It seems to me the lobbying forces on the part of the content providers, Netflix et al., would be pretty formidableâ"unless they think the price is worth it to suppress upstart competition. Which is it?
I think they're getting to the point where they're willing to pay for prioritization just to guarantee quality.
A big problem is that we have a transmission protocol (TCP) that is a well deployed but incredibly stupid protocol that that intentionally floods the network with packets until it breaks, then backs off for a little while, then tries to break the network again, always trying to consume every little extra bit of buffer space and bandwidth that might be available in competition with every other server that's doing the same thing. It's constant war with attacks and retreats.
There are a least two approaches used to cope with this. One is to add bandwidth. The trouble is that TCP will greedily consume any additional bandwidth that's available and you're back to the original problem.
The second is to buy your own little slice of bandwidth and isolate your stream from all the battles going on between the other streams. This solves the problem for you but creates a kind of bandwidth aparthied. Your traffic is finally safe, but there's less bandwidth available for everyone else.
The media streamers would prefer guarantees so that their customers get the quality they pay for. Adding bandwidth doesn't provide any guarantee. Packet prioritization at the router (almost) does. We're getting to the point where Netflix, etc are willing to pay for prioritization that gives a guarantee.
There is not a SINGLE European country with a worse ratio than the US. Granted, the aforementioned Georgia along with Portugal and the UK are coming close to it, but none of them is actually WORSE. Most central European (and let's also lump in the Scandinavian) countries revolve around a disparity factor of about 5-8.
That means that we're looking at about three times more equality in Europe than the US.
I'm not saying you don't have a point. Maybe you do. Maybe you don't. But if you're going to compare inequality in Europe to inequality in the USA, you can't compare the USA with individual European countries.
Smaller inequality in all individual European countries doesn't imply smaller inequality in Europe as a whole.
Inequality inside Albania, for example, might be small, but there's a great deal of inequality between Albania and the Netherlands.
How do you get from 'taking IP' to 'killing the industry'?
The free flow of ideas and techniques is what drives technology and industry.
Well taking IP has certainly driven technology in China, right?
"Just" put more money into those programs?
How many more votes will that give the party in power in the next election? Probably none, so it won't happen.
Democracy works hard to please the 51% -- not the 5% of parents that have a gifted child.
Of course those parents pay taxes just like other parents, but that doesn't mean the state has to give a damn.
Democracy doesn't require that the state please everyone -- it only must please 51%. And the system is constantly adjusting to figure out how to screw the 49% to please the 51%. Public education gets caught up in the process like everything else touched by the democratic process.
These sorts of announcements have the effect of freezing developers and keeping them from moving to superior technology.
They would have done nothing if not for AMD and now they're going to steal AMD's thunder.
This sort of thing makes my blood boil.
If you're a developer out there, please, don't let Microsoft get away with this.
After years of decline, US oil production began to rise again in 2009 with fracking technology and the increases since have been astounding.
This oil boom has kept gasoline prices in check and has probably helped the economy from slipping back into recession.
If all that money didn't increase total employment, then GDP could go up while the same number of people stayed home out of work.
The increase in congestion is actually a good sign. It suggests that the employment situation might finally be improving.
And later went on to liberate almost all of Europe. Do your point is ?
You exaggerate (probably because you're some sort of Soviet apologist).
The Soviets were doomed without the help of the rest of the Allies. The entire world would have been better off if the Soviets and Nazis had just been allowed to kill each other off. They were made for each other.
Communists, Nazis -- how anyone could pick one as better than the other is beyond reason.
Good day to avoid cops. Crawl to work.