasurable impact on the future of the Internet. That’s pretty solid ROI.

Again, gofccyourself.com, click express, then “strong oversight of net neutrality based on Title II enforcement.” Get to it.

Two

This morning, Eliud Kipchoge ran a marathon in two hours, twenty-five seconds. On the one hand, that fell short of the sub-two-hour goal that he and his Nike support team had been shooting for – a parallel to Roger Bannister breaking the four-minute mile exactly 63 years back. But, on the other hand, it bests the prior world record time by more than two-and-a-half minutes, a nearly superhuman feat.

It’s hard to get a real sense of how crazy a sub-two-hour marathon is. As it’s a consecutive series of twenty-six 4:41 miles, it’s literally just harder than setting your treadmill to 13mph, then running for two hours nonstop. To demonstrate that, Wired put today this great video, which includes (along with some physiological analysis of the feat) a number of members of Wired’s running club trying to see how long they can hold that 13mph. In short, it turns out they can cruise for about a minute before things fall apart. So, just more than 99% of the race to go!

Congrats to Eliud and everyone at Nike. The two-hour barrier may not have fallen today, but it’s only a matter of time.

Bootleg

Back in the olden days, when Napster was still a thing, record industry execs spent a whole lot of time and money trying to prosecute people for digitally downloading music. They contended that people were stealing music because they didn’t want to pay for it. But, in retrospect, it’s clear that people were stealing music because that was the only way to get it online. As digital album sales data demonstrate, once they were able to buy music digitally, people flocked to that option in droves.1

During the pre-iTunes Store period, I remember talking with Sean Parker, who compared the online theft of music at the time to bathtub gin. During Prohibition, people couldn’t buy liquor, so they started making it at home. Once Prohibition ended, they could have continued to home-brew inexpensively. Instead, nearly everyone was more than willing to pay for the quality, convenience, and consistency of store-bought brand liquor.

I thought of that again recently, when I came across a table calculating overall internet usage data for last year. Back in 2011, BitTorrent – the primary method for illegally downloading movies – accounted for 23 percent of daily internet traffic in North America, and the movie industry was tearing its hair out with distress about piracy. By last year, BitTorrent traffic was under 5 percent, while (legal, paid) Netflix and Amazon Video have now grown to account for more than 40% of daily traffic.2

In other words: the bathtub gin effect strikes again.

  1. While digital sales never rose to match album levels, that’s primarily a result of unbundling albums into individual songs – people often only want one or two songs from a given album – and moving heavily to a streaming model – which tends to increase consumption without increasing revenue as incremental consumption is free. While both are great for consumers, and less great for record company profits, they’re business model choices made by the industry itself.) ↩︎
  2. I expect things will push even further in that direction once studios give up the practice of ‘windowing’ – delaying the digital release of films until after their full theatrical run. I’ve long contended that a lot of people would be willing to pay fairly high prices (as two movie tickets now closes in on $40, even before marked-up popcorn) to watch new movies at home on the same day that they’re theatrically released. ↩︎

Fascinatin’ ‘Rithm

One of the goals for Composite over time is to build automated mass-personalization for our clients, whether in prescribing workout programs, or pacing the acquisition of healthy eating habits.

I’ve started to sketch a few of those algorithms out, and the flow-charts I’ve amassed definitely look more than a bit like a prop from A Beautiful Mind.

So I was happy to see this xkcd comic today, which pretty much nails my present mood:

Lump this, I suppose, under “nobody knew fitness could be so complicated.”

May 2, 2017