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ShareYou have a right to worried that the huge telecomm companies want to stick it to you online (and offline) as well as “leeches” like Google: Verizon Executive Calls for End to Google’s ‘Free Lunch’.
The phone company wants “legislation that could let phone and cable companies charge Internet firms additional fees for using their high-speed lines.” There have some nerve, huh? “Verizon is spending billions of dollars to construct a fiber-optic network around the country for delivering high-speed Internet and cable TV services.” Which means that they’re building this stuff already for themselves and now want Google and others to pony up money to them. Sounds like blackmail, doesn’t it? If Verizon and other telecomm’s who are proposing this get away with it (with a weak-kneed Congress that can’t say no to a powerful PAC), except the Net to look a lot less enticing as each company that tries to stick to it each other with charges will have to find a way eventually to milk consumers for that money. One way or another, there’s a lot of pressure to end the freewheelin’ days of the web, be it regulation, extra charges, levels of service, etc..
By the way, the idea of “Web 2.0” that keeps getting repeated again and again is totally ridiculous- it’s as if the web only existed as a young pup and now suddenly emerged as a powerhouse. The fact of the matter is that the web has gone through 1) its infancy in the early 90s when no one knew how to exploit it properly, 2) an insane growth spurt in the mid-late 90’s, 3) a bubble burst, 4) a reconsidering of what were good, sound business practices online, 5) a new world of web giants like Craigslist, Google, etc.. That would put us in phase 5.0 or more…
