Via Pajamas Media, I found myself drawn to John Carroll's remarks about the so-called "net neutrality" issue:

Where faster tiered access might affect things, however, is in Google's new video service, the revenue for which will mostly be paid by ads. If broadband providers are allowed to tier access, companies such as Google might have to pay a bit of that money to broadband providers to get themselves onto a faster tier…unless they want end users to pay for the privilege.

That, to my mind, is the crux of the issue. Google and companies that support net neutrality rules (a group that may even include Microsoft, but I am John Carroll, not Microsoft, in case anybody was wondering) want to be able to continue as 18 wheelers who pay the same fees (if any) as standard automobiles, even though their traffic is responsible for most damage to the road. That's one model, and is largely the way things work now, but that doesn't mean it is a fair model.

Fairness aside, the current Internet works for the most part according to de facto net neutrality rules. Why change things? Well, I've already suggested some pragmatic reasons to have different tiers. Video streaming will take up a lot more bandwidth than standard text and image transfer.

Deja Gore?

Again?

Yes, I'm afraid that too much Google and too much Gore have reminded me (all over again) of Gore's video remarks in a speech last fall:

First, as exciting as the Internet is, it still lacks the single most powerful characteristic of the television medium; because of its packet-switching architecture, and its continued reliance on a wide variety of bandwidth connections (including the so-called "last mile" to the home), it does not support the real-time mass distribution of full-motion video.

Make no mistake, full-motion video is what makes television such a powerful medium. Our brains - like the brains of all vertebrates - are hard-wired to immediately notice sudden movement in our field of vision. We not only notice, we are compelled to look. When our evolutionary predecessors gathered on the African savanna a million years ago and the leaves next to them moved, the ones who didn't look are not our ancestors. The ones who did look passed on to us the genetic trait that neuroscientists call "the establishing reflex." And that is the brain syndrome activated by television continuously - sometimes as frequently as once per second. That is the reason why the industry phrase, "glue eyeballs to the screen," is actually more than a glib and idle boast. It is also a major part of the reason why Americans watch the TV screen an average of four and a half hours a day.

It is true that video streaming is becoming more common over the Internet, and true as well that cheap storage of streamed video is making it possible for many young television viewers to engage in what the industry calls "time shifting" and personalize their television watching habits. Moreover, as higher bandwidth connections continue to replace smaller information pipelines, the Internet's capacity for carrying television will continue to dramatically improve. But in spite of these developments, it is television delivered over cable and satellite that will continue for the remainder of this decade and probably the next to be the dominant medium of communication in America's democracy. And so long as that is the case, I truly believe that America's democracy is at grave risk.

The final point I want to make is this: We must ensure that the Internet remains open and accessible to all citizens without any limitation on the ability of individuals to choose the content they wish regardless of the Internet service provider they use to connect to the Worldwide Web. We cannot take this future for granted. We must be prepared to fight for it because some of the same forces of corporate consolidation and control that have distorted the television marketplace have an interest in controlling the Internet marketplace as well. Far too much is at stake to ever allow that to happen.

Father of the Internet forgive me, but I'm too tired to Google for more. . . .

MORE: Tired as I am, an evil contest held by John Hawkins gave me an idea for a hybrid.

But is there any such creature as a Goregoyle?

(Or do such things constitute parody infringement?)