Internet without borders… an utopic goal?
Posted by Adi | Filed under English, Free Software, Planet Ubuntu
I’m starting to feel we are heading toward an Internet where an e-passport will be required for accessing websites outside our country.
Not being a big user of entertainment websites, it was only recently that I found out that countries borders are starting to take shape over Internet. First was the southpark.de website only available in Germany and then Last.fm radio subscription required for people living outside US, UK and Germany. It looks like there are many other similar video and music streaming websites. I’m not saying that access should be free of charge. I am OK with a monthly fee, as long as it is required for all users.
It is sad to see that such actions come from people living in what we call “free and democratic” societies.
I deleted my last.fm account. Feel free to contradict me. I will be happy to discover I am wrong!
November 3rd, 2009 at 10:47
This is not very different from VPN over the internet. It is only that the authentication is done in a more familiar way (browser+http), one usually associated with free access and because of this surprising. The internet infrastructure is a means for various services to be built upon it, and I think such restricted applications - per country not per company this time - are fine. Actually they are related to a company even in such cases, just doing the simplest thing to assure their business is going well. As long as no ISP, government or other authority prevents _all_ websites under a country domain from being accessed I don’t see much threat
I think this is still free
http://www.southparkstudios.com/
also http://grooveshark.com is good even if not similar to last.fm
November 3rd, 2009 at 14:03
IMHO the problem has nothing to do with nationalist / xenophobic / protectionist movements in the given countries. Rather, it is the mismatch between old business models (ie. selling “stuff” to different segments of the market at different prices) and new technology (the Internet where such segmentation is an artificial barrier). Or to put it an other way: the benefit of giving content to us in Romania for example is so minor (in their opinion) to the operators in Germany is so minor, that it doesn’t even cover the cost of the bandwidth / servers.
All is not lost however: I see a large “freemium” movement out there by “new” business who operate without frontiers. In the meantime may I suggest Grooveshar http://hype-free.blogspot.com/2009/11/grooveshark-vip-member.html ?
November 3rd, 2009 at 15:29
VPN are used for accessing privata data, it is like requring a password for accesing your email.
I am not saying this is nationalism.
I was just underlining the requirement of an e-passport (of some sort) for accesing public resources over the Internet.
November 3rd, 2009 at 16:26
What’s wrong with last.fm? I have a paid account and it’s working fine. Although… I prefer grooveshark lately
November 5th, 2009 at 14:42
I totally agree with you. I also deleted my last.fm account when they said they were going to charge just some users, and not others.
I thought to pay, but then I remembered that EVEN IF I PAY the monthly fee, I would be receiving less service than those which are not paying, but happens to live in three specific countries (If you pay, but don’t live in the US, UK or DE, you still don’t get the possibility to stream certain songs directly, without the need to wait for that specific song randomly appears in the station you are listening to, a feature that is available for free in those three countries).
November 5th, 2009 at 16:14
I am not against paid subcription, or feature set.
I am against acknowledging countries borders over Internet.
November 6th, 2009 at 10:45
Europe is supposed to be/become a common market, having websites open only to some EU countries is directly against that. Insanity.
And don’t get me started about how the web was supposed to be open for everybody (”world wide web”).