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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.

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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With

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Speaker 1: text style from how stuff works dot com. Hello again, everyone,

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Speaker 1: and welcome to tech stuff. My name is Chris Poulette

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Speaker 1: and I am an editor here at how stuff works

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Speaker 1: dot com. Sitting across from me, as he always does,

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Speaker 1: is senior writer Jonathan Strickland. How do hi there? Oh wait,

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Speaker 1: that's sort of your line, yeah, sort of for hey there, Uh. Today,

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Speaker 1: we thought we would continue our we we've been doing

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Speaker 1: a few podcasts recently about sort of the predecessors of

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Speaker 1: what we think of as the Internet, and we were

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Speaker 1: kind of gonna go along those same lines, something that

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Speaker 1: that that consumers had access to before we had access

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Speaker 1: to the Worldwide Web, and that would be online service providers.

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Speaker 1: That's kind of the collective term for these sort of companies.

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Speaker 1: Online service providers actually were sort of the middle ground,

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Speaker 1: at least the way I think of it, between the

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Speaker 1: older bulletin board services and the Internet when caught on

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Speaker 1: as a commercial entity where people would actually have content

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Speaker 1: that they wanted to sign on um, whereas a bulletin

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Speaker 1: board was sort of a centralized hub where people would

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Speaker 1: log in and log out of for information. UH an

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Speaker 1: online service provider was like that, only much much larger

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Speaker 1: and Um, although you may be going, wait a minute,

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Speaker 1: online service providers, I really don't know anything about what

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Speaker 1: you're talking about. I think you probably have a few

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Speaker 1: coasters sitting around your home that used to belong to,

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Speaker 1: UH at least one of them. Yeah, well, let's let's

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Speaker 1: kind of talk about you know, you can make a

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Speaker 1: good point about how online service providers kind of bridge

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Speaker 1: the gap between the bbs s and and say the

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Speaker 1: current Internet. Um. So, if you think of a BBS,

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Speaker 1: most bbs as were run on a single computer, yes,

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Speaker 1: that had a modem line going connected to it, and

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Speaker 1: often you could only have a single devoted phone line

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Speaker 1: going to that BBS. BBS, by the way, stands for

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Speaker 1: bulletin board system, So if you wanted to access a

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Speaker 1: bulletin board system, you would have to dial into that

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Speaker 1: bulletin board and then you would have, assuming that no

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Speaker 1: one else was already connected to it, you could then

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Speaker 1: go in there, read the message board, maybe play a

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Speaker 1: short game. UM. You might even be limited to a

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Speaker 1: specific amount of time before it automatically kicks you off.

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Speaker 1: So that you don't just just a hog all the

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Speaker 1: time of the system. Right. These were These were small

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Speaker 1: and and usually operated by just one or two dedicated

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Speaker 1: folks who are interested in hosting a service like this.

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Speaker 1: So you wouldn't want to monopolize their the service because

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Speaker 1: then you wouldn't have anything else from anyone else to

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Speaker 1: uh enjoy. You would just be taking up all the time.

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Speaker 1: So these bulletin board services uh systems rather were uh

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Speaker 1: we're fairly primitive now, and online service provider was more

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Speaker 1: like a network. Um. You you actually had a couple

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Speaker 1: of steps here. You would again, you're using a modem,

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Speaker 1: and we're talking about the old dial up modems. So

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Speaker 1: these are modems that are connected to phone lines, and

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Speaker 1: you would use the modem to connect to uh, well,

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Speaker 1: it's a local area connection, you know. You would you

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Speaker 1: would dial into a local connection that would then connect

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Speaker 1: you to the overall network. UM. A lot of the

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Speaker 1: online service providers charged by the minute, or by the

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Speaker 1: hour or or the some of them later on would

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Speaker 1: charge by the month, right right, And UM yeah, basically

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Speaker 1: in this case, if you wanted to sign up for

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Speaker 1: service with an online service provider, UM, you would have

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Speaker 1: hope that they had a node local to you, So

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Speaker 1: they would have a pool what they would call a

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Speaker 1: pool of modems uh, sitting there and say the downtown

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Speaker 1: area of your of the local large city, and you

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Speaker 1: would dial a local number and that would connect you

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Speaker 1: to via their own network to you know, the main servers,

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Speaker 1: and from there you could access the information, right because

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Speaker 1: otherwise you would have to pay twice. You would have

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Speaker 1: to pay once for the phone call, so you're paying

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Speaker 1: the phone operator one one price, and then you're paying

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Speaker 1: the the the operator, the online service provider um and

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Speaker 1: a subscription fee essentially to access their services. Now, these networks,

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Speaker 1: in many ways, especially later on as as they began

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Speaker 1: to evolve, started to resemble what we think of as

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Speaker 1: the Internet, except for one really really important distinction, which

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Speaker 1: is that they all remained independent of each other. Yes,

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Speaker 1: so if you belonged to one online service provider, so

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Speaker 1: let's say compy Serve that was a famous one, right,

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Speaker 1: and then let's say say Chris belongs to copy Serve,

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Speaker 1: but I belong to Prodigy. Now, both of those services

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Speaker 1: did have things like electronic mail for their members, but

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Speaker 1: the members could only email other members of that same service,

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Speaker 1: so I could not email Chris because we would be

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Speaker 1: on two different online service providers. There would not be

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Speaker 1: a crossover there because this is predating the era where

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Speaker 1: the Internet became available to the general public. At this point,

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Speaker 1: the Internet is still really the domain of uh, the

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Speaker 1: universities and the government. Right, I don't want Hopefully nobody

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Speaker 1: paused the podcast to write us an email and tell

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Speaker 1: us no, I had comput Serve and I was allowed

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Speaker 1: to email on the people. Yes, well there are still

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Speaker 1: comput Serve subscribers. That is, the service still exists, but

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Speaker 1: it's no longer an online service provider. Yes, later on,

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Speaker 1: as they became connected to the Internet, you could do this.

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Speaker 1: But what we're talking about is when these services started

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Speaker 1: because uh, compu Serve, for example, was founded in nine nine,

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Speaker 1: which was before way before the Internet actually became a

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Speaker 1: popular service among the you know, uh everyday user. You know, well, yes,

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Speaker 1: in sixty nine, they were still developing the protocols that

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Speaker 1: formed the backbone of the Internet, and the backbone as

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Speaker 1: far as the software site is concerned, at least, yeah,

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Speaker 1: that would allow it to be a major network. Right,

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Speaker 1: there were a few, very few systems connected to our

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Speaker 1: pinet at the time, there wasn't There really was no Internet. Internet. Um,

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Speaker 1: so yeah, we're talking about let's say, okay, so before

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Speaker 1: the Internet has really become a public utility in a way,

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Speaker 1: if you you know, using utility is still kind of misleading,

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Speaker 1: but just to to say that it's open to service

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Speaker 1: service service. So before that you had these private networks.

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Speaker 1: They're all self contained. Now, each private network gave its

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Speaker 1: members access to certain services that again mirror what we

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Speaker 1: find on the Internet, but what you would find on

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Speaker 1: one service would not necessarily be the same as what

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Speaker 1: you would find on another. So for example, if you

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Speaker 1: were a compu Serve customer and you logged in and

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Speaker 1: you wanted to check the news that was available through

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Speaker 1: various articles on copy Serve, it may not be the

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Speaker 1: same selection that you would find if you were a

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Speaker 1: Prodigy Serve customer. That's right. Yeah, a lot of these

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Speaker 1: online service providers had struck deals with different entities for

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Speaker 1: for providing content. Going going back to compu Serve um,

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Speaker 1: they were the hosts for the first online newspaper in

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Speaker 1: the United States, the Columbus Dispatch from Ohio. U signed

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Speaker 1: on in July of n Back when compu Serve had

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Speaker 1: about thirty six hundred total subscribers um, and so you know,

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Speaker 1: they were the they were the ones if you wanted

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Speaker 1: to to read the Columbus Dispatch, that's where you would go.

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Speaker 1: You would go to compu Serve and sign on and

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Speaker 1: uh a lot of other places, a lot of other sorry,

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Speaker 1: a lot of other newspapers signed on with compu Serve

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Speaker 1: after that. But uh, providers like Prodigy and America Online. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's the one we're talking about. With the coasters. Yes,

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Speaker 1: when they would send out lots and lots and lots

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Speaker 1: of disks and people began using them as coasters. People

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Speaker 1: began referring to the discs which they would get, uh

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Speaker 1: numerous discs in the mail and in cereal boxes and

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Speaker 1: in polly bags that came around windows of passing cars.

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Speaker 1: And it was it was crazy, yeah, that people used

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Speaker 1: to refer to them, uh and derisively as coasters. But no,

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Speaker 1: I mean they're basically if you wanted a service, say

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Speaker 1: you wanted subscription to The New York Times, you might

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Speaker 1: not be able to get it with one osp You

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Speaker 1: would have to sign on to another because that's the

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Speaker 1: one that had the content deal in place, which means

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Speaker 1: that you would have to pay another subscription fee to

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Speaker 1: another online service provider and something like we said. Sometimes

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Speaker 1: these early ones were charging by the hour, so you

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Speaker 1: would log on and it would depend not only on

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Speaker 1: how long you stayed on there, but the speed of

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Speaker 1: your modem connection. And these modum connection speeds the dial

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Speaker 1: up ones were incredibly slow compared to broadband connection since

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Speaker 1: almost unimaginably slow for someone who has just started using

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Speaker 1: the Internet recently, because most people, even if you're using

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Speaker 1: a dial up are traveling at blistering speeds compared to

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Speaker 1: the early ones and um and most of the early

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Speaker 1: online service providers were strictly text based because of this.

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Speaker 1: I mean, it wasn't just that you know, graphics would

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Speaker 1: were challenging to to transmit over lines. It's just that

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Speaker 1: the speed of data transmission was so low that it

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Speaker 1: would take forever for you to download a picture. So most,

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Speaker 1: uh most of these were text based at least early on.

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Speaker 1: Only a few would start to develop graphic user interfaces

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Speaker 1: over time, and those graphic user interfaces UH in the

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Speaker 1: late are really in the early nineties were very primitive

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Speaker 1: compared to what you would see today. I mean, the

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Speaker 1: Worldwide Web really has redefined, um, the way that we

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Speaker 1: view interfaces like this, and I think, uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: for someone who is who is probably new to the

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Speaker 1: Internet in the last ten years or so, if you

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Speaker 1: went back to look at some of the interfaces that

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Speaker 1: these OSPs used back in the day, so to speak, um,

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Speaker 1: you would go, are you kidding me? Yeah? No. But

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Speaker 1: for for those of us who grew up during this

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Speaker 1: this time or who were using computers during this time,

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Speaker 1: it was really an exciting time because before then, everything

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Speaker 1: you wanted to do on your computer was was restricted

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Speaker 1: just to your computer, and you would have to go

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Speaker 1: and you would get software and you'd run the software

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Speaker 1: on your computer, but that's it. It was a self

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Speaker 1: contained system and there was no connection to the outside world.

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Speaker 1: The modem broke that door open. And first it broke

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Speaker 1: it open with just having computer to computer communication, which

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Speaker 1: was already revolutionary for those of us who had personal computers,

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Speaker 1: and that's where the Bolton board system kind of grew

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Speaker 1: out of, out of that culture. But getting to the

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Speaker 1: online service provider where suddenly you had access to to

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Speaker 1: content and you didn't have to go out and buy

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Speaker 1: a disk and at the disc into your computer to

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Speaker 1: to look at that content. Yes, you did have to

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Speaker 1: have the software on your computer so that you could

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Speaker 1: access these online service providers. Right. It was essentially a

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Speaker 1: client that you would use that you would dial into

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Speaker 1: something and then everything would be delivered through and you'd

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Speaker 1: be looking at it through the client. But you wouldn't

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Speaker 1: have to say, get go out and get a new,

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Speaker 1: UH encyclopedia type of program in order to see the

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Speaker 1: latest information on stuff. You could log into this online

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Speaker 1: service provider and see it. And at the time this

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Speaker 1: was revolutionary, you know. Before again you would just have

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Speaker 1: to wait till someone published something. You would have to

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Speaker 1: go out and buy it, and then you would look

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Speaker 1: at it locally on your computer. UM. And were you

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Speaker 1: UH or your family UH customers of an online service provider? Um, my,

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Speaker 1: my wife's family. Several of them had actual accounts with

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Speaker 1: OSPs personally. Since I started using the internet in actually

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Speaker 1: I was using bitnet, I should say, UM, I moved

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Speaker 1: directly to the Internet via a shell account. I was

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Speaker 1: using a shell account for a long time, which for

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Speaker 1: for the uninitiated is basically a terminal account where you're

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Speaker 1: typing commands in and UH, I had a Shell account,

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Speaker 1: which is Unix based. I believe on most services anyway,

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Speaker 1: or at the time it was UM until the late nineties,

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Speaker 1: UH so I really hadn't and I went from a

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Speaker 1: Shell account directly to the World Wide Web without going

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Speaker 1: the OSP route right uh Now, as my family actually

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Speaker 1: we were customers of Genie. I s. The General Electric

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Speaker 1: had a web service called Genie and UH Capital g

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Speaker 1: Capital e Yes and Genie UH. It offered things like

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Speaker 1: message boards and offered email. Among Genie users, there were

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Speaker 1: games that you could play. Some of them were like

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Speaker 1: they even had like flight simulators, but they also had

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Speaker 1: the MUDs or multi user dungeons, yes, in which several

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Speaker 1: players could all be playing this this text based adventure

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Speaker 1: game all at the same time. Some of the MUDs

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Speaker 1: would even allow you to interact directly with players in

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Speaker 1: in more meaningful ways than just being able to talk

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Speaker 1: to each other. You could trade items or or even

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Speaker 1: some of them had the primitive player versus player kind

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Speaker 1: of interactions where you could engage in combat with each other.

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Speaker 1: But the reason why we went with Genie specifically was

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Speaker 1: because of their forums were called round tables. Now, Genie

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Speaker 1: happened to be a very popular service among a very

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Speaker 1: niche audience, and that would be science fiction authors. Now,

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Speaker 1: my parents are both science fiction authors. So my father

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Speaker 1: in particular, at the time he was he was the

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Speaker 1: published author. Mom had not written anything with Dad at

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Speaker 1: yet at that point. Um, but Dad was a published

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Speaker 1: science fiction author and used Genie to correspond with other

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Speaker 1: science fiction authors. Um. He was a member of SIFUA,

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Speaker 1: which is Science Fiction Writers of America, and through Genie

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Speaker 1: they could stay in touch with each other in a

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Speaker 1: much more effective way than that, you know, sending letters

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Speaker 1: or or a corresponding and you know traditional methods. So UM,

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Speaker 1: so I actually got familiar with online service providers fairly early. UM.

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Speaker 1: I also learned very early that uh all most of

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Speaker 1: these meant that I could only be on for a

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Speaker 1: very short amount of time because otherwise I would get

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Speaker 1: in trouble for running up the bill. Yeah. Although eventually

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Speaker 1: most of these online service providers UH in order to

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Speaker 1: stay competitive, moved to monthly fees as opposed to hourly

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Speaker 1: fees because um there were a lot of people were

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Speaker 1: getting more and more accustomed to the idea of having

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Speaker 1: unlimited access for a flat rate as opposed to having

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Speaker 1: to pay on an hourly basis. Yes, and back then,

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Speaker 1: of course, unlimited access really didn't mean that much bandwidth still,

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Speaker 1: because we're talking more slee text, some primitive graphics, and

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Speaker 1: really your connection speeds were only so fast anyway, so

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Speaker 1: it wasn't like you were jamming up the networks by

264
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Speaker 1: you know, accessing the the services right right there weren't

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Speaker 1: a lot of there weren't a lot of people uploading

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Speaker 1: and downloading things like, um, movies, music or books, because

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Speaker 1: that would have taken a few years, a long long time.

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Speaker 1: It would have been faster to go out there and

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Speaker 1: recreate the movie from scratch. I think you're probably let's

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Speaker 1: get a cast together. I'm almost certain that's what what

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Speaker 1: those kids who did h Raiders Lust Arc. We're thinking

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Speaker 1: we could download it, but just be faster if we

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Speaker 1: just performed the darn thing. Yep. Um yeah, and and

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Speaker 1: and I basically got my start in the internet world, um,

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Speaker 1: actually working in the Internet world as a sales representative

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Speaker 1: for a national Internet service provider. And one of the

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Speaker 1: very first things this was in ninety six, and one

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Speaker 1: of the very first things that I had to answer

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Speaker 1: for a lot of people was, you know, why should

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Speaker 1: I sign up with you, and they would come from

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Speaker 1: a o L or Prodigy or compute serve, and they

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Speaker 1: didn't understand the difference between an Internet connection, uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: to the Internet itself versus being on one of those services.

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Speaker 1: And to some degree there wasn't a connection. In a

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Speaker 1: lot of cases, the content they wanted it was probably

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Speaker 1: limited to another osp that they didn't have access to,

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Speaker 1: but it wasn't It really wasn't long the mid to

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Speaker 1: late I mean, um, the OSPs put up a good

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Speaker 1: fight for a while because they didn't necessarily their protocols

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Speaker 1: were not t c P I P they they all

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Speaker 1: had a proprietary protocols. Yeah, most of them were packet

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Speaker 1: switching protocols, but it wasn't the same sort of packet

293
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Speaker 1: switching that she's fine and t c P I P R.

294
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Speaker 1: So the thing is they weren't really compatible with information

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Speaker 1: on the Internet. And the thing is, I think it

296
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Speaker 1: wasn't necessarily uh the sps out selling them. I mean

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Speaker 1: a lot of the I s p s offered unlimited

298
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Speaker 1: access around that time. Um, that was unusual for people

299
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Speaker 1: like a o L. But at the same time, there

300
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Speaker 1: was content available from the other services, and I think, uh,

301
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Speaker 1: the OSPs gradually felt pressure to open their networks up

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Speaker 1: to the Internet so that you could get things like

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Speaker 1: US net news and uh, you know, some of the

304
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Speaker 1: web content, because the Worldwide Web and an OSP are

305
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Speaker 1: not the same thing, right, right, So some OSPs started

306
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Speaker 1: to become gateways to the Internet. Yes, so you could

307
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Speaker 1: access both their proprietary content or the content that they

308
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Speaker 1: had partnered with other providers to give to their members,

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Speaker 1: as well as access the wider array of content you

310
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Speaker 1: could find on the Internet, which was almost like open

311
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Speaker 1: just for public consumption, um and so uh, companies like

312
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Speaker 1: a o L and Prodigy in particular, really and even

313
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Speaker 1: compu serve really tried to leverage the sort of uh,

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Speaker 1: this sort of content to to attract people and say, look,

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Speaker 1: you know, yeah, you could go to an I s P,

316
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Speaker 1: but we're providing that service already, and you get access

317
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Speaker 1: to this content that you're not going to find on

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Speaker 1: the Internet. Yeah. That was their big compelling argument right now. Granted,

319
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Speaker 1: and that worked for a little while, but it was

320
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Speaker 1: definitely a short term thing. So for OSPs to survive,

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Speaker 1: they really only had one choice, and that was to

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Speaker 1: to evolve into becoming an I s P. And Internet

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Speaker 1: service provider, because if they didn't do that, eventually the

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Speaker 1: content that had been uh exclusive to that particular provider

325
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Speaker 1: was going to make it onto the Internet one way

326
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Speaker 1: or another. Because the companies that they were making partnerships

327
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Speaker 1: with could they they saw that the where the future was,

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Speaker 1: and that the future was that they needed to have

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Speaker 1: an online presence of their own on the Internet, and

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Speaker 1: instead of just partnering with an OSP where their content

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Speaker 1: is locked up behind this this uh this this wall,

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Speaker 1: they wanted to have their more control of their own presentation.

333
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Speaker 1: And so you started to see these companies create websites

334
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Speaker 1: and uh that was that was sort of the beginning

335
00:19:11,280 --> 00:19:14,480
Speaker 1: of the end of the USP business. Yeah, it was.

336
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Speaker 1: It was one of those things where people could say, well,

337
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Speaker 1: you know, I've got access to this company's nineteen million subscribers,

338
00:19:21,320 --> 00:19:24,879
Speaker 1: but look how fast the Internet is growing. And you

339
00:19:24,920 --> 00:19:27,320
Speaker 1: know if I if I make my content available on

340
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Speaker 1: the Internet as well, that I could probably get even

341
00:19:30,280 --> 00:19:34,719
Speaker 1: more subscribers. Um. And that's that's gradually the way it's gone. Um.

342
00:19:34,960 --> 00:19:39,080
Speaker 1: Most of the biggest online service providers still exist in

343
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Speaker 1: some form or at least confuser event a O L

344
00:19:42,119 --> 00:19:46,240
Speaker 1: of course, UH do exist still UM, but a lot

345
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Speaker 1: of the smaller ones that my genie are no longer

346
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Speaker 1: with us, at least not in their original form UM.

347
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Speaker 1: And you know, I, as we've been talking about it,

348
00:19:57,080 --> 00:20:02,720
Speaker 1: I've been thinking about how OSP sort of are similar

349
00:20:02,760 --> 00:20:05,960
Speaker 1: to the net neutrality argument we're having now, where if

350
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Speaker 1: you are UM, you know, if you belong to I

351
00:20:08,920 --> 00:20:12,359
Speaker 1: s P A UH, you're a subscriber of the Internet

352
00:20:12,359 --> 00:20:14,960
Speaker 1: service provider A, you have access to everything on the Internet,

353
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Speaker 1: but you might have special access to certain types of

354
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Speaker 1: content that you know, people from other Internet service providers

355
00:20:22,080 --> 00:20:24,479
Speaker 1: may not have access to you, or may have limited

356
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Speaker 1: access to or even slower access to UM. And that's

357
00:20:27,840 --> 00:20:30,400
Speaker 1: sort of it's sort of in the same same vein

358
00:20:30,440 --> 00:20:32,520
Speaker 1: when you think about it, because you know, if there's

359
00:20:32,840 --> 00:20:38,240
Speaker 1: a UH perception of exclusivity that belongs to an OSP,

360
00:20:38,440 --> 00:20:40,040
Speaker 1: if you think back to the time, Hey, if you

361
00:20:40,080 --> 00:20:41,800
Speaker 1: sign up with us, you get all these great things

362
00:20:41,800 --> 00:20:44,199
Speaker 1: that you can't get anywhere else. Well, you know, if

363
00:20:44,240 --> 00:20:48,120
Speaker 1: if net neutrality UH goes by the wayside, and we

364
00:20:48,359 --> 00:20:51,679
Speaker 1: uh you know, the Internet service providers are allowed to

365
00:20:51,920 --> 00:20:55,440
Speaker 1: regulate the flow of traffic on their own networks UM,

366
00:20:55,560 --> 00:21:00,720
Speaker 1: then they will be able to claim exclusivity again. Sure, yeah,

367
00:21:00,760 --> 00:21:04,679
Speaker 1: and and you know that has its own benefits and

368
00:21:04,720 --> 00:21:07,520
Speaker 1: its own drawbacks. The biggest drawback for me, at least

369
00:21:08,040 --> 00:21:12,720
Speaker 1: is that with online service providers you they weren't as regional.

370
00:21:13,920 --> 00:21:16,680
Speaker 1: You could pretty much find a way of being a

371
00:21:16,680 --> 00:21:20,320
Speaker 1: customer of one of these different or multiple online service

372
00:21:20,359 --> 00:21:24,640
Speaker 1: providers if you really wanted to, uh, in any major market. Now, granted,

373
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Speaker 1: the folks who live in rural parts of the United

374
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Speaker 1: States and uh, you know, to expand that across the globe, UM,

375
00:21:34,640 --> 00:21:38,399
Speaker 1: they often might be more limited because when we're talking

376
00:21:38,440 --> 00:21:41,040
Speaker 1: back in the good old days, you're talking about you know,

377
00:21:41,080 --> 00:21:43,359
Speaker 1: again a local phone call. You would have to hope

378
00:21:43,400 --> 00:21:47,000
Speaker 1: that whatever service provider you wanted had a UM had

379
00:21:47,119 --> 00:21:50,280
Speaker 1: had modems that were within that local area code UM,

380
00:21:50,320 --> 00:21:53,320
Speaker 1: and not all of them did. But in most major

381
00:21:53,359 --> 00:21:56,399
Speaker 1: markets you would find representations of any of these osp

382
00:21:56,560 --> 00:21:58,200
Speaker 1: s there you would be able to be a customer

383
00:21:58,240 --> 00:22:00,680
Speaker 1: of any of those, Whereas today, with I s p s,

384
00:22:00,760 --> 00:22:02,920
Speaker 1: at least the major I s p s, you may

385
00:22:02,920 --> 00:22:06,400
Speaker 1: not have that choice. So it may be that let's

386
00:22:06,480 --> 00:22:09,920
Speaker 1: let's just do this is just an example. Uh, Let's

387
00:22:09,960 --> 00:22:14,800
Speaker 1: say that time Warner has access to this amazing array

388
00:22:14,840 --> 00:22:17,879
Speaker 1: of content, but but not not everything like you know

389
00:22:17,880 --> 00:22:20,320
Speaker 1: it's got, but they have their own And then Comcast

390
00:22:20,359 --> 00:22:23,400
Speaker 1: has a different selection of equally amazing stuff, but it's

391
00:22:23,480 --> 00:22:27,040
Speaker 1: different stuff. You might not live in an area that

392
00:22:27,160 --> 00:22:29,919
Speaker 1: has access to both Comcast and Time Warner. You may

393
00:22:30,000 --> 00:22:32,359
Speaker 1: have access to only one or the other, which means

394
00:22:32,400 --> 00:22:37,520
Speaker 1: that you don't really have choice. You're forced upon a

395
00:22:37,720 --> 00:22:42,800
Speaker 1: selection of Internet sites or in Internet services, uh the

396
00:22:43,320 --> 00:22:45,440
Speaker 1: and you have to be happy with that. You you're

397
00:22:45,480 --> 00:22:47,960
Speaker 1: not going to have the choice of of company B.

398
00:22:48,200 --> 00:22:51,240
Speaker 1: Which is why net neutrality is a big deal because

399
00:22:51,720 --> 00:22:55,320
Speaker 1: while well it's impossible to say that that being an

400
00:22:55,320 --> 00:22:57,320
Speaker 1: I s P, you know that you're not really a

401
00:22:57,359 --> 00:23:02,160
Speaker 1: monopoly regionally. You can be a mano compoly nationally, they're

402
00:23:02,160 --> 00:23:05,960
Speaker 1: not monopolies. And there are markets where there are multiple

403
00:23:06,080 --> 00:23:08,119
Speaker 1: I s p s that you can choose are major ones,

404
00:23:09,000 --> 00:23:13,080
Speaker 1: but it's not that way across the entire nation, right right,

405
00:23:13,160 --> 00:23:16,000
Speaker 1: and and uh, you know, it will be interesting to

406
00:23:16,160 --> 00:23:22,400
Speaker 1: see how the content providers, the the independent content providers

407
00:23:22,480 --> 00:23:25,840
Speaker 1: view these situations, because UM they're going to have to

408
00:23:25,880 --> 00:23:28,760
Speaker 1: decide whether they're going to want to sell their content

409
00:23:28,840 --> 00:23:34,320
Speaker 1: exclusively to UM a COX Communications or a QUEST or

410
00:23:34,359 --> 00:23:37,439
Speaker 1: an A T and T. You know, if it means

411
00:23:37,480 --> 00:23:40,959
Speaker 1: that people in other areas don't have access to that material,

412
00:23:41,000 --> 00:23:43,520
Speaker 1: and they could open themselves up to selling their content

413
00:23:43,600 --> 00:23:47,959
Speaker 1: to millions more subscribers by making it open across multiple platforms.

414
00:23:48,320 --> 00:23:51,560
Speaker 1: It also might be an opportunity for the satellite Internet

415
00:23:51,600 --> 00:23:56,200
Speaker 1: providers to differentiate themselves because satellite Internet can be accessed

416
00:23:56,240 --> 00:23:59,280
Speaker 1: by far more people in far more areas, but they

417
00:23:59,320 --> 00:24:02,840
Speaker 1: have their own set of problems with latency and bandwidth

418
00:24:03,119 --> 00:24:06,159
Speaker 1: simply because of the nature of the communication from the

419
00:24:06,160 --> 00:24:09,639
Speaker 1: Earth to the satellite and back. Sure, so you know,

420
00:24:09,720 --> 00:24:13,200
Speaker 1: online gaming is much more difficult for satellite Internet subscribers

421
00:24:13,200 --> 00:24:16,440
Speaker 1: than it would be for people using cable or DSL

422
00:24:16,840 --> 00:24:21,439
Speaker 1: or y Max for that matter. Um So, you know,

423
00:24:21,880 --> 00:24:24,199
Speaker 1: it's going to be interesting to see how that argument

424
00:24:24,200 --> 00:24:26,320
Speaker 1: plays out. But you can see the similarity there between

425
00:24:26,960 --> 00:24:29,560
Speaker 1: the net neutrality arguments that we're making today and the USPS.

426
00:24:29,600 --> 00:24:32,920
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, no, I I completely agree. Uh, well,

427
00:24:32,920 --> 00:24:36,080
Speaker 1: that was a good discussion about online service providers. I

428
00:24:36,080 --> 00:24:37,800
Speaker 1: was actually a little worried about it before we went

429
00:24:37,840 --> 00:24:40,560
Speaker 1: into it, because, um, well, for one thing, I wasn't

430
00:24:40,800 --> 00:24:43,000
Speaker 1: when when Chris sent me the email. He said OSPs,

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Speaker 1: and I was like, well, uh, Ohio State Police, That's

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Speaker 1: exactly what I meant, John. I don't know how you

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Speaker 1: might have gotten that compute. So I have another Uh,

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Speaker 1: I have half of another podcast that I can record

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Speaker 1: about the Ohio State Police. UM, it's it's it's high

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Speaker 1: in the middle and round on both ends. You know.

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Speaker 1: I had seen something on on OSPs not too long ago,

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Speaker 1: and I thought, you know, we should revisit that that

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Speaker 1: whole thing. And I remember, you know, the the some

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Speaker 1: of the really unique proprietary organizations like the World for

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00:25:15,920 --> 00:25:19,720
Speaker 1: the Apple users and um actually have any World CD

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00:25:19,840 --> 00:25:21,960
Speaker 1: at home somewhere, which I'm not using as a coaster

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Speaker 1: because they were far less common than the al that's

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Speaker 1: a collector's item mint in box. Well, I think that

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Speaker 1: was an interesting, uh discussion to have about, you know,

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Speaker 1: again a precursor to the Internet. And uh, now we're

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Speaker 1: going to have just a little bit of listener mail.

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Speaker 1: This listener mail comes from Ryan in the UK and

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00:25:47,359 --> 00:25:51,600
Speaker 1: the subject was Jonathan's British accent freaks me out. And

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Speaker 1: then the email reads, it's the same whenever I hear

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Speaker 1: you Americans try to speak in our accent. It really

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Speaker 1: creaks me out big I E face Well, Ryan, Uh,

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Speaker 1: I was purposefully doing a terrible British accent for that.

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Speaker 1: Thus the the whole Dick van Dyke joke, because Dick

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00:26:10,119 --> 00:26:12,800
Speaker 1: Vandyke's accent and Mary Poppins was about as horrible as

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00:26:12,840 --> 00:26:17,560
Speaker 1: you could ask for. Uh. My own actual professional acting

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00:26:18,560 --> 00:26:22,160
Speaker 1: British accents are slightly better, but I'm not gonna do

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Speaker 1: it because I don't want to creep you out. If

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00:26:25,080 --> 00:26:27,760
Speaker 1: anything we do creeps you out, you can let us

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00:26:27,800 --> 00:26:31,480
Speaker 1: know by writing us. Our email address is tech stuff

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00:26:31,680 --> 00:26:36,720
Speaker 1: at how stuff works dot com. We also welcome all questions, criticisms,

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00:26:37,000 --> 00:26:39,800
Speaker 1: podcast ideas, anything like that. Go ahead and send it

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00:26:39,800 --> 00:26:41,480
Speaker 1: on in and Chris and I will talk to you

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00:26:41,520 --> 00:26:48,240
Speaker 1: again really soon for moral thiss and thousands of other topics.

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Speaker 1: Does it how stuff works dot com and be sure

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Speaker 1: to check out the new tech stuff blog now on

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Speaker 1: the how Stuff Works homepage, brought to you by the

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Speaker 1: re invented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you