互联网开放平台_开放式互联网的未来以及我们的生活方式掌握在您的手中
互联网开放平台
There are a lot of scary things happening these days, but here’s what keeps me up late at night. A handful of corporations are turning our open internet into this:
这些天发生了很多可怕的事情，但这是让我熬夜的原因。 少数公司正在将我们的开放式互联网转变为：
These corporations want to lock down the internet and give us access to nothing more than a few walled gardens. They want to burn down the Library of Alexandria and replace it with a magazine rack.
这些公司希望封锁互联网，让我们只能进入一些围墙花园。 他们想烧毁亚历山大图书馆，并用杂志架代替。
Why? Because they’ll make more money that way.
为什么？ 因为那样他们会赚更多的钱。
This may sound like a conspiracy theory, but this process is moving forward at an alarming rate.
这听起来像是一个阴谋论，但是这个过程正在以惊人的速度向前发展。
历史在重演。 (History is repeating itself.)
So far, the story of the internet has followed the same tragic narrative that’s befallen other information technologies over the past 160 years:
到目前为止，互联网的故事遵循着过去160年来其他信息技术所遭受的悲剧性叙述：
- the telegram 电报
- the telephone 电话
- cinema 电影
- radio 无线电
- television 电视
Each of these had roughly the same story arc:
这些故事的故事情节大致相同：
- Inventors discovered the technology. 发明人发现了这项技术。
- Hobbyists pioneered the applications of that technology, and popularized it. 业余爱好者开创了该技术的应用，并使其普及。
- Corporations took notice. They commercialized the technology, refined it, and scaled it. 公司注意到了。 他们将该技术商业化，完善并扩展规模。
- Once the corporations were powerful enough, they tricked the government into helping them lock the technology down. They installed themselves as “natural monopolies.” 一旦企业足够强大，他们就会欺骗政府帮助他们锁定技术。 他们将自己设置为“自然垄断”。
- After a long period of stagnation, a new technology emerged to disrupt the old one. Sometimes this would dislodge the old monopoly. But sometimes it would only further solidify them. 在长期停滞之后，出现了一种新技术来破坏旧技术。 有时，这会消除旧的垄断。 但是有时只会进一步巩固它们。
This loop has repeated itself so many times that Tim Wu — the Harvard law professor who coined the term “Net Neutrality” — has a name for it: The Cycle.
这种循环已经重复了很多次，以致于创造了“网络中立性”一词的哈佛大学法学教授Tim Wu为其起了个名字： The Cycle 。
“History shows a typical progression of information technologies, from somebody’s hobby to somebody’s industry; from jury-rigged contraption to slick production marvel; from a freely accessible channel to one strictly controlled by a single corporation or cartel — from open to closed system.” — Tim Wu
“历史记录显示了信息技术从某人的爱好到某人的行业的典型发展； 从陪审团操纵的设备到光滑的生产奇迹； 从开放的渠道到封闭的系统，从免费访问的渠道到由单个公司或卡特尔严格控制的渠道。” —吴添
And right now, we’re in step 4 the open internet’s narrative. We’re surrounded by monopolies.
现在，我们进入开放式互联网的叙述的第4步。 我们被垄断所包围。
The problem is that we’ve been in step 4 for decades now. And there’s no step 5 in sight. The creative destruction that the Economist Joseph Schumpeter first observed in the early 1900s has yet to materialize.
问题是，我们进入第4步已有数十年了。 而且看不到步骤5。 经济学家约瑟夫·熊彼特(Joseph Schumpeter)在1900年代初首次发现的创造性破坏尚未实现。
The internet, it seems, is special. It’s the ultimate information technology — capable of supplanting the telegram, telephone, radio, cinema, television, and much more — and there’s no clear way to disrupt it.
互联网似乎很特别。 它是最终的信息技术-能够取代电报，电话，广播，电影院，电视等等，并且没有明确的方法来破坏它。
But the war for the commanding heights of the internet is far from over. There are many players on this global chess board. Governments. Telecom monopolies. Internet giants like Google and Facebook. NGOs. Startups. Hackers. And — most importantly — you.
但是，争夺互联网制高点的战争还没有结束。 这个全球象棋棋盘上有很多玩家。 政府。 电信垄断。 互联网巨头，例如Google和Facebook。 非政府组织。 初创公司。 骇客。 还有-最重要的是- 您 。
The war for the open internet is the defining issue of our time. It’s a scramble for control of the very fabric of human communication. And human communication is all that separates us from the utopia that thousands of generations of our ancestors slowly marched us toward — or the Orwellian, Huxleyan, Kafkaesque dystopia that a locked-down internet would make possible.
开放互联网之战是我们时代的决定性问题。 这是对人类交流结构的控制。 人与人之间的交流将我们与乌托邦分开了，乌托邦使我们几千代祖先慢慢地朝着乌托邦前进；或者说，奥威尔式，赫x黎式，卡夫卡式反乌托邦可以使封锁互联网成为可能。
By the end of this article, you’ll understand what’s happening, the market forces that are driving this, and how you can help stop it. We’ll talk about the brazen monopolies who maneuver to lock down the internet, the scrappy idealists who fight to keep it open, and the vast majority of people who are completely oblivious to this battle for the future.
到本文结尾，您将了解正在发生的事情，推动这一趋势的市场力量以及如何帮助阻止它。 我们将讨论操纵网络的无耻垄断，为保持开放而奋斗的草率的理想主义者，以及对未来完全不知情的绝大多数人。
In Part 1, we’ll explore what the open internet is and delve into the history of the technological revolutions that preceded it.
在第1部分中，我们将探究开放式互联网是什么，并深入研究开放式互联网之前的技术革命的历史。
In Part 2, we’ll talk about the atoms. The physical infrastructure of the internet. The internet backbone. Communication satellites. The “last mile” of copper and fiber optic cables that provide broadband internet.
在第2部分中，我们将讨论原子。 互联网的物理基础设施。 互联网骨干网。 通信卫星。 提供宽带互联网的铜缆和光缆的“最后一英里”。
In Part 3, we’ll talk about bits. The open, distributed nature of the internet and how it’s being cordoned off into walled gardens by some of the largest multinational corporations in the world.
在第3部分中，我们将讨论位。 互联网的开放性和分布式性质，以及世界上一些最大的跨国公司如何将其封入围墙花园。
In Part 4, we’ll explore the implications of all this for consumers and for startups. You’ll see how you can help save the open internet. I’ll share some practical steps you can take as a citizen of the internet to do your part and keep it open.
在第4部分中，我们将探讨所有这些对消费者和初创企业的影响。 您将看到如何帮助保存开放的互联网。 我将分享一些实用的步骤，您可以作为Internet的公民来发挥自己的作用并保持开放。
This is a long read. So grab a hot beverage and get ready to download a massive corpus of technology history into your brain.
这是一本长篇读物。 因此，抢一杯热饮料，准备将大量的技术历史资料下载到您的大脑中。
第1部分：什么是开放式互联网？ (Part 1: What is the open internet?)
There’s only one word to describe the open internet: chaos.
只能用一个词来描述开放的互联网： chaos 。
The open internet is a cacophony of 3 billion voices screaming over one another. It’s a dusty, sprawling bazaar. And it’s messy. But it has produced some of the greatest art and industry of our time.
开放的互联网上有30亿个声音互相呼应。 这是一个尘土飞扬的集市。 而且很乱。 但这产生了我们时代最伟大的艺术和产业。
The open internet is a Miltonian marketplace of ideas, guided by a Smithian invisible hand of free-market capitalism.
开放的互联网是米尔顿主义的思想市场，由史密斯主义的无价之徒的自由市场资本主义所指导。
The open internet is distributed. It’s owned in part by everyone and in whole by no one. It exists largely outside of the boundaries of governments. And it’s this way by design.
开放的互联网已分发。 它归所有人所有，部分归所有人所有。 它主要存在于政府边界之外。 设计就是这样。
This reflects the wisdom of Vint Cerf, Bob Khan, J. C. R. Licklider, and all the wizards who stayed up late and pioneered the internet. They had seen the anti-capitalist, corporatists fate that befell the telegram, the telephone, the radio, and the TV. They wanted no part of that for their invention.
这反映了Vint Cerf，Bob Khan，JCR Licklider以及所有熬夜并开拓互联网的巫师的智慧。 他们看到电报，电话，广播和电视之间的反资本主义，法团主义的命运。 他们不需要他们的发明。
The open internet is a New Mexico Quilter’s Association. It’s a Jeremy Renner fan club. It’s a North Carolina poetry slam. It’s a Washington D.C. hackerspace. It’s a municipal website for Truckee, California. It’s a Babylon 5 fan fiction website.
开放的互联网是新墨西哥州的棉被协会 。 这是杰里米·雷纳(Jeremy Renner)的粉丝俱乐部 。 这是北卡罗来纳州的诗歌大满贯 。 这是华盛顿特区的黑客空间 。 这是加利福尼亚特拉基的市政网站 。 这是巴比伦5粉丝小说网站 。
The open internet is a general purpose tool where anyone can publish content, and anyone can then consume that content. It is a Cambrian Explosion of ideas and of execution.
开放式互联网是一种通用工具，任何人都可以发布内容，然后任何人都可以使用该内容。 这是思想和执行力的寒武纪爆炸。
Can these websites survive in a top-down, command-and-control closed internet? Will they pay for “shelf space” on a cable TV-like list of packages? Will they pay for a slice of attention in crowded walled gardens?
这些网站能否在自上而下，命令控制的封闭式互联网中生存？ 他们会在类似有线电视的包裹清单上支付“货架空间”吗？ 他们会在拥挤的围墙花园中付出一定的注意力吗？
我们都陷入了循环 (We’re all trapped in The Cycle)
Here’s a brief history of the information technologies that came before the internet, and how quickly corporations and governments consolidated them.
这是互联网出现之前的信息技术的简要历史，以及公司和政府如何Swift整合它们。
Originally anyone could string up some cable, then start tapping out Morse Code messages to their friends. The telegram was a fun tool that had some practical applications, too. Local businesses emerged around it.
最初，任何人都可以拉线，然后开始将莫尔斯电码消息发送给他们的朋友。 电报是一个有趣的工具，也有一些实际应用。 围绕它出现了当地企业。
That changed in 1851 when Western Union strung up transcontinental lines and built relay stations between them.
1851年，西联汇款公司(Western Union)架设了跨大陆线，并在它们之间建立了中继站，这种情况发生了变化。
If small telegraph companies wanted to be able to compete, they needed access to Western Union’s network. Soon, they were squeezed out entirely.
如果小型电报公司希望能够竞争，则需要访问Western Union的网络。 很快，他们被完全挤出了。
At one point Western Union was so powerful that it was able to single-handedly install a US President. If you grew up in America, you may have memorized this president’s name as a child: Rutherford B. Hayes.
一方面，西联汇款(Western Union)如此强大，以至于可以单手任命一位美国总统。 如果您在美国长大，您可能已经记住了小时候这位总统的名字：卢瑟福·海斯(Rutherford B. Hayes)。
Not only did Western Union back Hayes’ campaign financially, it also used its unique position as the information backbone for espionage purposes. It was able to read telegrams from Hayes’ political opponents and make sure Hayes was always one step ahead.
Western Union不仅在经济上支持了Hayes的竞选活动，而且还利用其独特的地位作为间谍活动的信息Struts。 它能够读取海耶斯政治对手的电报，并确保海耶斯始终领先一步。
Western Union’s dominance — and monopoly pricing — would last for decades until Alexander Graham Bell disrupted its business with his newly-invented telephone.
Western Union的主导地位和垄断定价将持续数十年，直到Alexander Graham Bell用他新发明的电话中断了其业务。
电话如何成为The Cycle的受害者 (How the telephone fell victim to The Cycle)
After a period of party lines and local telephone companies, AT&T — backed by JP Morgan — built a network of long-distance lines throughout America.
经过一段时间的聚会电话和当地电话公司之后，在摩根大通(JP Morgan)的支持下，AT＆T在整个美国建立了长途电话网络。
In order for the customers of local phone companies to be able to call people in other cities, those companies had to pay AT&T for the privilege of using its long-distance network.
为了使本地电话公司的客户能够拨打其他城市的电话，这些公司必须向AT＆T支付使用其长途网络的特权。
Theodore Vail — a benevolent monopolist if there ever was one — thought that full control of America’s phone systems was the best way to avoid messy, wasteful capitalistic competition. He argued that his way was better for consumers. And to be fair, it was. At least in the short run.
西奥多·维尔(Theodore Vail)是一个仁慈的垄断者(如果有的话)，认为完全控制美国的电话系统是避免混乱，浪费的资本主义竞争的最佳方法。 他认为自己的方式对消费者来说更好。 公平地说，是的。 至少在短期内。
Vail was able to use AT&T’s monopoly profits to subsidize the development of rural phone lines. This helped him rapidly connect all of America and unify it under a single standardized system.
韦尔能够利用AT＆T的垄断利润来补贴农村电话线的发展。 这帮助他Swift联系了全美国，并在一个统一的标准化系统下实现了统一。
But the problem with benevolent monopolists is they don’t live forever. Sooner or later, they are replaced by second-generation CEOs, who often lack any of their predecessors’ idealism. They are only after one thing — the capitalist’s prerogative — maximizing shareholder value. That means making a profit, dispersing dividends, and beating quarterly earnings projections. Which means extracting as much money from customers as possible.
但是，仁慈的垄断者所面临的问题是它们不会永远存在。 迟早，他们会被第二代CEO所取代，而他们通常缺乏前任的理想主义。 他们只是在一件事情之后-资本家的特权-使股东价值最大化。 这意味着要获利，分散股息并超过季度收益预测。 这意味着从客户那里提取尽可能多的钱。
AT&T eventually squeezed out their competitors completely. And once AT&T’s monopoly became apparent, the US Government took action to regulate it. But AT&T was much smarter than its regulators, and jumped on an opportunity to become a state-sponsored “natural monopoly.”
AT＆T最终完全挤出了竞争对手。 一旦AT＆T的垄断变得显而易见，美国政府便采取行动对其进行监管。 但是，AT＆T比其监管机构要聪明得多，并抓住了一个机会，成为了国家赞助的“自然垄断”。
AT&T would enjoy monopoly profits for decades before being broken up by the FCC in 1982.
在1982年被美国联邦通讯委员会(FCC)分解之前，AT＆T将享有数十年的垄断利润。
But the “baby bells” wouldn’t stay divided for long. In 1997, they were able to start merging back together into a corporation even bigger than before the break-up.
但是“婴儿铃”不会长时间保持分裂。 1997年，他们能够开始合并回一家比分拆之前更大的公司。
The end result is one of the most powerful corporations on the planet — strong enough to expand its monopoly from the land-line telephone industry to the emerging wireless telecom industry.
最终结果是地球上最强大的公司之一-强大到足以将其垄断从陆线电话行业扩展到新兴的无线电信行业。
AT&T functioned like a branch of government and had extensive research labs, but with one major exception — it could keep secret any inventions that it perceived as a threat to its core business.
AT＆T的职能像政府部门一样，并拥有广泛的研究实验室，但有一个主要例外-它可以将被视为对其核心业务构成威胁的任何发明保密。
Voicemail — and digital tape, which was later used as a critical data storage medium for computers — was actually invented within one of AT&T’s labs in 1934. But they buried it. It was only re-invented decades later.
语音邮件和数字磁带后来被用作计算机的重要数据存储介质，实际上是1934年在AT＆T的一个实验室中发明的。 几十年后才被重新发明。
Imagine how much progress the field of information technology could have made during that length of time with such a reliable and high-volume data storage medium at its disposal.
想象一下，使用这样一种可靠，大容量的数据存储介质，在这段时间内信息技术领域可以取得多大的进步。
To give you some idea of how much just this one AT&T decision may have cost humanity, imagine that a corporation purposefully delayed the introduction of email by a decade. What would be the total impact on the productivity of society? How many trillions of dollars in lost economic activity would such an action cost us? This is the cautionary tale of what happens when you leave scientific research and development to private industry instead of public labs and universities.
为了让您对这一个AT＆T决定可能造成多少人为损失有所了解，请想象一家公司故意将电子邮件的引入延迟了十年。 对社会生产力的总影响是什么？ 这种行动会使我们损失多少万亿美元的经济活动？ 这是一个警示性的故事，说明当您将科学研究与开发交给私营企业而不是公共实验室和大学时会发生什么。
You can still feel the legacy of AT&T’s monopoly when you call an older person from out of state. They will instinctively try to keep the call as short as possible, because they want to avoid the massive long distance fees historically associated with such calls, even though these no longer apply.
当您从州外打电话给老人时，您仍然可以感受到AT＆T垄断的遗产。 他们本能地尝试使通话尽可能短，因为他们希望避免历史上与此类通话相关的大量长途费用，即使这些费用不再适用。
I thought this was just my grandmother, but it’s everyone’s grandmother. Entire generations have been traumatized by AT&T’s monopolistic pricing.
我以为这只是我的祖母，但这是每个人的祖母。 AT＆T的垄断定价使整整一代人深受其害。
电影院如何成为《 The Cycle》的受害者 (How cinema fell victim of The Cycle)
Shortly after the invention of cinema, we had thousands of movie theaters around the US showing a wide variety of independently-produced films on all manner of topics. Anyone could produce a film, then screen it at their local theater.
在电影院发明之后不久，我们在美国有成千上万的电影院，放映各种主题各样的独立制作的电影。 任何人都可以制作电影，然后在当地剧院放映。
That changed when Adolf Zukor founded Paramount Pictures. He pioneered the practice of “block booking.” If small independent theaters wanted to screen, say, the newest Mae West film, they would also need to purchase and screen a bunch of other lessor films.
当阿道夫·祖科(Adolf Zukor)创立派拉蒙影业(Paramount Pictures)时，情况发生了变化。 他开创了“批量预订”的惯例。 如果小型独立剧院想要放映(例如，最新的湄西电影)，他们还需要购买和放映其他出租电影。
This took away theater owners’ status as local tastemakers, and removed their ability to cater to their own local demographics. The result was the commoditization of movie theaters, and ultimately the rise of blockbuster cinema.
这取消了剧院主人作为当地品味制造者的地位，并取消了他们迎合自己当地人口统计的能力。 结果是电影院的商品化，并最终引起了轰动一时的电影院的兴起。
电台如何成为《 The Cycle》的受害者 (How radio fell victim to The Cycle)
Shortly after Marconi — or Tesla — invented the radio, a massive hobbyist movement sprung up around it. There were thousands of local radio stations playing amateur programs.
马可尼( 或特斯拉 )发明了收音机后不久，一场庞大的业余运动在其周围兴起。 有成千上万的当地广播电台播放业余节目。
In stepped David Sarnoff as the head of the Radio Corporation of America (RCA). He was perhaps the most Machiavellian CEO of the 20th century.
大卫·萨诺夫(David Sarnoff)出任美国无线电公司(RCA)负责人。 他也许是20世纪最马基雅维利人的首席执行官。
At the time, RCA was making parts for radio. Conventional thinking at the time was that RCA should focus on hardware, and getting as many radio stations running and as many radios into homes as possible. But Sarnoff realized that the real money was in content. He helped popularize the National Broadcast Corporation (NBC) and focused instead on making money through advertisements.
当时，RCA正在制造收音机零件。 当时的常规想法是，RCA应该专注于硬件，并尽可能多地运行广播电台和尽可能多的广播。 但是Sarnoff意识到真正的钱才是内容。 他帮助普及了国家广播公司(NBC)，并专注于通过广告赚钱。
Then Sarnoff approached the Federal Radio Commission — now the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) — and convinced them that since the radio spectrum was a scarce commodity, they should carve it up and issue licenses.
然后，萨尔诺夫向联邦无线电委员会(现为联邦通信委员会(FCC))求助，并说服他们，因为无线电频谱是稀缺商品，因此他们应认真考虑并签发许可证。
Soon, NBC was available in every home, and the local hobbyist radio stations were squeezed off the air. RCA was now vertically integrated — from the parts in the radio stations, to the parts in consumer radios, to the content being broadcast itself.
很快，每个家庭都可以看到NBC，当地的业余广播电台也被挤掉了。 现在，RCA是垂直集成的-从广播电台的各个部分到消费无线电的各个部分，再到广播本身的内容。
Sarnoff had talked with the inventors of TV, and knew that it would eventually disrupt radio. But he had a plan. To claim the invention of television for himself.
萨诺夫曾与电视的发明者进行过交谈，并且知道电视最终会破坏广播。 但是他有一个计划。 为自己主张电视的发明。
电视如何成为《 The Cycle》的受害者 (How TV fell victim to The Cycle)
TV is different from other forms of technology here, in that it didn’t enjoy a hobbyist stage. With the help of the FCC, Sarnoff and RCA immediately locked TV down. The result was several decades where Americans had just three channels to choose from — NBC, CBS, and ABC.
电视与此处的其他技术形式不同，因为它没有享受业余爱好。 在FCC的帮助下，Sarnoff和RCA立即锁定了电视。 结果是几十年来，美国人只有三种渠道可供选择-NBC，CBS和ABC。
This was the height of mass culture — half of all Americans watching the same episode of I Love Lucy at the same time. The popularity of television — combined with the lack of diversity in programming caused by this monopoly — had social and political consequences that haunt us to this day.
这就是大众文化的高度-一半的美国人同时观看同一集《我爱露西》。 电视的普及，再加上这种垄断导致节目缺乏多样性，给社会和政治带来了困扰，直到今天。
开放的互联网会成为The Cycle的受害者吗？ (Will the open internet fall victim to The Cycle?)
We’ve gone through the invention step. The infrastructure came out of DARPA and the World Wide Web itself came out of CERN.
我们已经完成了发明步骤。 基础设施来自DARPA，万维网本身来自CERN。
We’ve gone through the hobbyist step. Everyone now knows what the internet is, and some of the amazing things it’s capable of.
我们经历了爱好者的一步。 现在，每个人都知道互联网是什么，以及它能够提供的一些令人惊奇的功能。
We’ve gone through the commercialization step. Monopolies have emerged, refined, and scaled the internet.
我们已经经历了商业化步骤。 垄断已经出现，完善并扩展了互联网。
But the question remains: can we break with the tragic history that has befallen all prior information empires? Can this time be different?
但是问题仍然存在：我们能打破所有先前信息帝国所遭受的悲惨历史吗？ 这次可以不同吗？
第2部分：原子之战 (Part 2: The War for Atoms)
“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” — Arthur C. Clarke’s Third Law
“任何足够先进的技术都无法与魔术区分开。” -亚瑟·克拉克的第三定律
As much as we may think of the internet as a placeless realm of pure abstractions, it has a physical structure. It’s not magic. And more people are waking up to this reality each day.
正如我们可能将Internet视为纯抽象的无处境境一样，它具有物理结构。 这不是魔术。 每天都有越来越多的人意识到这一现实。
The internet is a series of copper and fiber optic cables that burrow through the ground and tunnel under oceans. We call this the Internet Backbone. Here’s what it looks like:
互联网是一系列的铜缆和光缆，穿过海底的地面和隧道。 我们称其为互联网骨干网。 看起来是这样的：
The internet is then further distributed through regional backbones. Here’s all the fiber that carries internet data around the United States. Red squares represent the junctions between “long haul” fibers.
然后通过区域骨干网进一步分发Internet。 这是在美国各地传输互联网数据的所有光纤。 红色方块代表“长距离”光纤之间的连接点。
互联网的隐形主力：骨干提供商 (The invisible workhorses of the internet: backbone providers)
Six major companies control the backbone, and they “hand off” traffic from one another without any money exchanging hands:
六家主要的公司控制着主干网，它们彼此之间“相互传递”流量，而无需进行任何金钱交换：
- Level 3 Communications 三级沟通
- Telia Carrier 电信运营商
- NTT NTT
- Cogent 说服力
- GTT GTT
- Tata Communications. 塔塔通讯。
Within the US, the backbone is mostly controlled by old long distance carriers, including Verizon and AT&T — who also control a two thirds of America’s $200 billion wireless industry.
在美国，骨干网主要由老式长途运营商控制，其中包括Verizon和AT＆T，它们还控制着美国2000亿美元无线产业的三分之二。
These companies “peer” traffic through backbone connections controlled by other companies, or pay each other through “transit agreements.”
这些公司通过由其他公司控制的骨干连接来“对等”流量，或者通过“转接协议”相互付款。
Despite the involvement of these huge telecoms, the internet backbone represents a fairly healthy market. About 40% of the internet’s backbone is controlled by smaller networks you’ve never heard of.
尽管这些大型电信公司参与其中，但互联网骨干网仍代表着一个相当健康的市场。 互联网的骨干网中约40％由从未听说过的较小网络控制。
互联网黑手党：ISP (The mafia of the internet: the ISPs)
The broadband internet market, on the other hand, isn’t healthy at all. This is the “last mile” of cables that plug into the internet backbone. And it’s full of ugly tollbooths, guarded by thick benches of lawyers and lobbyists.
另一方面，宽带互联网市场根本不健康。 这是插入互联网骨干网的“最后一英里”电缆。 这里到处都是丑陋的收费站，被厚厚的律师和游说者围成一排。
This broadband internet market is controlled by just three extremely powerful — and widely hated — internet service providers (ISPs):
这个宽带互联网市场仅由三个功能强大且广受仇视的互联网服务提供商(ISP)控制：
- Cox 考克斯
- Charter (which recently acquired another ISP, Time Warner) Charter(最近收购了另一家ISP，时代华纳)
and the most hated corporation in America, Comcast, which controls 56% of America’s broadband
以及美国最受欢迎的公司康卡斯特(Comcast)，后者控制着美国56％的宽带
Another form of ISPs are the wireless providers:
ISP的另一种形式是无线提供商：
- AT&T 美国电话电报公司
- Verizon (formerly part of AT&T) Verizon(以前是AT＆T的一部分)
These two providers control 2/3rd of the wireless market. If you have a mobile phone, there’s a good chance you pay one of these companies every month for your data plan.
这两个提供商控制着无线市场的2 / 3rd。 如果您有手机，则很有可能每月要为这些公司的数据套餐付费。
These ISPs control millions of miles of copper cables that they buried in the ground back in the 1970s, and satellites they shot up into orbit in the 1990s. They constantly break the law, tie up regulators in lengthy court battles, and make it practically impossible for anyone — even Google — to enter their markets.
这些ISP控制着1970年代埋在地下的数百万英里的铜缆，以及1990年代发射到轨道的卫星。 他们不断打破 的 规律 ，在旷日持久的诉讼战占用监管机构，并使其几乎不可能对任何人-即使是谷歌-进入他们的市场。
The ISPs do all this for one reason and one reason alone: so they can avoid free market competition — and the expensive technology upgrades it would require — while they continue raking in their monopoly rents from the 2/3 of Americans who only have one choice in their neighborhood for broadband internet.
ISP仅出于一个原因和一个原因进行所有这些操作：因此，他们可以避免自由市场竞争以及需要昂贵的技术升级，同时他们继续从只有三分之二的美国人中夺取垄断租金在他们附近的宽带互联网。
For the past two years, the public had a weapon against these ISPs. It’s not one that can mortally wound them , but it has helped beat back their monopolistic tendencies. It’s called Net Neutrality.
在过去的两年中，公众拥有针对这些ISP的武器。 这不是可以致命地伤害他们的人，但是它有助于遏制他们的垄断倾向。 这称为网络中立性。
净中性如何工作 (How Net Neutrality works)
The story of ISPs basically comes down to this: They used to make a ton of money off of cable packages. But people discovered that once they had the internet, they didn’t care about cable TV any more — they just wanted data plans and so they could watch YouTube, Netflix, or whatever shows they wanted — and they could also consume a lot of non-video content, too.
ISP的故事基本上可以归结为这一点：他们过去从电缆包装中赚了很多钱。 但是人们发现，一旦拥有互联网，他们就不再关心有线电视了，他们只是想要数据计划，因此他们可以观看YouTube，Netflix或任何他们想要的节目，而且他们还可能消耗大量的非电视节目。 -视频内容。
The ISPs don’t make nearly as much selling you a data plan as they used to make selling you a cable plan, though. So their goal is to return to the “good old days” by locking down the internet into “channels” and “bundles” then forcing you to buy those.
但是，ISP向您出售数据计划所获得的收益远不如向您出售电缆计划所产生的收益。 因此，他们的目标是通过将互联网锁定为“渠道”和“捆绑销售商品”，然后强迫您购买这些产品，从而回到“过去的美好时光”。
How do we prevent this? The good news is that we already have. In 2015, the FCC passed a law that regulated ISPs as utilities. This is based on the principle of “Net Neutrality” which basically states that all information passing through a network should be treated equally.
我们如何防止这种情况？ 好消息是我们已经有了。 2015年，FCC通过了一项法律，将ISP定义为公用事业。 这是基于“网络中立性”的原则，该原则基本上规定，通过网络的所有信息都应得到同等对待。
As part of its 2015 decision on Net Neutrality, the FCC asked for public comment on this topic. 3 million Americans wrote to the FCC. Less than 1% of those people were opposed to Net Neutrality.
作为其2015年关于网络中立性的决定的一部分，FCC要求对此主题进行公众评论。 300万美国人写信给FCC。 这些人中只有不到1％反对网络中立。
After a hard fought battle against telecoms, we convinced the FCC to enshrine Net Neutrality into law.
经过与电信公司的艰苦奋斗之后，我们说服FCC将“网络中立性”纳入法律。
The FCC’s Title II regulation created three “bright lines” that prevent ISPs from doing the following:
FCC的Title II法规创建了三个“亮线”，阻止ISP进行以下操作：
- Blocking content from websites 阻止网站内容
- Slowing down content from websites 放慢网站内容
- Accepting money from websites to speed up their content 从网站接受资金以加快其内容
These rules made it so that no matter how rich and powerful a corporation is — and Apple and Google are the biggest corporations on Earth, and Microsoft and Facebook aren’t far behind — they can’t buy priority access to the internet.
这些规则使之成为可能，无论一家公司多么富有和强大(苹果和谷歌是地球上最大的公司，微软和Facebook也不落后)，他们都无法购买对互联网的优先访问权。
Everyone has to compete on a level playing field. These tech conglomerates have to compete with the scrappy startups, the mom-and-pop businesses, and even independent bloggers who are running WordPress on their own domain.
每个人都必须在一个公平的竞争环境中竞争。 这些高科技企业集团必须与草率的初创企业，母子生意，甚至在自己的域上运行WordPress的独立博客作者竞争。
Nobody is above Net Neutrality. It’s as simple a tool as possible for protecting the capitalist free market internet from monopolies who would otherwise abuse their power.
没有人能超越网络中立性。 这是一种尽可能简单的工具，可以保护资本主义自由市场互联网免受原本会滥用其权力的垄断者的侵害。
Now ISPs are treated like a utility. How are the packets being routed through a network different from the water being piped through the ground, or the electricity flowing through a power grid?
现在，ISP被视为实用程序。 数据包通过网络路由的方式与流经地面的水或流经电网的电力有何不同？
The water company shouldn’t care whether you’re turning on a tap to wash dishes or to take a shower.
自来水公司不在乎您是否要打开水龙头来洗碗或洗澡。
The power company shouldn’t care whether you’re plugging in a TV or a toaster.
电力公司不在乎您是要插入电视还是烤面包机。
The ISPs shouldn’t care what data you want or what you use it for.
ISP不在乎您想要什么数据或将其用于什么。
The reason ISPs want to get rid of Net Neutrality is simple: if we stop treating them like the utility that they are, they can find ways to charge a lot more money.
ISP希望摆脱网络中立性的原因很简单：如果我们不再像对待公用事业那样对待它们，他们就会找到收取更多费用的方法。
Here’s the former CEO of AT&T laying out his evil plan:
这是AT＆T的前首席执行官，他制定了他的邪恶计划：
“Now what they would like to do is use my pipes free, but I ain’t going to let them do that because we have spent this capital and we have to have a return on it. So there’s going to have to be some mechanism for these people who use these pipes to pay for the portion they’re using. Why should they be allowed to use my pipes? The Internet can’t be free in that sense, because we and the cable companies have made an investment and for a Google or Yahoo! or Vonage or anybody to expect to use these pipes [for] free is nuts!” — Edward Whitacre, AT&T CEO
“现在他们想做的是免费使用我的管道，但是我不会让他们这样做，因为我们已经花掉了这笔资本，并且必须获得回报。 因此，对于使用这些管道支付所用部分的人来说，将需要某种机制。 为什么要允许他们使用我的管道？ 从这个意义上说，互联网不可能是免费的，因为我们和有线电视公司已经投资了Google或Yahoo!。 或Vonage或希望免费使用这些管道的任何人都是疯子！” — AT＆T首席执行官Edward Whitacre
What he should certainly realize is that everyone is already paying for internet access. You’re paying to be able to access this article. I’m paying to push this article up onto the internet. This website is paying to send the traffic from its servers over to your computer.
他当然应该意识到，每个人都已经为互联网访问付费。 您需要付费才能访问本文。 我付钱将这篇文章推上互联网。 该网站需要付费将流量从其服务器发送到您的计算机。
We have all already paid to use these ISP’s last mile of cables. No one is using these pipes for free.
我们都已经付费使用这些ISP的最后一英里电缆。 没有人免费使用这些管道。
But the ISPs see an opportunity to double dip. They want to charge for bandwidth, and also charge websites what the Mafia calls “protection money.” They essentially want to be able to say to website owners: “Those are some lovely data packets you’ve got there. It sure would be a shame if they got lost on their way to your users.”
但是ISP看到了双底的机会。 他们想对带宽收费，也要对黑手党称为“保护费”的网站收费。 他们本质上希望能够对网站所有者说：“这些都是您到那里的一些可爱的数据包。 如果他们迷失在通往用户的途中，那肯定是一种耻辱。”
Of course, most of the open internet couldn’t afford to pay this “protection money” to ISPs, so the ISPs would block traffic to their websites, cutting consumers off from most of the open internet. But the ISPs wouldn’t need to block these websites. All the ISPs would need to do is introduce a slight latency.
当然，大多数开放式互联网都负担不起向ISP支付这笔“保护费”，因此ISP会阻止访问其网站的流量，从而使消费者脱离大多数开放式互联网。 但是ISP不需要阻止这些网站。 ISP所需要做的就是引入轻微的延迟。
Both Google and Microsoft have done research that shows that if you slow down a website by even 250 milliseconds — about how long it takes to blink your eyes — most people will abandon that website.
Google和Microsoft都进行了研究，结果表明，如果您将网站速度降低甚至250毫秒(大约需要眨眼的时间)，大多数人都会放弃该网站。
That’s right — speed isn’t a feature, it’s a basic prerequisite for attracting an audience. We humans are extremely impatient and becoming more so with each passing year.
没错-速度不是功能，它是吸引受众的基本前提。 我们人类极度不耐烦，并且日新月异。
This means that in practice, if an ISP artificially slows down a website, it’s practically as damaging as blocking the site entirely. Both of these acts result in the same outcome — a severe loss of traffic.
这意味着在实践中， 如果ISP人为地降低网站速度，则实际上与完全阻止该网站一样有害。 这两种行为都会导致相同的结果-交通严重损失。
Traffic is the lifeblood of websites. Without traffic, merchandise doesn’t get sold. Services don’t get subscribed to. Donations don’t get made.
流量是网站的生命线。 没有交通，商品就不会出售。 服务未订阅。 捐款不兑现。
Without traffic, the open web dies — whether ISPs block it or not.
没有流量，开放的网络就会死掉-无论ISP是否阻止它。
ISP已对网络中立性发起全面攻击 (The ISPs have launched an all-out assault on Net Neutrality)
With January’s change in US administration and the election of our 45th president, the FCC has changed as well.
随着一月份美国政府的换届以及我们第45届总统的当选，FCC也发生了变化。
The FCC Chairman Ajit Pai — a former Verizon lawyer — is now in control of the only regulator that the ISPs answer to. And here’s a direct quote from him:
FCC主席，前Verizon律师Ajit Pai现在控制着ISP负责回答的唯一监管机构。 这是他的直接报价：
“We need to fire up the weed whacker and remove those rules that are holding back investment, innovation and job creation.” — FCC Chairman Ajit Pai
“我们需要解雇杂草重击者，并删除那些阻碍投资，创新和创造就业机会的规则。” — FCC主席Ajit Pai
The ISPs won’t reinvest their “protection money” in infrastructure. They already have incredible monopoly profits. Here’s their net income (after-tax profits) from 2016:
ISP不会将其“保护资金”再投资于基础设施。 他们已经有了不可思议的垄断利润。 这是他们从2016年开始的净收入(税后利润)：
- AT&T: $16 billion AT＆T：160亿美元
- Verizon: $13 billion Verizon：130亿美元
- Comcast $8 billion 康卡斯特(Comcast)80亿美元
- Charter $8 billion 包机80亿美元
They have plenty of profit they could claw back into improving infrastructure. They’re choosing instead to disperse this money to shareholders.
他们有大量利润可以收回来改善基础设施。 他们选择改为将这笔钱分配给股东。
In just two months, Chairman Pai has already done incredible damage to Net Neutrality. He dropped Zero Rating lawsuits against four monopolies who were in clear violation of Net Neutrality law. Now Comcast and AT&T can continue to stream their own video services without them counting toward customers’ data caps, and there’s nothing the FCC will do about it.
在短短两个月的时间里，Pai主席已经对网络中立性造成了不可思议的损失。 他放弃了对明显违反《网络中立性》法律的四个垄断企业的零评级诉讼。 现在，Comcast和AT＆T可以继续流式传输自己的视频服务，而无需考虑客户的数据上限，FCC对此无能为力。
Former FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler did his best to reach out to Chairman Pai and convince him of the virtues of Net Neutrality. The two were scheduled to meet once every two weeks during Wheeler’s last 18 months in office. But Pai cancelled every single one of these meetings.
前FCC主席汤姆·惠勒(Tom Wheeler)竭尽全力与Pai主席取得联系，并说服他实现网络中立的优点。 两人计划在惠勒任职的最后18个月中每两周开会一次。 但是Pai取消了这些会议中的每一次会议。
“You have to have open networks — permissionless innovation. Period. End of discussion. They’re crucial to the future.” — Former FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler
“您必须拥有开放的网络-未经许可的创新。 期。 讨论结束。 它们对未来至关重要。” — FCC前主席汤姆·惠勒
第3部分：位战 (Part 3: The War for Bits)
What does a post Net Neutrality internet look like? Look no further than the Apple App store.
后期网络中立性互联网是什么样的？ Apple App Store别无所求。
There are two million apps in the app store, which shared a total of $28 billion in 2016. Apple takes a 30% commission on every sale, and made $8.4 billion from the app store alone.
应用程序商店中有200万个应用程序，2016年的总销售额为280亿美元。苹果公司每次销售都要收取30％的佣金，仅应用程序商店一项就赚了84亿美元。
Most of the remaining $20 billion goes to just a small handful of mobile gaming companies:
剩余的200亿美元中，大部分流向了少数移动游戏公司：
Most iPhone users download zero apps per month.
大多数iPhone用户每月都会下载零个应用。
The minority who do bother to download new apps don’t end up downloading very many.
愿意下载新应用程序的少数人最终并不会下载太多。
And all 8 of the top apps in the app store are owned by just two corporations: Facebook and Google.
而且，应用程序商店中所有8种顶级应用程序均由两家公司拥有 ：Facebook和Google。
A vast majority of the remaining 2 million apps get very little traffic — and even less money.
剩下的200万个应用程序中，绝大多数都获得很少的流量-甚至更少的钱。
The Apple App Store isn’t a level playing field. It doesn’t resemble the open internet it was built on top of. Instead, it’s an example of a walled garden.
Apple App Store不是一个公平的竞争环境。 它与基于它的开放式互联网不同。 相反，这是一个围墙花园的例子。
Walled gardens look beautiful. They’re home to the most popular flora. But make no mistake, you won’t be able to venture very far in any one direction without encountering a wall.
围墙花园看起来很美。 他们是最受欢迎的植物群的所在地。 但是请不要误会，如果没有碰壁，您将无法在任何一个方向上冒险。
And every walled garden has a gatekeeper, who uproots plants that look like weeds. If you want to plant something in a walled garden, you have to get approval from that gatekeeper. And Apple is one of the most aggressive gatekeepers of all. It keeps out apps that compete with its own interests, and censors apps that don’t mesh with its corporate worldview.
每个围墙花园都有一个看门人，他会把看上去像杂草的植物连根拔起。 如果要在有围墙的花园中种东西，则必须获得该网守的批准。 苹果是最激进的守门人之一。 它排除了与自身利益竞争的应用程序 ，并审查了与公司世界观不符的应用程序 。
围墙花园的简史 (A brief history of walled gardens)
First there was the original walled garden of the internet, AOL.
首先是互联网原始的围墙花园AOL。
20 years later, AOL still has 2 million users paying them $20/month. There’s a lot of money to be made in building walled gardens and trapping users in them.
20年后，AOL仍然有200万用户每月向其支付20美元。 建造带围墙的花园并吸引用户进入这些花园可以赚很多钱。
Then came Yahoo, which wasn’t a walled garden by design, but became one anyway because people were so new to the internet.
然后是雅虎，它不是设计上的围墙花园，而是因为人们对互联网非常陌生而成为一个。
In the late 90s, startups raised money specifically so they could buy banner ads on Yahoo. It was the best way they could reach prospective users.
在90年代后期，初创公司专门筹集了资金，以便他们可以在Yahoo上购买横幅广告 。 这是他们接触潜在用户的最佳方式。
But Yahoo was a candle in the sun compared to the ultimate walled garden: Facebook.
但是与最终的围墙花园相比，雅虎在阳光下却是蜡烛。
A quarter of the people on Earth use Facebook for an average of 50 minutes each day.
地球上有四分之一的人平均每天使用Facebook 50分钟。
And those 50 million people connected to Internet.org that Mark Zuckerberg is bragging about? Those are people from extremely poor countries who were given a choice: they could either pay for the open internet or just get Facebook for free. They chose Facebook.
马克·扎克伯格(Mark Zuckerberg)吹嘘的与Internet.org相连的5000万人呢？ 这些人来自极端贫困的国家，可以选择：他们可以为开放的互联网付费，也可以免费获得Facebook。 他们选择了Facebook。
The insidiously-named Internet.org was famously rejected in India — among other countries — where activists were able to raise awareness about all the things Indians would give up by accepting Facebook instead of the open internet.
阴险命名的Internet.org 在印度以及其他国家(地区) 遭到拒绝，在那里，活动家通过接受Facebook而不是开放的互联网，能够提高人们对印度人将放弃的所有事情的认识。
Mark Zuckerberg may mean well, but he’s rapidly destroying the open internet. In his ravenous quest to expand Facebook’s market share, he’s even gone so far as to build a sophisticated censorship tool so that Facebook can appease the governments of countries where it’s currently blocked, like China.
马克·扎克伯格(Mark Zuckerberg)可能很好，但他正在Swift摧毁开放的互联网 。 为了扩大Facebook的市场份额，他疯狂地寻求建立一个完善的审查工具，以便Facebook能够安抚目前被封锁的国家(例如中国)的政府。
And Facebook is just one of several internet corporations who stand to profit from these sort of closed-source, closed-data walled garden platforms.
Facebook只是从这类封闭源，封闭数据的围墙花园平台中获利的几家互联网公司之一。
Here are the 10 largest corporations in the world by market capitalization:
以下是按市值计算的全球十大公司：
- Apple Inc 苹果公司
- Alphabet (Google) 字母(Google)
- Microsoft 微软
- Exxon Mobil 埃克森美孚
- Johnson & Johnson 强生
- General Electric 通用电气
- Amazon.com 亚马逊网
- Facebook 脸书
- Wells Fargo 富国银行
- AT&T 美国电话电报公司
All of them are American-based multinationals. 5 out of 10 of them are internet companies, and one of them is an ISP.
他们都是美国的跨国公司。 其中十分之五是互联网公司，其中之一是互联网服务提供商。
Once you look past the last gasp of the banks and the oil companies, it becomes clear that these internet companies are the new order. They control information. They control the conversation. They control politics. Facebook won the new president the election — even the president and his advisors acknowledge this.
一旦您浏览了银行和石油公司的最后一口气，就可以清楚地看到这些互联网公司是新订单。 他们控制信息。 他们控制对话。 他们控制政治。 Facebook在新总统选举中胜出 ， 甚至总统及其顾问也承认这一点 。
So what makes you think they won’t come to control the very internet they dominate?
那么，是什么让您认为他们不会控制他们统治的互联网呢？
Even as the costs of launching a website fall, the costs of reaching an audience continue to rise.
即使启动网站的成本下降，吸引受众的成本仍在不断上升。
Facebook and Google account for 85% of all new dollars spent on online advertising. Everyone else — newspapers, blogs, video networks — is fighting for crumbs — the 15% that fell from Facebook’s and Google’s mouths.
Facebook和Google占据了在线广告新收入的85％ 。 其他所有人(报纸，博客，视频网络)都在为面包屑而战-15％的损失来自Facebook和Google的口中。
Half of all internet traffic now flows to just 30 websites. The remaining half is thinly spread across the 60 trillion unique webpages currently indexed by Google.
现在 ，所有互联网流量的一半 仅流向30个网站。 剩下的一半几乎分散在Google目前索引的60万亿个独特网页上。
If you’re familiar with the concept of a long tail distribution, you’ll recognize this phenomenon as an extremely fat head with an extremely long, skinny tail.
如果您熟悉长尾巴分布的概念，则会将这种现象识别为头很胖，尾巴又长又瘦的现象。
我们盲目相信科技创始人是仁慈的 (We blindly trust tech founders to be benevolent)
You may think that the Mark Zuckerbergs and the Larry Pages of the world would know better than to abuse their power. But such scandals have happened in the past.
您可能认为世界上的马克·扎克伯格和拉里·佩奇斯会比滥用他们的权力更为了解。 但是，过去曾发生过此类丑闻。
Reddit is one of the most popular websites on the internet. One of its founders recently put the company’s reputation in jeopardy. He admitted that he had modified users’ comments in Reddit’s database — essentially putting words in the mouths of people who were critical of him.
Reddit是互联网上最受欢迎的网站之一。 其一位创始人最近将公司的声誉置于危险之中。 他承认自己已经在Reddit的数据库中修改了用户的评论 -本质上是在批评他的人的口中表达了自己的观点 。
We are not only placing faith in the temperament of the elite handful of tech company founders. We’re also trusting that other actors — who ultimately take over these organizations — will be benevolent. Even when we know that their shareholders — or governments — can force them to be malevolent and do things that go against their users’ interests.
我们不仅对少数高科技公司创始人的性情充满信心。 我们还相信，最终接管这些组织的其他参与者将是仁慈的。 即使我们知道他们的股东(或政府)可以强迫他们恶意，并且做出与用户利益背道而驰的事情。
However you may feel about Mark Zuckerberg and his intentions, know this: Just like the “benevolent monopolist” Theodore Vail, who championed rural access to AT&T in the early 20th century, Mark Zuckerberg will one day retire. And the person who takes over Facebook will not be nearly as forward thinking as he is. Most likely, it will be some finance guy or sales guy who will sell Facebook users — and their Exabytes of data — down the river.
但是，您可能会对马克·扎克伯格及其意图有所了解，要知道：就像20世纪初倡导农村使用AT＆T的“仁慈的垄断者”西奥多·韦尔一样，马克·扎克伯格将有一天退休。 接管Facebook的人不会像他那样具有超前的思维。 最有可能的是，将有一些财务人员或销售人员向下游出售Facebook用户及其Exabytes数据。
通过破坏网络中立性，ISP垄断将我们所有人带入了围墙花园 (By destroying Net Neutrality, the ISP monopolies are herding us all into walled gardens)
If we lose net neutrality, websites that once freely operated on the open internet will face three choices:
如果我们失去网络中立性，曾经在开放式互联网上自由运行的网站将面临三种选择：
- pay ISPs so that their customers can access their website 付费ISP，以便其客户可以访问其网站
- don’t pay ISPs, and plummet into obscurity 不用付ISP的费用，就陷入默默无闻的状态
- become part of a walled garden that is paying ISPs on their behalf 成为围墙花园的一部分，围墙花园代表ISP支付费用
This last option will be the most appealing for most small businesses. They will choose the free option. And in doing so, they’ll hand over to the walled gardens some amount of control over their own websites.
对于大多数小型企业而言，最后一个选项将是最有吸引力的。 他们将选择免费选项。 这样，他们将把对自己网站的控制权移交给围墙花园。
A Google or a Facebook will step in to help ensure that your customers are able to access your business’s website. These walled gardens will pay ISPs on your behalf, and help serve your content on their own domains. But in return, the walled garden could:
Google或Facebook将介入以帮助确保您的客户能够访问您企业的网站。 这些带围墙的花园将代您向ISP付费，并帮助您在自己的域中提供内容。 但是作为回报，围墙花园可以：
- inject ads into your website (probably ads for your competitors) 将广告注入您的网站(可能是竞争对手的广告)
- capture your data and sell it (probably to your competitors) 捕获数据并将其出售(可能出售给竞争对手)
- redirect your customers to the websites of competitors who are willing to pay for your audience 将您的客户重定向到愿意为您的受众付费的竞争对手的网站
Just like with Google ads or Facebook ads, the internet will become a race to see who can pay walled gardens the most money so they can gain access to customers. And most of this will be completely invisible to consumers.
就像使用Google广告或Facebook广告一样，互联网将成为一场竞赛，看看谁可以向围墙花园支付最多的钱，以便他们能够接触到客户。 而其中大多数对于消费者来说是完全看不见的。
There are precedents for all of this.
所有这些都有先例。
Facebook convinced millions of businesses to setup Facebook pages. The companies then spent their own money publicizing their Facebook pages and getting their customers to “like” their pages. Then Facebook pulled a bait-and-switch, and made it so these businesses would have to advertise through Facebook if they wanted to reach their own customers who’d previously liked their pages.
Facebook说服了数百万企业建立Facebook页面。 然后，这些公司用自己的钱来宣传他们的Facebook页面，并让他们的客户“喜欢”他们的页面。 Then Facebook pulled a bait-and-switch, and made it so these businesses would have to advertise through Facebook if they wanted to reach their own customers who'd previously liked their pages.
And here’s what happens when a small nonprofit like freeCodeCamp refuses to pay for Google ads:
And here's what happens when a small nonprofit like freeCodeCamp refuses to pay for Google ads:
Companies with lots of money like this one — which is a subsidiary of Kaplan, one of the largest for-profit education conglomerates on earth — can pay money to Google so they can intercept our users.
Companies with lots of money like this one — which is a subsidiary of Kaplan, one of the largest for-profit education conglomerates on earth — can pay money to Google so they can intercept our users.
And these ads will gradually look less and less like ads. Here’s how Google ads have changed over time to look more and more like normal search results:
And these ads will gradually look less and less like ads. Here's how Google ads have changed over time to look more and more like normal search results:
Now that tiny, green-bordered box with the word “ad” in it is all that distinguishes an advertisement from a legitimate search result. It is perhaps unsurprising that 55% of Google users don’t even recognize the fact that these are ads.
Now that tiny, green-bordered box with the word “ad” in it is all that distinguishes an advertisement from a legitimate search result. It is perhaps unsurprising that 55% of Google users don't even recognize the fact that these are ads .
Eventually walled gardens may converge on something similar to Baidu, China’s largest search engine, which for a long time wasn’t labelling ads at all.
Eventually walled gardens may converge on something similar to Baidu, China's largest search engine, which for a long time wasn't labelling ads at all.
Baidu got into trouble last year after a college student used their search engine to seek treatment for a commonly treatable form of cancer. The student went to a hospital he found at the top of Baidu’s search results.
Baidu got into trouble last year after a college student used their search engine to seek treatment for a commonly treatable form of cancer. The student went to a hospital he found at the top of Baidu's search results.
What the student didn’t know was that that hospital had paid Baidu money to be put at the top of the search results, and that this was in fact an advertisement. But Baidu had deliberately obscured this fact from their users so they could charge more for the ad.
What the student didn't know was that that hospital had paid Baidu money to be put at the top of the search results, and that this was in fact an advertisement. But Baidu had deliberately obscured this fact from their users so they could charge more for the ad.
The hospital proceeded to recommend an expensive and unproven drug instead of the standard — and far cheaper — treatment of surgery and chemotherapy.
The hospital proceeded to recommend an expensive and unproven drug instead of the standard — and far cheaper — treatment of surgery and chemotherapy.
After exhausting his family’s savings of $30,o00 on the ineffective treatment, the 21-year-old student wrote one final essay about his situation and how Baidu had lead him right into the hands of fraudsters. Then he died.
After exhausting his family's savings of $30,o00 on the ineffective treatment, the 21-year-old student wrote one final essay about his situation and how Baidu had lead him right into the hands of fraudsters. Then he died.
This is just a glimpse into the human toll that these walled gardens can inflict upon society. In a walled garden environment where only those who pay money get seen, consumers will face more misinformation, more fraud, and more needless suffering.
This is just a glimpse into the human toll that these walled gardens can inflict upon society. In a walled garden environment where only those who pay money get seen, consumers will face more misinformation, more fraud, and more needless suffering.
Instead of the equalizing force that was the open internet, the rich will get richer and the poor will get poorer. The internet’s promise of economic democratization will fall by the wayside, and we’ll enter yet another age of peasants living under feudal lords.
Instead of the equalizing force that was the open internet, the rich will get richer and the poor will get poorer. The internet's promise of economic democratization will fall by the wayside, and we'll enter yet another age of peasants living under feudal lords.
In the future, our internet could become as locked-down as China's (In the future, our internet could become as locked-down as China’s)
China has the most sophisticated censorship tools in the world. So much so that other authoritarian regimes license the use of these tools to control their own populations.
China has the most sophisticated censorship tools in the world. So much so that other authoritarian regimes license the use of these tools to control their own populations.
1.4 billion Chinese people are trapped in a closed internet, behind the Great Firewall of China.
1.4 billion Chinese people are trapped in a closed internet, behind the Great Firewall of China .
The anti-Net Neutrality agenda that the ISPs are pursuing would require them to use a technique called Deep Packet Inspection. Without looking inside the contents of every packet, it’s impossible for an ISP to decide which packets they want to selectively slow down.
The anti-Net Neutrality agenda that the ISPs are pursuing would require them to use a technique called Deep Packet Inspection. Without looking inside the contents of every packet, it's impossible for an ISP to decide which packets they want to selectively slow down.
This means that in addition to sending packets of data through their networks, ISPs would actually have to look inside each of these packets — and would quite likely record the contents of these packets. It would be expensive, but storing major chunks of the Zettabyte of information the internet generates each year is within the budgets of large corporations and governments.
This means that in addition to sending packets of data through their networks, ISPs would actually have to look inside each of these packets — and would quite likely record the contents of these packets. It would be expensive, but storing major chunks of the Zettabyte of information the internet generates each year is within the budgets of large corporations and governments.
There’s a precedent for this, too. AT&T illegally monitored all of its traffic for years.
There's a precedent for this, too. AT&T illegally monitored all of its traffic for years .
Monitoring internet traffic at this level of detail would make pervasive censorship possible. This is one of the techniques China uses to re-write its history. And it works. Despite the advances in information technology, to this day many Chinese still don’t know that the Tiananmen Massacre happened. And when they do learn of it, it’s ancient history — sapped of most of its perceived relevance.
Monitoring internet traffic at this level of detail would make pervasive censorship possible. This is one of the techniques China uses to re-write its history. 而且有效。 Despite the advances in information technology, to this day many Chinese still don't know that the Tiananmen Massacre happened . And when they do learn of it, it's ancient history — sapped of most of its perceived relevance.
“Ideas are more powerful than guns. We would not let our enemies have guns, why should we let them have ideas.” — Joseph Stalin
“Ideas are more powerful than guns. We would not let our enemies have guns, why should we let them have ideas.” — Joseph Stalin
If the ISPs succeed and the open internet falls, corporations and governments would have a mandate to censor the most powerful communication tool in human history — the internet — in its entirety.
If the ISPs succeed and the open internet falls, corporations and governments would have a mandate to censor the most powerful communication tool in human history — the internet — in its entirety.
Part 4: Who controls the information? Who controls the future? (Part 4: Who controls the information? Who controls the future?)
Whether these corporations are aggregating power through regulatory capture or by amassing exabytes of your data, they are steadily becoming more powerful. They are using their growing cashflow to buy up competitors.
Whether these corporations are aggregating power through regulatory capture or by amassing exabytes of your data, they are steadily becoming more powerful. They are using their growing cashflow to buy up competitors.
This isn’t capitalism — it’s corporatism. Capitalism is messy. It’s wasteful. But it’s much healthier in the long run for society than central planning and governments trying to pick the winners.
This isn't capitalism — it's corporatism . Capitalism is messy. It's wasteful. But it's much healthier in the long run for society than central planning and governments trying to pick the winners.
Capitalism allows for small businesses to enter the arena and actually stand a chance. Corporatism makes that unlikely.
Capitalism allows for small businesses to enter the arena and actually stand a chance. Corporatism makes that unlikely.
If you’ve read this far, I hope you understand the gravity of this situation. This is not speculative. This is really happening. There are historical precedents. There are present-day examples.
If you've read this far, I hope you understand the gravity of this situation. This is not speculative. This is really happening. There are historical precedents. There are present-day examples.
If you do nothing, we will lose the war for the open internet. The greatest tool for communication and creativity in human history will fall into the hands of a few powerful corporations and governments.
If you do nothing, we will lose the war for the open internet. The greatest tool for communication and creativity in human history will fall into the hands of a few powerful corporations and governments.
Without your actions, corporations will continue to lock down the internet in ways that benefit them — not the public.
Without your actions, corporations will continue to lock down the internet in ways that benefit them — not the public.
The good news is that our great grandparents reined in similar monopolies. At the beginning of the 20th century, Americans faced abusive oil, railroad, and meat industry monopolies. We prevailed over them by raising awareness through brave journalism, and by compelling the government to act.
The good news is that our great grandparents reined in similar monopolies. At the beginning of the 20th century, Americans faced abusive oil, railroad, and meat industry monopolies. We prevailed over them by raising awareness through brave journalism, and by compelling the government to act.
Today, our most urgent task at hand is stopping FCC Chairman Ajit Pai from disassembling Net Neutrality.
Today, our most urgent task at hand is stopping FCC Chairman Ajit Pai from disassembling Net Neutrality.
Help us fight this war. Here’s what I’m asking you to do:
Help us fight this war. Here's what I'm asking you to do:
If you can afford to, donate to nonprofits who are fighting for the open internet: Free Press, the ACLU, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and Public Knowledge.
If you can afford to, donate to nonprofits who are fighting for the open internet: Free Press , the ACLU , the Electronic Frontier Foundation , and Public Knowledge .
Educate yourself about the importance of the open internet. Read Tim Wu’s “The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires.” It is by far the best book on this topic.
Educate yourself about the importance of the open internet. Read Tim Wu's “ The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires .” It is by far the best book on this topic.
Contact your representatives and ask them what they’re doing to defend Net Neutrality.
Contact your representatives and ask them what they're doing to defend Net Neutrality.
Share this article with your friends and family. I realize the irony of asking you to use walled gardens to spread the word, but this late in the game, these are the best tools available. Share this article on Facebook or tweet this article.
Share this article with your friends and family. I realize the irony of asking you to use walled gardens to spread the word, but this late in the game, these are the best tools available. Share this article on Facebook or tweet this article .
Only we, the public, can end The Cycle of closed systems. Only we can save the open internet.
Only we, the public, can end The Cycle of closed systems. Only we can save the open internet.
Thank you for reading this, and for caring about the fate of our open internet.
Thank you for reading this, and for caring about the fate of our open internet.
I only write about programming and technology. If you follow me on Twitter I won’t waste your time.
I only write about programming and technology. 如果您在Twitter上关注我，我不会浪费您的时间。
翻译自: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/inside-the-invisible-war-for-the-open-internet-dd31a29a3f08/
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