Com 125 Assignment 12- Net neutrality debate: It's all about the $$$

Here's a question: did you know that the United States is only 16th in the world in broadband use for capita? In Japan, internet users get a connection that is 16 times faster than the typical DSL line in America and for only $22 a month. It's the same story in other parts of the world. DSL service in France is 10 times faster than that of the United States. Also, places as diverse as South Korea, Finland, Canada and Hong Kong have much faster internet connections at a lower price than what we pay here in the US. So what happened? How did the United States start off ahead of the game when it came to internet service at the internet's inception and fall far behind in the successive years?

The answer to this question lies in the concept of net neutrality. Net neutrality is a principle applied to residential broadband networks that allows for equal distribution of content over the internet and keeps the internet safe from control of any kind. The US’s adherence to net neutrality is quite the opposite from other countries that have a national broadband policy which actively encourages competition among telecommunications companies. As you can imagine, there are several Americans who are jealous of the other countries’ access to a lightening fast broadband connection for much lower price. These people seek to change the US's current policy on net neutrality to become more like these other countries, who have found that competition among telecommunications companies leads to better service and lower prices for their customers. However, net neutrality proponents actively discourage this proposal and want to preserve the original purpose of the internet as being "an information highway where anybody--no matter how large or small, how traditional or unconventional--has equal access (Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google).”

Not surprisingly, the net neutrality debate is more about money than about anything else. As Steve Effros, former president of the Cable Television Association put it, "This is about who pays." On one end, you have the software and internet companies who actively support net neutrality. Companies such as Google and Yahoo have prospered greatly with the free distribution of their content over the internet. For example in 2006, Google's profits increased by 267 percent, Yahoo's increased by 126 percent, and Ebay saw a 39 percent increase. On the other hand, telecommunications companies, the ones that provide the internet connection, have not been so successful. The three largest companies, Verizon, AT&T and Bell South (which has since been bought by AT&T) all have seen their profits drop. Because of the huge costs involved in building and expanding their broadband networks, the telecommunications companies don’t see why the content providers don’t have to pay a portion of the cost. Ed Whitacre, CEO of AT&T, told Business Week what he thought of the companies who publish content over their network. He said, “They don’t have any fiber out there. They don’t have any wires. They don’t have anything. For a Google or a Yahoo or a Vonage or anybody to expect to use these pipes for free is nuts!”

Personally, I tend to lean towards the side of the telecommunications companies and oppose net neutrality. I don’t believe it’s fair that Google or Yahoo can make billions yet they don’t have to pay a single penny to the telecommunications companies who are just as much responsible for their profits as they are. I understand the position that with more control, the big phone and cable companies can serve as gatekeepers and decide which web sites they want to bring to the forefront versus which ones they want to fade into the background. However, I don’t believe that it would be in their best interest to block anyone’s access to content. After all, they want to make money and having unhappy customers will not make them rich. Instead, their attention is better focused on developing a higher capacity and faster broadband network to compete with the rest of the world.

The competition for customers is what will drive telecommunication companies to lower fees for Americans to connect to the internet. To assure their customer’s satisfaction, these companies will be compelled to develop better virus security, and also protection from worms and spam. The result is a faster, more protected broadband network for Americans for a lower price than they are paying now. I don’t know anyone who wouldn’t appreciate that. I believe the success seen in other countries serves as an example of how with a reasonable amount of control, telecommunications companies can vastly improve our broadband networks, while still granting the freedom for us to access and view the content we wish.

Sources

(13 April 2006). The Net Neutrality Debate: You Pay, You Play? Retrieved 10 November, 2008, from CIO Web site: http://www.cio.com/article/20239/The_Net_Neutrality_Debate%20You_Pay_You_Play_?page=1

(September 2006). A Battle for Control of the Web. Retrieved 10 November, 2008, from WSJ Classroom Web site: http://classroomedition.com/archive/06sep/htop_netneutrality.htm

Turner, S. (18 October 2005). Free American boradband! Retrieved 10 November, 2008, from Salon Web site: http://dir.salon.com/story/tech/feature/2005/10/18/broadband/

Various. (2 November 2008). Network Neutrality. Retrieved 10 November, 2008, from Wikipedia Web site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality

Com 125 Assignment 11- Virtual Economies, Real or Fake?

Today, virtual gaming has reached an entirely new level of existence. With "Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games, or MMOs," virtual worlds like World of Warcraft, Ultima Online, EverQuest and Second Life have expanded to now having a significant presence in our real-lives. Particularly, the economies of the games are finding ways to become prevalent in our own real life economy.


In his article, Julian Dibbell contrasts the virtual economy’s original intention to solely exist in the virtual world compared to its actual evolution into something more significant. The proposed virtual economy was meant to be "a realm of atomless digital products traded in frictionless digital environments for paperless digital cash." According to this proposal, money and wealth in the virtual world would have no real value in the real-world. However, as Dibbell explains, our modern economy is actually a breeding ground for "paperless digital cash" to have actual worth. He says, "For years, the world's economy has drifted further and further from the solid ground of tangible: Industry has given way to postindustry, the selling of products has given way to the selling of brands, gold bricks in steel vaults have given way to financial derivatives half a dozen levels of abstraction removed from physical reality." He argues that people are now more comfortable with the idea of money being in a nontangible form. Therefore, the presence of physical money and wealth is no different from that of digital wealth.


MMOs differ in their acceptance of real money playing into financial gain in their games. On two ends of the spectrum are Second Life and World of Warcraft. Second Life has a very open approach to the virtual economy and encourages the buying and selling of property with real money. Conversely, World of Warcraft is a game that actively discourages this practice. With the open economy, a variety of digital goods are sold for real money. They include houses, swords, suits of armor, iron ingots, lumber, piles of hay, tables, chairs, potted plants, and magic scrolls to name a few. In fact, it has been estimated that the sum of transactions for these items has reached $3 million of real money per year. Ebay is an active player involving the transaction of digital goods. There are people who have actually made a full-time job out of being a seller of digital products for virtual games on ebay. For example, a 43-year-old delivery man named John Dugger bought himself a house in the fiction world of Britannia for $750 in real money to feed into his Ultima Online addiction.


There are a few major issues with putting actual money into virtual worlds: problems both for the sellers and buyers of virtual goods. For the buyers, it's the concern that the goods they're buying aren't in a tangible form. These goods only exist in a fake world and go away when the computer is turned off. When it comes to reality, these buyers are losing actual money and gaining no physical goods for their loss. On the other hand, the issue for sellers is that their profits depend on the virtual games so therefore, the owners of these games have ultimate control over their profits. Bob Kiblinger, someone who trades Ultima items for a living says, "It's scary to have that much cash tied up in the business, when Ultima could just say, 'We deem this outside the rules. You're done.'" As soon as these companies make the decision that they don’t want people to profit from their digital goods, these sellers are subject to losing everything, and this is something that companies actually do. For example, Sony announced a ban on the EverQuest auction market and got ebay to enforce the ban.


In my opinion, World of Warcraft’s closed economy is the best approach to the virtual economy of online gaming. This is because it gives the best of both worlds by allowing for an economy without players having to give up any of their own real money. In the World of Warcraft, one can virtually work for and earn virtual money, much like one works for and earns real money in the real world. Therefore, people have the opportunity to advance in the game and generate wealth, without the loss of real money. I believe it is very important to keep virtual and real-life money separate. If money is circulated in and out of “reality,” this blurs the line between the virtual and physical world, which can have many psychological repercussions for avid gamers.



Sources

Dibbell, J. (January 2oo3). The Unreal Estate Boom. Retrieved 4 November, 2008, from Wired Web site: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.01/gaming.html


Levy, S. (2008). World of Warcraft: Is It a Game? Retrieved 4 November, 2008, from MSNBC Web site: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14757769/site/newsweek/page/3/print/1/displaymode/1098