modulating barriers to access

[Todd Boyle]

At 12:48 AM 12/28/2006, Jason Feeser wrote:
>So, why haven't more people put up seattlewireless nodes???
>Large scale public mesh is what we want... right???

There's
  - the chicken-and-egg theory,
  - the negative-value-proposition theory, and
  - the technical-hurdles-for-nongeeks theory.

The chicken and egg theory is moot since there's negative value
proposition to the general public.  Things people want from an
edge network are free telephony, free filesharing, ie movies
songs and porn, and hard anonymity for things like political
organizing and graymarket commerce and digital cash.
Geeks in SWN have never been sympathetic to any of these,
even those which are lawful.  There is unanimous solidarity that
applications are not part of the mission.   So, the SWN routers
sit there and can't do *anything* that isn't already available
100 times faster and more reliably on cableco/telco networks.

If the SWN architecture was a VIA EPIA motherboard (now $100 on ebay)
it could have the router uncoupled from the radios or *whatver* link
is on the ethernet)   It could be setup with Community Television (to recurse
thru whatever video files it can find locally or on SWN and give you
choices with a standard infrared remote.) and Community Phone
(that lists whatever telephony resources or connections or directories
it can find.)     At least you'd ahve something that got attention.

>Are we waiting for 'N' to land???  Will 'N' solve current limitations???
>
>Can we have a self-configuring household mesh appliance that people would be
>happy to pay $100-$200 for in order to get "free" internet???
>
>Or are most people here (industry professionals aside) just pointing
>antennas down the street in order to save $50.00/month???
>
>I would love a free network from West Seattle to the UW to get at my free
>internet.  But for now, Comcast it is.
>
>Jason

In all mature industries, prices and terms are modulated by the
dominant firms, to shape the behavior of the market.  That's why
these cableco and telco networks are just easy enough to
share, to prevent a hardening of opposition and competition.
This is a universal principle, it can be found in all systems
of control.

-  The amount of resources it requires to enforce behavior
on the last 5% of the population would take more resources
than the other 95%, it just isn't worth it, but furthermore,

- When you do try to coerce the last 5% it creates such
a hardcore jihadist resistance that it's unwise even for
the most power-lusting greediest egomaniac.   They
are well aware the jihadist with nothing to lose, can unhorse
them if they so choose.   So, Microsoft lets people copy their
software, the media lets people copy their material, the IRS
lets people cheat a lot, the military lets soldiers defy commanders,
and Verizon and Comcast will never use all their tools to enforce TOS.

They will use their power to modulate the revenue stream,
instead of just trying to gun the engine full speed.

They will use their power *just enough* to maximize their
longterm position. That means, they will use *all* their
power from time to time, if they see a genuine competitor.

The rest of the time, the geeks and 'hackers' will always
be allowed to steal bandwidth.   It shuts them up, and they
self-marginalize and isolate themselves.  This is how the
financial industry, medical industry works, too.  They allow
quite unethical and illegal practices for some mysterious
reason.  First, the violators are keeping very quiet about
all their stealing.  But there are also, so many doctors, lawyers,
accountants and congressmen who are doing illegal things,
that you can't get a majority who thinks its in their
best interest to clean it all up.

Todd
A Nation of Liars: crude prose http://ledgerism.net/theInfoGap.htm
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