You're thinking too broad. Think about what this is: a blog post from a CDN company. Who's the main audience? Tech-savvy people. Tech-savvy people will put this on their site that's most likely for tech-savvy people (who in turn have heard of Net Neutrality and hopefully have contacted their Congressperson about it). Any people who work for companies who have substantial traffic from non-tech-savvy people most likely would not be in a position to implement this near-worthless popup.

Face it, unless Google puts something up on their homepage (they won't), nothing's changing.

Your assumption that the audience for Cloudflare's post is "tech-savvy people" is accurate but your follow-up assumption that the websites that these tech-savvy people make are "most likely" for tech-savvy people is obviously incorrect. The website I built for music. Certainly, my users need not be tech savvy to use my site. So if I installed this popup, there is a good chance of showing it to some non-tech people. I would assume that a lot of people that read HN have built products for non-tech people.

So you're saying there's nothing we can do and we should just keep our heads down and pretend nothing's wrong because there's no way we can compete with big companies and lobbying groups.

Good plan, let me know how that works out.

Saying "this is not useful" is not the same as saying "nothing is useful".

Google may not be tech savvy, but I'm sure some of the tech savvy people reading the blog probably have a wife or non-tech-savvy friend who works at Google. Lots of tech savvy people in the value know at least one or two people at Google.

Is anyone else talking about the ice bucket challenge here?

Net Neutraility, Bandwidth saturation & peering link negotiation is far more complicated than what is being presented by this campaign.

I understand you are passionate about the Ice Bucket Challenge, but I'm afraid you have written what is called a "red herring."

> Net Neutraility, Bandwidth saturation & peering link negotiation is far more complicated than what is being presented by this campaign.

Perhaps the complexity is the problem. I'm fairly tech savvy and when I've never heard a clear explanation of the problem and the solution.

There's a very clear problem with A.L.S.: if you get it, you die within a few years. It's not very hard to understand/sympathize with that.

The clearest explanations for the problem of lack of proper net neutrality are two examples:

1. Slower internet. If companies have to pay twice as much to get a proper connection to their customers, a lot of companies won't be able to.

2. A la carte internet. Pay your ISP $5 more a month for a priority connection to Netflix. Save now with our Social Media Bundle! Only $10 a month for access to Facebook and Twitter!

1. Why don't we have this now?

2. Why should ISPs be forced to provide more bandwidth for some companies at the same price? There are already tiers of service at the consumer level. Why not at the content producer level?

1. Why should a company have to pay an ISP they have no business relationship with.

i.e Netflix gets service from Level3, my ISP is Time Warner. Why should Time Warner get money from Netflix?

2. They're not forced to provide more bandwidth to anyone, but they shouldn't be able to restrict bandwidth to an endpoint to shake them down.

Again, I pay Time Warner for a 50Mbit connection, why can Time Warner say what I can use it for?

> Again, I pay Time Warner for a 50Mbit connection, why can Time Warner say what I can use it for?

At any given moment, there's a fixed amount of bandwidth that can enter and exit TW's network: only so much data between consumers and producers can pass through it. Tiers help you get more guaranteed bandwidth: you're buying some of the pipe. Why shouldn't content producers also have the ability to buy a percentage of that pipe?

When you bought more of the pipe, did it slow down someone else's, or did the ISP realize that it could make/compete more by building out its network, i.e. making the pipe bigger?

I realize monopolies can charge whatever for whatever level of service, but this notion that all ISPs must be forced to conduct their business like a regulated utility in all circumstances just baffles me. Local governments and public utilities are a big part of the lack of competition, but net neutrality advocates rarely address that fact.

http://www.wired.com/2013/07/we-need-to-stop-focusing-on-jus...

If Time Warner is selling more bandwidth than they are able to provide, the correct solution is that they upgrade their infrastructure, not 'here's a 50Mbit connection, you'll pay more than the 20Mbit plan, but you get to use 3Mbit, have a nice day.'

> there's a fixed amount of bandwidth

This is being used as a bullshit excuse, and people buy it because they can visualize a set of physical tubes with a fixed width. However, isn't it funny that when Netflix paid off Comcast, they suddenly found enough bandwidth to stop throttling Netflix traffic back. I guess they got right out there and dug another trench for another tube.

Did you buy a connection to the Time Warner Network, or did you buy a connection to the Internet?

If they can't get external data fast enough for supplying your connection, TW has lied to you, and isn't delivering the service you paid for.

Also, interconnection is not in any way analogue to a pipe. It has no reasonable length they have to keep. It's just a matter of joining the 50Mb "pipe" they sold to you with the pipe the other party sold to the site you are accessing.

> If they can't get external data fast enough for supplying your connection, TW has lied to you, and isn't delivering the service you paid for

Is it really possible that everyone who pays for 50Mbit connection can get M0Mbit/sec directly from Netflix??? Is Netflix really capable of pumping that out of their datacenters?

TW lies about bandwidth as does Apple about battery life and performance. It's all about ideal (impractical) conditions and plain 'ol marketing BS that all the ISPs do.

There are already tiers of service at the "producer" level. Companies can buy more bandwidth for their servers just like "consumers". They can also distribute servers around the globe or even co-locate with ISPs. So, each Comcast user pays for their connection, and Netflix also pays for their bandwidth. But now residential ISPs want to charge Netflix again for delivering their data to customers, even though they're already being paid by both ends.

You think anybody that dumped a bucket of ice on their head understands half of the medical science behind ALS? Do you think they honestly needed to? No, they only needed to recognize its importance, and then they further spread awareness and/or donated money to people more qualified than themselves to further champion the cause.

Awareness is the key. Even if people don't understand exactly what it is or why, you have to put it in their face over and over until they take action, whether by inspiration or frustration.