Re: Attention you politics-hating coders

So, taking a break from my norm of talking about the constitution to post a little reply to this article:

http://blogs.zdnet.com/ip-telephony/?p=2046

I would like to state, that yes I am a programmer, and yes I make my living on the internet. I am also 100% against net neutrality, or any other regulations on the internet.

The big issue the writer of the previous article throws out is CHOICE. Yes, choice. If an ISP were to start charging websites(like the one I work for), then I would have 2 choices. I could go ahead and pay the charge, or I can refuse the charge, and not get traffic from that ISP.

But are those the only choices? Not by a long shot. If an ISP were to stop allowing traffic to certain sites, then their users are not going to be happy. I personally use AT&T(they bought out SBC) for my internet. If AT&T were to introduce such charges, then I the customer will not be allowed to visit sites that don't pay. Thus, I would immediately change to an ISP who didn't do such things.

Likewise, if a website wanted to charge an ISP, then I would simply not go to that site. I seriously doubt any website would do such a thing, as it goes against everything about being an internet based business.

What do government regulations do? They remove that choice. They instead use FORCE to make everyone do something. Under regulations, I will no longer have a choice of using a better ISP, as all ISP's will be made to follow the same rules. Let me be very clear on this - NO THANK YOU.

The author himself starts out saying - money decides things in politics. He even goes to use this as a fault for Ron Paul. Well, given this information, then who do you think this law is for?

So I have looked for a candidate who will leave an OPEN internet, VOID of regulations, and that candidate is Ron Paul. However, that is hardly even close to the real reasons I'll be voting for him.

May I however suggest that you start looking at things beyond the name of a bill. Net Neutrality is about a neutral internet as much as the Patriot Act saved our liberties.