One of the reasons we – the consumers or the end-users of the internet – are relatively unaware of the meaning of Net Neutrality (NN) is that, we have always had it good and took NN for granted. We were not aware of internet being any other way.

But now the moment has come when you have to necessarily know the meaning of NN. Because you have the rights to know what information you have access to and what information you are deprived off as an information consumer. Because we risk somebody else altering what we experience on the internet. The current attempts to fiddle with NN – if successful – will be another demonstration of American capitalism.

So let’s get on – what is Net Neutrality (NN)?

NN simply means the contents on the WWW are delivered to the end-user by a straight-forward, unfiltered, unprioritized, unbiased transaction from the content provider to the user. There is nobody altering the contents delivered to you. For example, if we both are from the same geographical area, and google a search term, we will (and should) get the same results. And that is a simplistic definition of NN.

Who can take NN away from the end-user?

There are two key players – the content provider and the internet provider. Take search for example. In my case, Google would be the content provider and Comcast will be the internet provider. Lack of NN, these two parties can decide what I will see on my computer, based on my profiling. My profiling could be based on a number of factors, but in this context mainly based on how much I pay.

What would it mean to not have NN?

Think of China. Think of many of the pan-Islamic countries. They don’t have NN. But their neutrality is defined based on government policies. And at least, all residents of the country have access to same content. But in American context, it is purely commercial and is likely to give different internet experience to different people.

Will this affect countries other than USA?

I think it will. If they get away with NN, content providers (a vast majority of who are in the US) are likely to charge tiered access rates to international internet providers also. This means, whether you are in Bangalore or Baltimore or Budapest, this will likely affect you in some way.

Can we do something about it?

Though the internet is certainly larger than any number of corporations, the steering wheels are in the hands of few large corporates. Besides, NN is largely a gentlemen’s agreement and laws supporting NN are weak and manipulatable.

Are reasons why the NN killers might be right?

Content providers and internet providers cite many reasons – such as improving quality of content, prevent identity theft and internet related attacks etc…, but I think we are risking by putting control into the hands of few people.

Why is this news now?

As you may have read, Google and Verizon are working on clearing their way to a new business model, which would effectively betray NN. This is a developing news and you may see the stories are constantly evolving.

Open discussion

If you can think of good reasons to abolish NN or have ideas on how to prevent the efforts to kill NN, please comment.

I tweeted sometime ago that “if a template is all you offer, you really don’t have much to offer”

Let me explain.

For the purpose of this post, the term “customer” can mean anybody you interact with – not just money-paying person seeking products/services.

Too many times, we get locked into this mode of supplying a template somebody comes to us for an answer. This could be in a business transaction or employee motivation or anything for that matter. No emotions, no empathy, no niche, no expression of desire to help. “Here, please fill up this template and send it back!” And by the way, templates don’t always come in spreadsheets. They take many forms, but usually have a rigid set of solutions around the “if-then-else” logic. But life and business hardly present us problems that can be resolved with templates or templatized mindsets.

Why is this gesture bad?

Whether it is a person-to-person transaction or a multi-million dollar deal, all of us have the need to be heard and understood. By giving somebody a template, we are basically telling them we’ve empowered ourselves to not spend any time thinking about your problem, instead try to fit it into a set of rules.

Are templates evil?

Templates are not bad. In fact, they are great. Templates are a checklist for the person providing the answers. A solution provider is supposed to be an intelligent and human, with the checklist serving the purpose of making sure s/he has covered everything, to which there is a hitherto chance of erring. Templates help standardize, maintain consistency and completeness. But standardization also means repeatable, industrialized and most importantly, emotion-less. Especially when template is not accompanied by a human emotion.

Besides, what is your role anyways?

Just think about this. If all you do is provide templates, exactly why are you required? The job of providing templates is rather mechanical and could potentially be done by another person (in the flat world, I must say – another cheaper person)

What can you do?

Take this from me. People don’t really need an expert, when all the expert does is supply templates. And even if they don’t tell on face, here is the truth: they do not value him. What can you do? You can be remarkable; you can be human by remembering a simple rule. The template is for you, try not sending the template (email is another evil, but that’s off-topic). Instead pick up the phone and ask them the same questions as if you genuinely meant to ask them. Call it value add or niche. I tend to call this emotional labor. Of course, emotional labor is not everything, rather a humble start.

We are pleased to have RK Kuppurao, a veteran blogger with 250+ 280+ posts, write a post on this blog. Please encourage him with your comments. – Sukumar & Ganesh

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wenz d lst tym U rED gud eng? dont u tnk we ll shd taK mor tym 2 read w@ we read d wA dey shd B? w@ posibly justifies dis crunch of tym, nt 2 mention murdA of lang?

Where have the words gone? Where has the story gone? Where has the context gone?

As opposed to reading a story or have somebody having a plain conversation, we have lost ourselves in the hype of telegraphic communication. As technologies become advanced, sophisticated and affordable, it should allow for relaxed communication. By relaxed, I mean use of analogies, metaphors, comparisons etc…Because it is then possible to live the moment, reflect on your experience of life, reflect on the author’s (or the speaker’s) experience of life, have a “wah” moment and build mutual rapport – either interactive (speaking-listening) or non-interactive (reading).

Instead, we have given ourselves to believing that we don’t have time, words are expensive, story-tellers are boring and have permanently taken on the “cut to the chase” attitude.

SMS for example is great but has made people forget the beauty of words and sentences…kids have forgotten to spell words correctly.

Twitter helps make statements, but you can’t justify your statements, you cannot provide a build-up, you cannot say a story…because 160 is the limit….your urge to shrink your words increases, as the remaining characters approach zero…sometimes when you are done getting the message out of your system and find the remaining characters are “-14”, my gawd – the things we do to trim it down

You might say one shouldn’t be tweeting in that case. Now, who do you think is going to spend time reading a ¾ page blog on it? People want it faster, people want the summary – coz that is the only way they can swallow more. They want to be following 246 people on Twitter and read that many more tweets than read a well-written blog.

If I’d noticed how quickly social media tools became popular, I should know these are not going to change. We are not going to – all of a sudden – adopt a slow movement.

But all I ask of you is this – next time you write something, type “love” instead of “lv”. Next time you write/tell somebody a story, refrain from cutting to the chase. Remember, we are in no great scarcity of words (or time).

Wl U?

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You can read more of RK’s writings on his own blog at kuppurao.com