What about a linux pc running an apache/web and openarena/game servers serving personal photos to friends and family? How about a custom carpenter showing off his work for potential customers to see and a phone number to call to arrange payment and shipment? Where exactly do you draw that line? Network Neutrality is about the idea that the network operator doesn't get to draw that line. They have to treat traffic as traffic. It doesn't matter whether it was a carpenter's server eating up traffic, or a chronic lol-cat youtube uploader. They have to deal with such congestion in ways that do not give preference to any lawful application, service, or device. Otherwise it won't be long till only Google branded, or Google certified devices are allowed to be used with your Google connection (bit of an exageration, the actual road forward will be subtler, but with as much as they can get away with that helps drive up their overall profits).

disclosure: complainant here- I like that you brought up the idea of charging for static IP addresses. I agree that IPv4 addresses are a scarcity, and thus it may be reasonable to charge for them. Do you think it is reasonable to charge for a static IPv6 address? Do you realize how not-a-scarcity they are?

So wrong... Look up TimeWarner's ToS as a start. I'm sure there are others. It's actually precisely because of network neutrality and how a server is a "lawful device". Google made a boo boo in not figuring that out much sooner.

complainant here, please mod (*THE PARENT*) up, which contains this text-
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subject: and so the internet dies

The whole original IDEA was peer to peer networking that could route around damage. Somehow, we've let it become "everything gets routed through a few big players, and they can tell you what packets you can send and receive".

Sad thing is, this direction has been BLINDINGLY obvious for over a decade, easy. But nobody cared. It's only going to get worse and worse, until the internet is TV 2.0, just like the media companies wanted. And we - the internet using public - sat idly by and let them do it.
"

False. Just because servers on average use much more capacity than clients, does not mean mine will. Correlation is not causation.

I think you lack imagination. Ponder the resiliance of bittorrent as a file distribution service. If one 'server' goes down for an hour or a day, it's not a big deal if there are at least a few other servers perhaps hundreds of miles away that can pick up the slack temporarily.

If you read any amount of my complaint you would understand that I am not trolling. Network Neutrality does not allow network providers to charge one rate for non-commercial traffic, and another for commercial traffic. Go read it. Really.

you are right. In the sense that if every customer read that deep into the fine print, compared to the BOLD advertising claims alone, then it could not be considered "fraud". However it *can* then be considered a Network Neutrality violation, because a Quake3 server is just as legal a device to connect to the internet as an android tablet.

If you read my manifesto, you'll see that my answer to this involves pointing out the verbiage in the NetNeutrality document (FCC 10-201 Report and Order Preserving the Open Internet) which states that the internet is awesome, *precisely* because Tim-Berners Lee was able to develop and deploy WWW/http "without getting any permission from governments or network providers" (close to verbatim).

"Nobody advocates a strict, absolute interpenetration of "Net Neutrality", or you could get away with ping flooding your neighbor under the guise of free and unfettered access."

Do you really think Google couldn't have 1-3 employees spend 1-3 hours crafting language that would make it clear the difference between such obvious abuse, and "prohibiting any kind of server"?

For frack's sake, this is about Google not wanting home servers to provide the masses with alternatives to things like Gmail and GoogleHangouts. This is 2013 for frack's sake, and I can't run an OpenArena server without violating my contract? Really?!?

Complainant here. I was living in Kansas City when the complaint was made, and for months after. I have since moved a few miles east. I think you'll see that I am not the only residential internet user who would like to be able to run a server without violating their contract.

And that is precisely the kind of Free Speech problem that Net Neutrality is trying to solve. If the network operators become the gatekeepers determining which speech can go on their networks, and which can't (outside any government law enforcement agency direction), then... well, it's not good.

I think it actually is net neutrality (of course, since I'm the complainant). However what you subsequently said is all spot-on. They want to have their cake and eat it too. They want to claim "unlimited bandwidth" in advertising, then not deliver it to the people smart enough to lawfully take advantage of it. In some circles such misleading advertising is known as "fraud".

what in the name of all things good does it mean to "leech bandwidth". What makes _your_ "use" of bandwidth ok, and _mine_ "leaching"???

The problem with these "Cover Your Ass" overreaching terms in the fine print is that they are very chilling to the development of home server software. If there was a "right to serve" on the internet, there would be more home server software developed, and in my opinion we would all be better off.