We all know that some of the major connectivity providers (I’m looking at you, Comcast, and you, BT) have already started to filter out some traffic. Comcast calls it “delaying”, but in reality they have already started to throttle down BitTorrent connections. I’m not going to close my eyes and say that this is legal traffic - you and me both know that most of it isn’t. The point is that they are unrestrictively filtering traffic over the BitTorrent protocol - legal or not. BT throttles *anything* that isn’t HTTP! And there has been a major uproar over the introduction of the BBC iPlayer - many providers are simply not willing to allow their precious bandwidth to be used to transmit 100% legal television programs (which, when viewed / filtered at packet level, are indistinguishable from illegal downloads / uploads). And now a major UK company has caused an uproar. Cue you, Virgin.

Virgin Media’s CEO, Neil Berkett, has stated in an open interview that “Net Neutrality is a load of bollocks”. If that were the only thing he said - I’d have to agree with him. We live in an age where anyone can put up a website, and immediately have the same level of accessibility as any other website, no matter how big or small. Nothing should change that, and it should never be an issue. But Mr Berkett seems to think otherwise. Apparently, Virgin Media is already in “talks with unnamed content providers to deliver their content faster”. Rumour has been about that this is a prod towards Google (flamed solely by their recent April Fools joke named “Virgil” - that one backfired on you guys). Google has long been an advocate of Net Neutrality, and rightly so.

What kind of an Internet would it be if we could load Yahoo! in a second, but we had to wait 5 minutes for YouTube to load? Or if we could download the latest version of America’s Army (a government funded game being my point here) in mere minutes, but have to wait for hours to get the latest patch for your grassroots game, purely because they are unable to pay the extortionate “increased bandwidth charges”. Or perhaps it could go further? You, the user, could be made to pay more to access the sites you want on a sort of “tiering” system - £19.99 gets you access to Google, YouTube, and 50 other sites at high speed! £29.99 gets you access to another 50! And for only £39.99, you can have access to 150 sites at high-speed! Unrestricted internet would become a thing of distant memories - because once one goes, the rest will follow.

The outlook, to me anyway, looks good at the moment. There is currently no threat of there being any restrictions put in place - and with the massive uproars being caused in the media, in efforts to maintain Net Neutrality, and on just about any blog / site that has anything to do with the Internet, I don’t see it happening soon. But the threat is real - and I suggest you get well informed before it’s too late.

Suggested Reading

• Network neutrality on Wikipedia
• Save The Internet
• Open Internet Coalition
  

I think the simplest way for me to describe my feelings behind advertising on Wikipedia is that, given careful moderation of the adverts, they will not harm Wikipedia or any of the sister projects. Perhaps this would entail a special relationship with an ad broker, such as Google. They would also have to be relatively non-invasive. Perhaps only on search results? Slapping them all over articles is not a good plan. Intra-paragraph links, again, a bad idea. Why on search results?

Wikipedia doesn’t document everything. If I went there, and searched for a relatively unknown thing, or a service name, we might not get any results. With adverts, there is another layer of results for the user, who may find them useful if there are no results in Wikipedia. So not only are we assisting users, we are generating a bit of money for the foundation at the same time.

People have argued  that knowledge should be free - and I agree. Knowledge should be free, and Wikipedia makes it free. Introducing adverts doesn’t make it any less free. Unfortunately, we do not live in a free world, and until the Foundation is able to find a way of using the immense amount of bandwidth they use for free, they will always need to make money. Asking for user donations is fine, but that only happens once a year. A regular stream of income would not only be beneficial to the Foundation’s goals, but it would also bring around countless new opportunities, both on and off-wiki.

Of course, it’s always possible to just block the adverts if you don’t like them…

If we block internet adverts - no matter what method we use to do it, we are denying the website owner the opportunity to make money. But this is where the moral dilemma lies - many people do not wish to view the adverts. Much like if we are watching TV - we’ll leave the room while the adverts are on to make a cup of tea, or when we watch back a recorded show, we’ll fast-forward through the adverts. Is this not fundamentally the same - the adverts are there for all, but some wish to avoid them. I believe it’s up to me what displays on my browser screen - and any unwanted aspects of the site I am free to remove at my will. That’s why I don’t care if you use an adblocker to hide the adverts on this site - that’s your choice and I will support you in it. I won’t reduce functionality of the site, or even go as far as to block you from the page. I’ve even tried to make the site break down as gracefully as possible if you block my adverts.

But there are others who aren’t as understanding. The major uproar has come from so-called “professional bloggers” who run their sites almost entirely on advertising revenue.  Those who have gone as far as to block users if they block the adverts. This is wrong - in my opinion. Whatever happened to blogging because you enjoy it, rather than to make a living and a profit. Blogging should not be a job any more than football should not be a job - but rather a hobby that you enjoy and want others’ to enjoy reading your work. Forcing adverts on the people who support you by reading your content is not going to make them come back, and therefore you are not only losing revenue, you are losing readers. And readers are the most important part of any blog. So should the readers be allowed to choose what they see? I think you can answer that one yourself.

Perhaps it’s time to re-evaluate how blogs earn their money. What the “industry” needs is someone to come up with a revolutionary new idea that targets blogs and bloggers, one that removes the need for advertising. Paid blogging is an option - and if it is done well it can be a good addition to any blog. But blatant paid posts are another annoyance - another thing that readers will not want to see. Inline adverts are nasty and obtrusive. Popups are downright wrong. Are we missing something?