Comcast throws down gauntlet to residential accounts

[Ted Smith]

On Mon, 2009-08-10 at 23:55 -0500, Scott Bennett wrote:
> On Mon, 10 Aug 2009 15:33:10 -0400 Ted Smith <teddks at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >On Mon, 2009-08-10 at 12:28 -0700, Martin Fick wrote:
> >> If they couldn't do this, to stay competitive, they=20
> >> would charge more money for everyone and you would=20
> >> suffer more. Cheap internet access and "serving" is=20
> >> not some inherent human right, so let's not complain=20
> >> about the price of gas here. ;)  (unless it is to=20
> >> propose ways to make tor use less gas...)
> >>=20
> >> -Martin
> >
> >On the contrary, it was my impression that we are here working on,
> >contributing to, and using Tor because we believe that internet access
> >is a human right. This includes end-to-end connectivity. Pricing a real
> >internet connection (what is being referred to as a "business account"
> >or the like) out of reach of common folk is equivalent to the overt
> >denial of this human right.
> >
> >Am I misinformed here?
> >
>      I believe you are.  Martin is correct in that the surest way to kill
> freedom on the Internet is to apply socialist economics to it.  It is
> probably also the best way to ensure governmental abuses of users of the
> Internet (see, for example, communist China or Cuba and, in the most extreme,
> North Korea, where the Internet doesn't really exist, for all practical
> purposes).

You're conveniently ignoring countries like Sweden, Iceland, Estonia,
where "socialist" Internet policies have resulted in some of the best
environments of digital freedom. In fact, your list appears only to
contain countries that were oppressive and authoritarian *before* the
Internet appeared, and is mostly composed of states which have attempted
to limit Internet access to as few people as possible, if anyone. How do
they exemplify countries with universal access to the Internet?
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