Don't Call it a Fast Lane

by xwowsersx • 12 years ago

126 37 12 years ago

xwowsersx3• 12 years ago

I threw this up real quick. Was inspired by a comment on reddit: "Are we really still fucking calling these "Fast lanes?" Fast lanes sound good! We should be talking about "Slow lanes" since that is what you will be on if you don't pay up."

Also inspired by Brad Feld's suggestion (I think it was) that we all just throttle our servers so we can give people a taste of what the slow lane feels like.

mortenjorck• 12 years ago

I think this is a great tactic to raise awareness, but what you're presenting right now doesn't really make the case.

You're not giving the viewer any sort of meaningful reference point. Indeed, what you're showing them shouldn't feel like a fast lane, since you're not one of the established players paying for one!

A more effective narrative should throw into relief the gradual transformation of a non-neutral net. Visualize how when the big players can pay to get to you faster, everyone else gets (relatively) slower.

rjbwork3• 12 years ago

I think "Fast Lanes" is terrible, "Slow Lanes" is better, and "Toll Roads" is most accurate. The end of any pretense of net neutrality opens the doors for all manner of censorship, or more likely, extortion.

"Sure is a mighty nice website you got there, be a shame if our 50 million subscribers couldn't access it...."

mnutt• 12 years ago

Worse than that, it may be that large websites just pay it since they benefit from the barriers to entry it creates for smaller websites. When your ISP has a deal that makes Facebook and Twitter free but all other websites have very strictly metered bandwidth caps, how much will that change your browsing habits?

tzs• 12 years ago

"Sure is a mighty nice website you got there, be a shame if our 50 million subscribers couldn't access it...."

The FCC explicitly said that kind of thing would not be allowed under their proposed regulatory plans. Do you have a reason to believe otherwise?

rjbwork3• 12 years ago

Netflix is essentially unwatchable for many comcast subscribers due to high congestion during peak hours. If the peering connections are sufficiently overloaded/congested, there isn't too much appreciable difference.

On the other hand, give an inch, give a mile. The ISPs want toll roads, and if they get the ability to charge other peering services and content providers to carry their traffic over non-congested pipes, I don't see why they won't get toll roads from some other patsy they buy off later.

bostik• 12 years ago

"Sure is a mighty nice website you got there, be a shame if our 50 million subscribers couldn't access it...."

I thought there was an explicit term to describe that. Protection racket.

In memory of the term "information superhighway", I wonder if it would also make sense to label the slow lane as information highway robbery?

arm552• 12 years ago

What is the loading time based on? I have a hard time making anything of this without a reference.

oscilloscope• 12 years ago

The time is intentionally long to simulate a throttled connection loading content.

arm552• 12 years ago

I'm quite aware. But was it just a random time meant to be annoying? Or is based on a predicted loading time for some particular type of site based on estimated bandwidth?

panarky• 12 years ago

For those who don't click through, can you explain the essence of the issue?

Something like, "Your cable company already charges you the world's highest price[1] to deliver data. Now they want to get paid twice for the same data, or they'll put you in the slow lane. Stop the monopoly toll collectors."

[1] http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-24528383

rjbwork3• 12 years ago

Yes, as I alluded to in my comment, tolls and extortion are the talking points/buzzwords the pro-net neutrality side needs to be getting out there. The best part is that they are accurate (toll more so than extortion, possibly, but my point stands).

danielweber3• 12 years ago

tolls and extortion are the talking points/buzzwords the pro-net neutrality side needs to be getting out there

It might seem that way at first, but the most effective way of winning people to your side is usually not to come up with the most inflammatory language you can possibly justify.

xwowsersx3• 12 years ago

I agree. What should I make the copy?

niels_olson• 12 years ago

Make it take longer. One sentence per load:

"US cable companies want to turn their networks into toll roads." "They're already doing it sneakily, but they want the FCC to give them express written permission." "They installed a puppet as FCC chairman." "They see you as a product they can sell to companies." "They're playing a game of chicken with those companies." "Globally, they're the only ones playing this game of chicken." "The FCC should be labeling them "common carriers" so they play by the same rules as the phone companies." "Instead, their puppet, Tom Wheeler, is giving them what they want." "And he's threatening us with dire consequences if he doesn't do what they told him too." "Do you buy it?" "Neither do we." "Their plan will actually stifle innovation and drag the internet to a crawl for most Americans."

npizzolato• 12 years ago

I'll chime in and say the analogy was lost on me. A slow loading bar with "that didn't feel like a fast lane, did it?" -- no, it didn't feel fast. So what? "Tell your government you support an open internet." How is it that related to a slow loading bar. I agree the OP needs to look at rewording the message. It's concise but it's more confusing than informative.

danielweber3• 12 years ago

I don't think saying "nuh uh, it's a slow lane" is going to be a real winning argument. Simply accusing the other side of doing the complete opposite of what they claim to do needs a lot more political savvy.

Maybe try pointing out how manufacturers sell the same printer to homes and businesses at different price points, except that the home version is deliberately slowed down instead of the business version being any more advanced. I think that's the (legitimate) fear you are trying to express.

api_or_ipa• 12 years ago

can you source a reference to the printer reference? I'm interested in reading more about such phenomena.

akiselev• 12 years ago

I can't speak to the printer case but silicon manufacturers do this to an absurd degree with their SKUs. See the GTX 690 to Quadro conversion hack [1].

[1] http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Nvidia-GTX-690-Quadro-K5000...

danielweber3• 12 years ago

Honestly, I'm remembering a Joel On Software article that doesn't precisely quote its source.

Your question needs a solid answer if someone tries to use it to argue for net neutrality.

gizmo686• 12 years ago

Isn't this what CPU manufacturers do already. Instead of making different chips (which increases cost because of increased complexity in the manufacturing process), they make a single chip and enable/disable parts of it based on how it is sold.

Also, I think the closer analogy would be slowing down the printer based on where the document you are printing comes from (still not a perfect analogy). You analogy seems more like ISPs offering faster service to end-users who pay a higher price.

nsrango• 12 years ago

With respect to CPUs this is not entirely true.

Processors with different clock frequencies roll off of the same assembly line but small variations in manufacturing change the quality of the yield quite a bit. This includes the side of the wafer a chip is on or how far the chip was from the center of the wafer. As a result, processor manufacturers test their ICs and sell them based on how each one performs

dpe82• 12 years ago

The SOPA fight was so successful because the rallying call was super clear: Don't Censor The Internet!

Was SOPA strictly censorship? Well, not precisely - but that would have been basically the result. You could go on for an hour about all the details of the bill's mechanisms and how it breaks this thing called DNS which is a really important system that assigns names to numbers and that's bad because DNSSEC is important and we really need to get internet security right... and by the end nobody is listening anymore. Calling it censorship was close enough, and it triggered an immediate and negative reaction strong enough to get people to listen and act.

Likewise with the FCC proposal. You could go on for an hour talking about how IP routing works through internet backbone providers and how when an ISP doesn't upgrade their interconnects you get congestion which causes dropped packets which increases TCP latency and that's bad for new websites that depend on backbone providers because that's how the internet is structured and it's super important and.... now nobody is listening.

"Slow Lane" achieves something similar to "censorship" - an immediate and negative reaction, hopefully strong enough to get people to act. Plus a visual demonstration for users already frustrated with the broadband they pay too much for really drives it home. Is the FCC explicitly creating a "slow lane"? Well, not precisely. But it's the result. So let's call it that.

lemma• 12 years ago

I think a better tactic/branding would be to call it "double billing" or "double charging". Fast/slow lanes do sound like something you should have to pay for.

johnvschmitt• 12 years ago

Has anyone A/B tested the different language choices around Net Neutrality? Or focus groups?

For example, Frank Luntz did lots of focus group studies to figure out how to persuade people, simply by choosing the right words. "Estate Tax" became "Death Tax" for example.

Rather than just "be creative", we should put those different creatives through the data-driven approaches (A/B tests & focus groups) to find what will resonate & persuade the audiences outside of the HN-insider / reddit-insider cohorts.

junto• 12 years ago

I've just talked about this in another thread so I'll summarise it here.

Cloudflare should implement this for their clients to opt in to protest.

They identify IP ranges that are related to people who can threaten or influence net neutrality. E.g. Comcast, congress, any backers of this new bill, even Comcast customers, etc

When a user from one of these blacklisted IP ranges visits your site they get presented with the 'protest page'. It explains why they are about to be throttled and how they can join the protest (contact congress rep, etc). It also shows participating protest sites as a leaderboard - total throttled users (featuring Cloudflares biggest customers).

I don't even mind if they inject a banner onto the top if my website that announces me as a proud supporter of net neutrality.

MRSallee• 12 years ago

Was really hoping this was commentary on freeway lane choices and people instinctively moving left into the "fast lane" even when they have no one to pass. It's a passing lane, not a fast lane.

EEGuy• 12 years ago

Perhaps it's been on HN already, but this video [1] uses a books-from-different-vendors, one-shipping-company analogy.

Plain-speaking and clear IMO.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAxMyTwmu_M

randomfool• 12 years ago

It's Extortion.

I see no reason why Comcast should need more money to deliver a 5mb HD video stream over my 50mb connection. Now if Comcast wants to charge extra to stream 5mb video over a 1mb subscriber line (increasing the BW for that video), then go for it.

mjcohen• 12 years ago

This just kept loading, so I killed it without looking.

What is wrong with text????

dreamdu5t• 12 years ago

What does "open internet" even mean? Like, what is the actual law proposed and what does it say.

"Net neutrality" and "open internet" sound as meaningless and confusing as "healthcare reform."

Freestyler_3• 12 years ago

While we are at it, dont make websites like dontcallitafastlane.com

I opened it in a new tab, and when I got to it it showed the text which made no sense at all. The subject is worth discussion, but this doesnt start discussion.

xwowsersx3• 12 years ago

I've updated the copy on the site. It's better than it was before, but still not great. Open to any suggestions.

Don't Call it a Fast Lane

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