Tim Marman's Loosely Coupled

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• Net Neutrality
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• YouTube

• Refocusing Net Neutrality

  Awhile back, I echoed the electricity analogy : the problem is that the "telecoms are threatening to charge a premium for how the utility is used, instead of how much of it is used." Someone from the Hands Off the Internet Coalition commented on that post. Tim, the analogy is flawed and doesn't make sense. Unlike electricity, the internet and e-commerce sector is growing exponentially. It seems that the telecoms are already implementing some of Lessig's points on usage but our entire internet's infrastructure must undergo a series of major upgrades that net neutrality laws will slow down, further relegating the US the slow lane (no pun intended). Net neutrality is simply a distraction. I work with the Hands Off the Internet Coalition and I don't think we should be adding rules and regulations to fix a problem that doesn't exist. More recently, Andrew pointed to a rebuttal by David Cowan : ISPs are not public utilities; they are businesses whose owners–including individual investors and... Posted Jun 04 2007, 01:36 PM by Tim with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: Technology, Rants, Things that bother me, Google, Video, Net Neutrality

• Google has indeed acquired YouTube

  Google has indeed bought YouTube , beating the " $1.5 billion reserve price " with a $1.65 billion stock deal. Jim Cramer ( via Fred ) says he was concerned with the $1.5 billion price - or rather, "concerned that someone else will come in and pay $2 billion." YouTube and Google could be game, set, match for the next generation of viewers. You know that Google basically buys a network with no production costs by buying YouTube. You hit up something you want to learn about on Google, and it could direct you to text and some funky or authoritative video made by a homegamer. Nothing could be as exciting as that. I believe that this combination is lethal for the networks. Of course, Google already had Google Video, so one would argue that it could have done this already. Clearly, Google was buying YouTube's audience and/or employees, not the technology. I guess time will tell, but this still seems like a curiously high price for a company that has a ton of operating costs and has not really... Posted Oct 09 2006, 02:49 PM by Tim with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: Web 2.0, Google, YouTube, Video