Old memories, new memories

When was the last time you sat down and wrote a letter?
I don't mean a post-it note. I'm not talking about email.
I mean a good ol' honest to goodness letter. The kind you put in an envelope and mail. You remember licking stamps and putting them on the envelope upside down to mean "I love you"?
When was the last time you stood out by the mailbox waiting for the mail to come because you might get a letter from your lover?

The last letter that I ever wrote was to my mother. And that was back in 1989.
It seems I needed some money.
I'm not sure.
It was so long ago.
Not that I don't talk to my mother, mind you. I just don't ever mail her letters anymore.

Why not?
Well, to start with, I have unlimited friends and family minutes. So I just pick up the phone. It's even free long distance.

And what if I can't reach her by phone?
Well, I just send her an email.

You see, email made the U.S.P.S. obsolete. That's all there is to it. There's no reason to mail a letter anymore. Not when you can instantly send a message anywhere in the world as often as you want for absolutely free.

But did you know it almost didn't happen?

Back in the early days of the computer, we didn't have the internet yet. We used to have to call each others house and hook up one computer directly to the other.

We used to send batch emails from one city to another.
And we used to have to pay for stamps.

But when the internet finally started spreading, with it came instant email.
But the email was separate from the internet at first.
You had to have an email browser, and it would call the service and check if you had messages, but without really logging you onto the internet.

It was really archaic. But it worked.
And it was ours.

But then....the big boys stepped in.
Before long, we found out that they made it so you couldnt just register your email to your computer anymore.
You had to register email with an email server.
And then came word that they would be charging for this service.
And that's where the shit hit the fan.

They split into two camps, for the most part.
One group said that they should charge you ten cents for every email that you sent.
The other group said that you should have a montly fee for bandwidth.

And for a while there was a lot of speculation about whether this whole internet business was worth all the trouble it was causing.

Many people began switching back to the old Bullitin Board Systems.

And then came Juno.
Juno really changed the whole thing. It started almost as an underground company. And they literally screamed their logo. EMAIL WAS MEANT TO BE FREE!!!

And then they went out and proved it.
And I haven't seen an email server in fifteen years.

And that's what always happens.
That's why I still dont use sprint.
Or AT&T.
In fact, I will never use AOL either.

But I have a long memory.

But when I look back on it, you know, with hindsight being 20/20, I wonder why everyone was so scared. I mean, any time there is a hole in business, some young upstart always comes in and fills it. Every single time.
That's just the way it works. That's free market.
That's what competition does for us.

That's why Bill Gates was able to best big blue.
That's why a couple of nerdy kids could go from Phone Phreaking to building Apple computers. Innovation always wins out over corporate greed.

Ever heard the story of the Ritz hotel? Or about Chef Boy-r-d?
How about Papa John's Pizza.

Any time the big guys think they got you cornered, there's always a new way to stick it to them.

When gas prices go up to three bucks a gallon, you start hearing about people with their own biodiesel brews in their garage.

When heating oil goes up, people learn how to burn dried out corn.
It's just the American way.

So what's all this talk about net neutrality? Do you think it will really pass? Do you want it to? I don't.
Now before you go burning my figure in effigy, just stop and think about it for a minute.
What the internet definitely does NOT need is more government intervention.
As it stands right now, if you wanted to start your own ISP, what would it cost you? I used to run my own server back in the olden days and it was the price of a phone line. But the laws are written now so that if you wanted to make your own, you would be hard pressed to get one up for less than one hundred thousand dollars. And that's if nothing bad happened. That really puts a damper on the little guy. And that's just for an ISP. If you wanted to become a big dog and compete with the internet backbone, it would be impossible. That's what government intervention has done for us geeks.

But suppose that the net neutrality thing dies out and then the big dogs all put up a bunch of sniffers, sorters, censures, and you are left with half an internet. How would you feel about that?

One the one hand, if you are getting your service from one of these guys, then they are selling you a service. If you do not like the terms of service, you do not have to buy it.
In my own life, I have gone to college, and I have a pretty decent income. I am not ashamed of the fact that I like computers and that I am blessed enough to buy whatever kind of computer equipment I want. That's the reward that I have for all of the sacrifice I put in by going to college and getting a degree. So if I go out and build one of the fastest rigs in any household in the country, isn't that my right? I would say that I probably have a faster computer than anyone reading this post, except one. (fucker)
And if I want to hook up a T3 and get blistering fast connection speeds, it's my money, can't I spend it however I want? And if I put up a wireless router and connect it to every computer in my house, again, why is that anyones business? But, however, if I do that and then hook up my neighbors computer to my network and charge him a nominal monthly fee, then there is a problem. I would be violating the terms of service that I agreed to when I signed up. Because my ISP sells internet access, and that's what they do for a living. That's industry. That's how things work.
Incidentally, I do not have a T3. I have a mediocre cable connection. I cannot get a T3 at my house, or for that matter any more than about 750 down. The reason why is that my cable company sucks. I can't go over to any other company because of government intervention. It seems my neighborhood is divided up into sections and the two major cable providers in the area each have a zone that they are allowed to service. So I'm stuck with the worst one in the area. That's due to the government deciding that that would be fair.
So I'm not very supportive of letting the government place yet another level of "protection" on an already stifled industry.

But maybe you think that the internet has risen to the level that it should now be considered not a luxury, or a product, but a vital part of American society's infrastructure. Maybe you think that everyone in the country should have a right to internet access in some form due to it's remarkable potential for free education and expression. I couldn't disagree with you. But that is simply not a reality at this time. And net neutrality would do little to promote such a concept. But I think I have a much better solution.

I say what would be best would be to let the big boys have their way and censure the internet however they want. But there's a reason.

It would spur change.

Just as the advent of the internet rendered letter writing into a lost art form, and just as high speed connections have enabled VOIP to doom Ma Bell, so too would the internet sniffers and sorters render the entire internet backbone providers into the realm of once upon a time.

Here is the future of the internet:
In the near future, many cities will be providing high speed internet access supported by city revenues with a possible nominal monthly fee. Ten dollars a month is the number I have heard tossed around. The technology for city-wide broadband has been available for quite some time now. All that is needed is an impetus for change.

Don't believe me?
Take a look around.

It's coming. Soon.
I believe that within ten years, every major city in the nation will offer free or nearly free internet service. After that, the only change that would be needed would be to take the logical step of bypassing the internet backbone providers and linking each city directly to the DNS root servers and then the current internet providers will have to change, if they want to survive. Within ten years, I predict that the internet providers we have today will have to change over to providers of fiber to the curb. That is, Internet 2. It's the only way they will avoid going bankrupt.

So if you want to call your Senator and tell him your view on Net Neutrality, by all means, feel free to. It will give you something to tell your grandkids when you are explaining to them how the internet used to be.
But at the same time, make sure to call your city counsel members and tell them that you want to go wireless.