A real world story explained in authentication and transaction protocol semantics to provide some insight into the relationships between real world information flow and failure demand that is so important when managing IT dependent service organizations.
A couple of years ago me and my family went on a trip to Mallorca. In the confusion of the arrival terminal baggage area we left one backpack on the pickup trail. The backpack contained artifacts of high value, but not critical to our stay. A human error started an obscure process enduring the our whole stay on the island.
Note: As most histories of failure demand this one started with the customer making a mistake. In systems thinking terms, this is probably so frequent in the charter business that it should be considered as mere variation.
On the bus to the hotel I discovered we where missing the backpack and asked the guide what to do. The guide told me to contact the guides located at the hotel as he was just having responsibility for transport to and from the airport.
Note: this must be happening all the time, why doesn't charter operators have procedures for handling this immediately? This is in effect a redirection to another service (endpoint), much like a http code 303 See other. This is also an example of standardized work that drives costs and complexity up.
I attended to the guides on the hotel on a daily basis. This resulted in using estimated 30 minutes per day in waiting and talking to the guides. Each day they promised to look into it, they contacted the airport, waited for response from the lost property department.
Note: I was polling the guides, which was in a constant loop answering me and polling the lost property department. This consumed resources and was of course a source of irritation to us.
In the day we where leaving, the guide having responsibility for the returning bus transport followed me to the lost property department of the airport. When asking for the backsack the clerk just shaked his head. Nothing like my backpack was found. I pulled my passport to eliminate any doubt of who I was, and provide correct information. The clerk quickly disappeared and returned with my sack. Huh? It appeared the guides was not informed of the required authentication to pick up left property.
Note: The airport clerks pretended it did not exist until I showed up in person and provided proper authentication. Much like a properly invented security measure in IT, but remember to inform your users (guides) about it. Failing to inform results in failure demand in the flow and bad service seen from the customer (which in this case will associate the travelling destination with bad service (cognitive availability).
Since the time before checkin was nearing fast I did not have time to check the contents of the sack before later. It appeared that mobile chargers and iPods where missing.
Note: Almost no security measure can stop unloyal employees from taking what they want.
After returning I claimed the loss to my credit card company. Travels payed with the card automatically has travel insurance. They presented a bureaucratic and cumbersome process, and in general did not cover lost property. Huh? So much for travel insurance. Our house contents (NO: innbo) insurance though covered lost property during travel. The process was very straightforward and used average prices on artifacts calculated from real prices. I got a security token that I could use to "buy" the artifacts again from their webpage or get money refund. -> Happy travelling insurance customer. I will stick with these guys for a while, as my availablity heuristic brain tells me they provides good service.
Note: providing a simple process with clear semantics reduces pain and resource consumption and great service.
Monday, January 9, 2012
Friday, January 6, 2012
Content and technology cycles
Most content outlives any presentation and distribution technologies. Content valuable enough will be converted to new formats and prepared for distribution on new carriers. This is nothing new and has been ongoing since humans started to draw and write.
Content creation involves effort and possibly considerable amounts of economical investments. Professional content creators live off their work, and naturally wants to be paid for providing their works.
Somewhere along the road, movie-, music- and publisher industry acquired exclusive distribution rights. When they where distributing content in a physical form (in atoms), this added considerable value to the product. Distributors got involved in all kinds of coordination and promotion activities related to their exclusive rights. As long as the distributors controlled the technology this went along fine, but with the invention of the music cassette the foundation for a copy culture was laid. Content consumers wanted to have copies of music in their cars, walkmans and in the living room. The VCR allowed copying of films. A growing pirate industry, mainly based in Asia was founded, but the economical problems was limited as they had to move atoms around the globe and copied material was not more accessible than the originals.
For music and movies this led both to direct loss for content creators, but it also provided culture sharing. When more people heard new music or films, some bought originals while some copied. It will be impossible to know if the entertainment industry have lost or gained in this game. A copy today may result in future sales of releases of music and movies.
When computers moved into the home copying of software soon became common as the physical burden was shrinking. We started to move bits on physical carriers (diskettes). When PCs was introduced copying flourished. Whether this favored or hurt the software industry is not quite clear. Microsofts success with Office was laid with the massive distribution of Windows which was heavily copied and distributed amongst users. I would guess the software industry as a whole, especially platform vendors, have gained opportunities because of copying. This is not a defense of piracy, but my estimation of the outcome. The software industry has slowly adjusted to the new realities. Software can be bought and downloaded or provided as as service (SaaS). Open Source developers uses the moving of bits their full advantage.
In the late 90-ies the Internet was introduced for consumers. The Internet made moving atoms obsolete. Content could now be moved as pure bits globally, with the speed of the network. The Internet provides us with a completely new way of distributing and consuming content. It is also a foundation for collaboration, creativity and provides us with vast new opportunities for doing business.
The elimination of the need for moving atoms also reduces costs. There is little value in moving bits, and the concept of the moving and copying of bits breaks the limitations of physical distribution. It also breaks exclusivity as content can be made available for anyone instantly at a global scale. The entertainment industry seems not have understood or do not welcome this. They seem to be willing to go all the way in their efforts to stop the evolution. They lobby for and support legislations like SOPA, PIPA and EU Data Retention Directive.
Technology follows very rapid cycles of invention, while content has a completely different cycle. The most valuable content will inevitably be converted to new presentation- and carrier technologies. If the copyright owners does not do it, consumers will. And why should they not? If you have bought a product shouldn't you be allowed to use it on gadgets not yet invented? To me it is not crystal clear copying is theft. Copying is also culture sharing, and generates future sales. The Internet gives us great possibilities for sharing culture and this could be lost, or at least very restricted if the entertainment industry will get it's will with lawmakers.
So why would anyone tie exclusive distribution rights to specific distribution technologies? This gives distributors no incentives for adjusting to new realities and opportunities. These industries are now lobbying for draconic laws that is protecting their relatively outdated business models. They refuse to meet the demand of their customers and stubbornly gives Internet the blame for everything not going their way. The difference now is that consumers (and pirates) have all the tools and infrastructure to fill in the gaps. When the gap left open by the entertainment industry is wide enough and demand is high, massive piracy is the inevitable result.
Instead of exploiting vast opportunities for culture sharing and selling a lot more (for a lower price per item, reflecting reduced costs) they want laws that will seriously impede democratic freedoms hard won through recent centuries. The Internet has breathed new life to democracies (video of Al Gore talking about SOPA was quickly deleted from Youtube...). Whether the lawmakers does not understand this, or do not want more democracy will be mere speculation. It is probably a mix of incompetence and using piracy as an excuse for their own agenda.
Another consequence of the internet is that there is only one market: the global market. Trying to limit releases to restricted areas will fail and only cause problems. It has become de facto Cargo Culting in the media industry. In the digital distribution world there is no borders or physical restrictions that creates exclusivity. A better strategy will be global releases and making use of social media buzz to spread the word and attract consumers to buy content from copyright holders.
Content creation involves effort and possibly considerable amounts of economical investments. Professional content creators live off their work, and naturally wants to be paid for providing their works.
Somewhere along the road, movie-, music- and publisher industry acquired exclusive distribution rights. When they where distributing content in a physical form (in atoms), this added considerable value to the product. Distributors got involved in all kinds of coordination and promotion activities related to their exclusive rights. As long as the distributors controlled the technology this went along fine, but with the invention of the music cassette the foundation for a copy culture was laid. Content consumers wanted to have copies of music in their cars, walkmans and in the living room. The VCR allowed copying of films. A growing pirate industry, mainly based in Asia was founded, but the economical problems was limited as they had to move atoms around the globe and copied material was not more accessible than the originals.
For music and movies this led both to direct loss for content creators, but it also provided culture sharing. When more people heard new music or films, some bought originals while some copied. It will be impossible to know if the entertainment industry have lost or gained in this game. A copy today may result in future sales of releases of music and movies.
When computers moved into the home copying of software soon became common as the physical burden was shrinking. We started to move bits on physical carriers (diskettes). When PCs was introduced copying flourished. Whether this favored or hurt the software industry is not quite clear. Microsofts success with Office was laid with the massive distribution of Windows which was heavily copied and distributed amongst users. I would guess the software industry as a whole, especially platform vendors, have gained opportunities because of copying. This is not a defense of piracy, but my estimation of the outcome. The software industry has slowly adjusted to the new realities. Software can be bought and downloaded or provided as as service (SaaS). Open Source developers uses the moving of bits their full advantage.
In the late 90-ies the Internet was introduced for consumers. The Internet made moving atoms obsolete. Content could now be moved as pure bits globally, with the speed of the network. The Internet provides us with a completely new way of distributing and consuming content. It is also a foundation for collaboration, creativity and provides us with vast new opportunities for doing business.
The elimination of the need for moving atoms also reduces costs. There is little value in moving bits, and the concept of the moving and copying of bits breaks the limitations of physical distribution. It also breaks exclusivity as content can be made available for anyone instantly at a global scale. The entertainment industry seems not have understood or do not welcome this. They seem to be willing to go all the way in their efforts to stop the evolution. They lobby for and support legislations like SOPA, PIPA and EU Data Retention Directive.
Technology follows very rapid cycles of invention, while content has a completely different cycle. The most valuable content will inevitably be converted to new presentation- and carrier technologies. If the copyright owners does not do it, consumers will. And why should they not? If you have bought a product shouldn't you be allowed to use it on gadgets not yet invented? To me it is not crystal clear copying is theft. Copying is also culture sharing, and generates future sales. The Internet gives us great possibilities for sharing culture and this could be lost, or at least very restricted if the entertainment industry will get it's will with lawmakers.
So why would anyone tie exclusive distribution rights to specific distribution technologies? This gives distributors no incentives for adjusting to new realities and opportunities. These industries are now lobbying for draconic laws that is protecting their relatively outdated business models. They refuse to meet the demand of their customers and stubbornly gives Internet the blame for everything not going their way. The difference now is that consumers (and pirates) have all the tools and infrastructure to fill in the gaps. When the gap left open by the entertainment industry is wide enough and demand is high, massive piracy is the inevitable result.
Instead of exploiting vast opportunities for culture sharing and selling a lot more (for a lower price per item, reflecting reduced costs) they want laws that will seriously impede democratic freedoms hard won through recent centuries. The Internet has breathed new life to democracies (video of Al Gore talking about SOPA was quickly deleted from Youtube...). Whether the lawmakers does not understand this, or do not want more democracy will be mere speculation. It is probably a mix of incompetence and using piracy as an excuse for their own agenda.
Another consequence of the internet is that there is only one market: the global market. Trying to limit releases to restricted areas will fail and only cause problems. It has become de facto Cargo Culting in the media industry. In the digital distribution world there is no borders or physical restrictions that creates exclusivity. A better strategy will be global releases and making use of social media buzz to spread the word and attract consumers to buy content from copyright holders.
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Hack your phone
Recently my old HTC Hero started to get notoriously slow and frequently report "low on space". Even after removing all apps memory was still almost exhausted.
The phone has been running on MoDoCo 2.1 since the last r5 release.
I could have just bought a new phone, which of course would be better by all means, but since the risk of bricking the phone was low (low probability and the impact of the risk was just to by a new one) I decided to find what the latest update around for an old phone like the Hero.
I found far more than I expected in Cyanogen Mod 7.1. Now I have a far newer OS than HTC has ever released for the phone, a lot of new functionality plus a much more stable and responsive phone. Extended standby time included. In addition to saving (or at least postponing replacing the Hero) it was a satisfying feeling to successfully tinker with the device.
When the risk is low the threshold for hacking your phone should be low. Just as people should know how to switch light bulbs and connect the pieces of a surround system, they should also have some knowledge about their phones and how to repair them. It is not hard, it is fun and you'll learn a lot.
I could have just bought a new phone, which of course would be better by all means, but since the risk of bricking the phone was low (low probability and the impact of the risk was just to by a new one) I decided to find what the latest update around for an old phone like the Hero.
I found far more than I expected in Cyanogen Mod 7.1. Now I have a far newer OS than HTC has ever released for the phone, a lot of new functionality plus a much more stable and responsive phone. Extended standby time included. In addition to saving (or at least postponing replacing the Hero) it was a satisfying feeling to successfully tinker with the device.
When the risk is low the threshold for hacking your phone should be low. Just as people should know how to switch light bulbs and connect the pieces of a surround system, they should also have some knowledge about their phones and how to repair them. It is not hard, it is fun and you'll learn a lot.
Friday, October 14, 2011
My data
We are doing it all wrong. Empowering people with technology is currently centered around the technology only. The technology is important of course, but it is totally useless without any data. Technology is just for playing with the data.
So do we empower the user with any control over data? Can we manage data digitally as in real life? Well of course not, digital information is about making data more fluid. But making data more fluid does not mean doing it to all data. The principles if privacy should be valid independent of format.
That does not mean any data can be gathered by trusted parties, but what and how data is collection should be open. It must always be possible to opt out. That does not exclude companies and governments from monitoring activity. It should just be recorded as impersonal observations. As in real life.
So do we empower the user with any control over data? Can we manage data digitally as in real life? Well of course not, digital information is about making data more fluid. But making data more fluid does not mean doing it to all data. The principles if privacy should be valid independent of format.
- Private data should be as private as in a bank box. If the individual chooses to destroy the data, it is his or her choice.
- Shared secrets should be as secret as though it was shared with real friends. Sometimes information will leak.
- Published data should assimilate. As in real life. It would be impossible to control the flow
- Observations can be recorded, but no personal information should be stored without consent
That does not mean any data can be gathered by trusted parties, but what and how data is collection should be open. It must always be possible to opt out. That does not exclude companies and governments from monitoring activity. It should just be recorded as impersonal observations. As in real life.
Monday, August 29, 2011
Information industry battles
Evidence that we are now witnessing one of the greatest battles in the information media industry is emergent. The giants of the industry is either actively pursuing ever more control or is being pushed to take defensive steps. Through the last century many similar battles has taken place: AT&T, the Hollywood Filmthrust and RCA vs Armstrong serving here as prominent examples.
The roles of the battle is not new: weak and unprepared governments, capitalism serving shareholders, and eager consumers. The goal of the current battle is to dominate so as to cut [exclusive] deals with content owners. As often seen before patents is used by the big guys to limit innovation from competitors, and push around those big enough to pose a competitive threat.
In earlier battles a very limited set of patents was used a weapons. Now the giants has to collect patent portfolios in order to gain sufficient control over/defense against competitors. A large number of consolidated patents is powerful when one tries to suffocate innovation and limit the innovative freedom of others.
Innovation has always been important in the Information media industry. Innovation could make the industry more or less self regulating. If a conglomerate/cartel manages to gain control over innovation that could be a threat and even ultimately replace them, they have also gained invulnerability. The loosers if the battle is the content consumers, that will have less choice. The free market can easily commit suicide, especially in the information industry.
The governments, and especially the USA, has much to easily given the giants the weapon they need: patents. It is maybe a bit counterintuitive, but patents is a construction for limiting further innovation. Governments are also generally weak at regulating the information media industry. This creates the opportunity to create an empire. The more powerful, the easier it is to get allies either by fear or business. But, there is a but, when governments has seen trough it's fingers of this battle yielding consolidated giants, they have also created a soft underbelly on those. The giants knows it, and parts of the governments knows it too. The parts of the governments that has understood, also know how to exploit it. Ultimately the information industry stiffens, only casting static shadows of its former dynamic nature. This is when capitalism stops working.
Recently the US and EU has implemented legislation that let them get access to the giants business records. In the name of the fight against terrorism and child porn, they have adopted draconian laws, that removes our digital privacy. This just get easier the bigger the giants gets, because the stakes get higher with size. No giant wants to be defeated up by an anti-trust case.
The current battle is more destructive than ever. The real stakeholders is not shareholders, but us. Our privacy is at stake. Information media industry collects private information and serves public information. It is a unbalanced game. We loose as consumers because without competetion, the giants will be lazy but almost impossible to replace. They have their patent portfolios. This equilibrium is exploited by our governments.
The roles of the battle is not new: weak and unprepared governments, capitalism serving shareholders, and eager consumers. The goal of the current battle is to dominate so as to cut [exclusive] deals with content owners. As often seen before patents is used by the big guys to limit innovation from competitors, and push around those big enough to pose a competitive threat.
In earlier battles a very limited set of patents was used a weapons. Now the giants has to collect patent portfolios in order to gain sufficient control over/defense against competitors. A large number of consolidated patents is powerful when one tries to suffocate innovation and limit the innovative freedom of others.
Innovation has always been important in the Information media industry. Innovation could make the industry more or less self regulating. If a conglomerate/cartel manages to gain control over innovation that could be a threat and even ultimately replace them, they have also gained invulnerability. The loosers if the battle is the content consumers, that will have less choice. The free market can easily commit suicide, especially in the information industry.
The governments, and especially the USA, has much to easily given the giants the weapon they need: patents. It is maybe a bit counterintuitive, but patents is a construction for limiting further innovation. Governments are also generally weak at regulating the information media industry. This creates the opportunity to create an empire. The more powerful, the easier it is to get allies either by fear or business. But, there is a but, when governments has seen trough it's fingers of this battle yielding consolidated giants, they have also created a soft underbelly on those. The giants knows it, and parts of the governments knows it too. The parts of the governments that has understood, also know how to exploit it. Ultimately the information industry stiffens, only casting static shadows of its former dynamic nature. This is when capitalism stops working.
Recently the US and EU has implemented legislation that let them get access to the giants business records. In the name of the fight against terrorism and child porn, they have adopted draconian laws, that removes our digital privacy. This just get easier the bigger the giants gets, because the stakes get higher with size. No giant wants to be defeated up by an anti-trust case.
The current battle is more destructive than ever. The real stakeholders is not shareholders, but us. Our privacy is at stake. Information media industry collects private information and serves public information. It is a unbalanced game. We loose as consumers because without competetion, the giants will be lazy but almost impossible to replace. They have their patent portfolios. This equilibrium is exploited by our governments.
Monday, August 15, 2011
Patent dowry
Patents, that are originally meant to promote innovation and protect investments, has become a strategical asset in the game of alliances. For Google it has become an urgent matter to strengthen the Android ecosystem with a patent portfolio, not innovations. I guess it is important to the Android partners that they are "protected" by patents. Not necessarily things they have invented. Just any patents that can be used in the war against the other players.
Google providing a patent portfolio is merely a dowry to make the Android ecosystem attractive and protect it's inhabitants. Innovation has become a minor variable in the equation. Innovating mostly pays off in lawsuits these days, because there is always someone who has bought or patented something the innovation resembles. The genius working alone that need to protect her or his ideas is a myth. Innovation happens in teams and cooperation with other entities, and is mostly empiric.
What really happens now is patents are collected in portfolios and presented as a deck, either to be attractive or frightening. Entities are forced to join conglomerates and consortiums in search of protection. If this game is allowed to proceed any longer it will be hard, and even impossible to enter the market. An idea that competes with the existing products will not have a chance. Innovation and the free market suffers. More or less willingly cartels are born through consolidation as a result of the patent wars.
Apple is already in bed with media industry, network providers, so we already have conglomerate of corporations controlling a large part of media consumption. Now with Google buying Motorola hardware a manufacturer is the same entity controlling the largest switch (search engine) of the Internet. These entities become very powerful. As long as they behave nicely, this is not a serious problem. But this system is vulnerable in two ways. First, how can such powerful entities restrict themselves so that this power is not misused? Secondly they have a soft underbelly, as they will probably be investigated in terms of antitrust. But governments have recently become very interested in how the Internet and electronic communications can be surveilled and even controlled.
Will governments regulate or exploit the opportunity? As long as the patent war proceeds, the conglomerates will not dissolve. It is their survival strategy. But it undermines the original design of the Internet with distributed control. It does not matter if the Internet is technically controlled in a distributed manner, when the information flow is centralized.
The situation will then resemble some of the pre antitrust cases in the information technology industry. But this time it is driven by patents.
To begin with, selling and buying patents should not be allowed as this fuels the patent war. But I guess it is much more complicated to fix this problem now than ever. Big patent owners will not like the idea of their patent portfolio, expensively procured, should only be used to protect innovative ideas for a short period of time.
PS! I listened to the JavaPosse #360 Newscast while writing this. It has some interesting points about these issues, recorded almost a week before Google buying Motorola, and as such is free of speculations over why.
Further reading
Patents, Schmatents!
Google providing a patent portfolio is merely a dowry to make the Android ecosystem attractive and protect it's inhabitants. Innovation has become a minor variable in the equation. Innovating mostly pays off in lawsuits these days, because there is always someone who has bought or patented something the innovation resembles. The genius working alone that need to protect her or his ideas is a myth. Innovation happens in teams and cooperation with other entities, and is mostly empiric.
What really happens now is patents are collected in portfolios and presented as a deck, either to be attractive or frightening. Entities are forced to join conglomerates and consortiums in search of protection. If this game is allowed to proceed any longer it will be hard, and even impossible to enter the market. An idea that competes with the existing products will not have a chance. Innovation and the free market suffers. More or less willingly cartels are born through consolidation as a result of the patent wars.
Apple is already in bed with media industry, network providers, so we already have conglomerate of corporations controlling a large part of media consumption. Now with Google buying Motorola hardware a manufacturer is the same entity controlling the largest switch (search engine) of the Internet. These entities become very powerful. As long as they behave nicely, this is not a serious problem. But this system is vulnerable in two ways. First, how can such powerful entities restrict themselves so that this power is not misused? Secondly they have a soft underbelly, as they will probably be investigated in terms of antitrust. But governments have recently become very interested in how the Internet and electronic communications can be surveilled and even controlled.
Will governments regulate or exploit the opportunity? As long as the patent war proceeds, the conglomerates will not dissolve. It is their survival strategy. But it undermines the original design of the Internet with distributed control. It does not matter if the Internet is technically controlled in a distributed manner, when the information flow is centralized.
The situation will then resemble some of the pre antitrust cases in the information technology industry. But this time it is driven by patents.
To begin with, selling and buying patents should not be allowed as this fuels the patent war. But I guess it is much more complicated to fix this problem now than ever. Big patent owners will not like the idea of their patent portfolio, expensively procured, should only be used to protect innovative ideas for a short period of time.
PS! I listened to the JavaPosse #360 Newscast while writing this. It has some interesting points about these issues, recorded almost a week before Google buying Motorola, and as such is free of speculations over why.
Further reading
Patents, Schmatents!
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Chaos is good - and why we should trust Google
Google, the search engine, does not own content it directs users to, with some exceptions. I do not trust Google everything, and I do not say they always adheres to their own "do no evil" mantra. But when it comes to limiting the powers of traditional content owners it does a decent job. Google is the net neutrality's best bet. I will explain why I think this is so.
Google plays the same role as the phone catalog, but in a much broader sense. It helps users find what they look for. If the dispatcher(s) of the Internet is agnostic to newcomers and established content providers this will help innovation, education and general informing the global community. At the same time this degree of centralization represented by the mighty Google, is vulnerable. Misused or controlled neutral dispatching is broken and value limited.
A neutral dispatcher is important in ensuring net neutrality. Except from paid search rankings, Google's page ranking algorithm favors paths to content users prefers. I guess we are lucky to have Google. Google is no saint, and is not defending net neutrality out of pure values and standards. But it is important to their business and current position. They depend on users looking for content in a chaotic ever growing amount of content. Google creates value from chaos. Chaos is to their advantage. Content providers and owners, the kind that is lobbying against net neutrality, want control and order. E.g. Apple, married to AT&T in the US, wants you to find what you look for inside iTunes, and is does a heck of a good job providing a streamlined user experience.
Google, a strong player that does not have specific interests in providing owned content (Youtube beeing an important exception, but it is a free service and content is user provided) and with no network preferences they effectively have become kind of net neutrality guarantor. Because of their unique position in the information industry, it is their interest that the net is neutral towards all content providers.
As a consequence Google has never been closely related to content producers and network providers. Content providers even accuse Google of copyright infringements, even traffic is directed their way via the search engine.
With Android Google have become related to device manufacturers. But one should note that none of these, or at least to a small degree, has, produces or provides content. They compete on producing devices suitable for content consumption and to some degree content production.
Apple and Sony are examples of the opposite type of device manufacturers, with Sony Ericsson in a limbo position providing Android handsets. Sony Ericsson's Android handsets are typically more customized than other Android handsets. Apple is closely related to content providers through iTunes and AT&T on the network side for exclusive deal on the iPhone.
Content owners will want to shortcut the neutral dispatcher to gain advantages over other content providers. Ultimately main players in the information industry want to control distribution, and even consumer devices. By controlling the networks used for distribution and devices, they can direct, and even filter content available. This is called walled gardens, and what traditional content providers want. I interpret what happens in OECD as a content provider control coup towards network services. Content providers utilize their powers over governments to gain some (initial?) control over network services.
The architecture of the Internet, as Licklider and the other founders designed it premiered distributed media control. The design was in direct opposite of how AT&T and telephone networks was designed, and AT&T still struggles with this.
But Google can not alone defend against the forces trying to divide and conquer the Internet. Even Google will have to change business strategy if net neutrality is lost. Google is wholly dependant on the prosumer (producing consumers) and others betting on the open and neutral web (which of course is in their own interest too).
The World Wide Web and http protocol is used for providing, finding and consuming content. An open WWW is mutual dependant on net neutrality. Net neutrality is an important foundation for WWW as we know it, and at the same time helps defending against centralized control. The reason for this is the hyperlinking nature of WWW.
So what can net neutrality defenders do? The decisions needed is often counterintuitive, since you often will have to choose chaos over order and not first class content providers that only accepts exclusive deals. Prosumers must put an effort in putting all kind of common knowledge on the web under a sharing license e.g. Creative Commons to prohibit evasive copyrighting of stuff of interest to everyone. Digital tool makers must strive to give prosumers tools to mass produce good quality content. Prosumers should link to relevant content, that help glue the Internet. Network service providers must not make exclusive deals with content providers or let them to close to their operations.
Content makers should also consider what will serve them best in the long run: a close marriage with media conglomerates that was formed during the 90's or a model with room for all players in the content industries. In contrast to the job
market 20 years ago, the options are no much more dynamic. Lock-in is not a good thing when tools are democratized to a level where everybody can produce something (talent or not). A large part of the content industries will benefit from net neutrality in the long run, but established entities will often fight against it.
Governments must regulate to by intervening using antitrust laws, but when one studies the history of media industries it is revealed that they are slow movers and too vulnerable to lobbying. The book The Masterswitch, by Tim Wu, describes the phenomena of media- and content industries since the inception of telephony and is an important contribution in the net neutrality debate.
Google plays the same role as the phone catalog, but in a much broader sense. It helps users find what they look for. If the dispatcher(s) of the Internet is agnostic to newcomers and established content providers this will help innovation, education and general informing the global community. At the same time this degree of centralization represented by the mighty Google, is vulnerable. Misused or controlled neutral dispatching is broken and value limited.
A neutral dispatcher is important in ensuring net neutrality. Except from paid search rankings, Google's page ranking algorithm favors paths to content users prefers. I guess we are lucky to have Google. Google is no saint, and is not defending net neutrality out of pure values and standards. But it is important to their business and current position. They depend on users looking for content in a chaotic ever growing amount of content. Google creates value from chaos. Chaos is to their advantage. Content providers and owners, the kind that is lobbying against net neutrality, want control and order. E.g. Apple, married to AT&T in the US, wants you to find what you look for inside iTunes, and is does a heck of a good job providing a streamlined user experience.
Google, a strong player that does not have specific interests in providing owned content (Youtube beeing an important exception, but it is a free service and content is user provided) and with no network preferences they effectively have become kind of net neutrality guarantor. Because of their unique position in the information industry, it is their interest that the net is neutral towards all content providers.
As a consequence Google has never been closely related to content producers and network providers. Content providers even accuse Google of copyright infringements, even traffic is directed their way via the search engine.
With Android Google have become related to device manufacturers. But one should note that none of these, or at least to a small degree, has, produces or provides content. They compete on producing devices suitable for content consumption and to some degree content production.
Apple and Sony are examples of the opposite type of device manufacturers, with Sony Ericsson in a limbo position providing Android handsets. Sony Ericsson's Android handsets are typically more customized than other Android handsets. Apple is closely related to content providers through iTunes and AT&T on the network side for exclusive deal on the iPhone.
Content owners will want to shortcut the neutral dispatcher to gain advantages over other content providers. Ultimately main players in the information industry want to control distribution, and even consumer devices. By controlling the networks used for distribution and devices, they can direct, and even filter content available. This is called walled gardens, and what traditional content providers want. I interpret what happens in OECD as a content provider control coup towards network services. Content providers utilize their powers over governments to gain some (initial?) control over network services.
The architecture of the Internet, as Licklider and the other founders designed it premiered distributed media control. The design was in direct opposite of how AT&T and telephone networks was designed, and AT&T still struggles with this.
But Google can not alone defend against the forces trying to divide and conquer the Internet. Even Google will have to change business strategy if net neutrality is lost. Google is wholly dependant on the prosumer (producing consumers) and others betting on the open and neutral web (which of course is in their own interest too).
The World Wide Web and http protocol is used for providing, finding and consuming content. An open WWW is mutual dependant on net neutrality. Net neutrality is an important foundation for WWW as we know it, and at the same time helps defending against centralized control. The reason for this is the hyperlinking nature of WWW.
So what can net neutrality defenders do? The decisions needed is often counterintuitive, since you often will have to choose chaos over order and not first class content providers that only accepts exclusive deals. Prosumers must put an effort in putting all kind of common knowledge on the web under a sharing license e.g. Creative Commons to prohibit evasive copyrighting of stuff of interest to everyone. Digital tool makers must strive to give prosumers tools to mass produce good quality content. Prosumers should link to relevant content, that help glue the Internet. Network service providers must not make exclusive deals with content providers or let them to close to their operations.
Content makers should also consider what will serve them best in the long run: a close marriage with media conglomerates that was formed during the 90's or a model with room for all players in the content industries. In contrast to the job
market 20 years ago, the options are no much more dynamic. Lock-in is not a good thing when tools are democratized to a level where everybody can produce something (talent or not). A large part of the content industries will benefit from net neutrality in the long run, but established entities will often fight against it.
Governments must regulate to by intervening using antitrust laws, but when one studies the history of media industries it is revealed that they are slow movers and too vulnerable to lobbying. The book The Masterswitch, by Tim Wu, describes the phenomena of media- and content industries since the inception of telephony and is an important contribution in the net neutrality debate.
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