Stephen Downes

There is a never-ending push from the other side to somehow extract more money from internet users, and typically this involves some sort of metering. Thus we see yet again another in a seemingly endless stream of proposals, this one masked as an 'intelligent' network that "can identify users and the applications used." This would be, in my mind, a Very Bad Thing, and not simply because we'd pay more for access (and don't kid yourself, we would pay more for access, if only to pay for the metering system). But it also endangers the network. I agree with Isenberg: "Price discrimination in the middle of the network is a risk to new app discovery and to free speech. We should keep the network stupid -- and put the 'for what' and "to whom" of price discrimination at the edge."