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by bri3d 1686 days ago
I don't think the fear with network neutrality was ever the idea of a content aggregator buying content on behalf of a subscriber, was it?

My understanding of the argument with network neutrality was that the combination of the network provider as a natural monopoly and the network provider's ability to render content inaccessible would result in a fragmented Internet - you can only run so many wires to a house, and if Provider B cut off Content A, you might not get Content A anymore.

I don't see how this is the same thing.
1 comments
perihelions 1686 days ago
It's qualitatively different, but there's some similarities in appearances. The end-user viewpoint, if this trend grows, is that the majority of the internet could present as a set of subscription packages -- the more you buy, the more of the internet you can access, and at higher service levels. Because of these new financial incentives, previously open, ad-supported websites will shift to becoming closed, subscription services: as the friction for end-users to subscribe to things goes down (because of federation*), this becomes more common. The open web goes dark. Conversely, since this is also an income source for the platforms/referrers, they'll want to boost referrals to partnering companies higher than non-partners -- tiered service. It's true this isn't the hard severity of an ISP throttling, or cutting off, non-partnering websites; but it's a soft analogue of it.

*(This friction can be zero. You needn't take any positive action to subscribe to the Nth website; rather the platforms you subscribe to abstract that away for you, as they monitor all your clicks and visits, and handle the income-splitting transparently behind the curtains. Basically the Spotify model, for the open WWW).

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Talanes 1686 days ago
> Conversely, since this is also an income source for the platforms/referrers

But in this scenario it's not. The platform is funneling part of it's revenue to the partners. There could be less direct incentives for boosting the partners (subscribers feel like they're getting more value when articles come from an ad-free partner, etc...)

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