Network Neutrality explained
I've been trying to think of a good way to explain network neutrality - IP routing and QoS guarantees are not common concepts for most people. Here's what I've come up with.
Right now you can buy gas for $3.25 a gallon and you can drive anywhere you want with it. Gas companies don't care whether you're driving your apples to market or your kids to a movie because it's all the same gas. That's network neutrality. Some companies want to change this. If you're a driver, they want to set the price of gas based on where you want to drive: if you're delivering apples to a market they might want you to pay $3.50 per gallon and if you're delivering your kids to soccer practice they'll want you to pay $4.00. If you own a business it'll work the other way, too. They'll tell you that because you're making a lot of money they're entitled to some of it, and they're going to raise your customers' gas to $5.00/gallon. If you don't want all your customers to start leaving you can start paying them to keep your customers' gas prices low. Or you can "partner" with them, which could either mean paying protection money so that they'll keep your customers' gas prices low or shunning certain kinds of customers or business partners until *they* partner. There's also nothing to stop them from, say, charging $2.00/gallon to attend a Kerry rally and $8.00/gallon to attend a Bush rally - or vice-versa. Or charging baptists $1.00/gallon extra to drive to church and using that money to subsidize Hindus - or vice-versa.
I'm not entirely sure how good my analogy is. Comments?
Update: this is a much better analogy.
Right now you can buy gas for $3.25 a gallon and you can drive anywhere you want with it. Gas companies don't care whether you're driving your apples to market or your kids to a movie because it's all the same gas. That's network neutrality. Some companies want to change this. If you're a driver, they want to set the price of gas based on where you want to drive: if you're delivering apples to a market they might want you to pay $3.50 per gallon and if you're delivering your kids to soccer practice they'll want you to pay $4.00. If you own a business it'll work the other way, too. They'll tell you that because you're making a lot of money they're entitled to some of it, and they're going to raise your customers' gas to $5.00/gallon. If you don't want all your customers to start leaving you can start paying them to keep your customers' gas prices low. Or you can "partner" with them, which could either mean paying protection money so that they'll keep your customers' gas prices low or shunning certain kinds of customers or business partners until *they* partner. There's also nothing to stop them from, say, charging $2.00/gallon to attend a Kerry rally and $8.00/gallon to attend a Bush rally - or vice-versa. Or charging baptists $1.00/gallon extra to drive to church and using that money to subsidize Hindus - or vice-versa.
I'm not entirely sure how good my analogy is. Comments?
Update: this is a much better analogy.