The Internet and Demand Management (Advertising)

My friend Joe Keenan recently sent me an article by Vicki Boykis, “Fix the internet by writing good stuff and being nice to people” from her blog Woman.Legend.Blog

Today’s internet is mean. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly when everyone online became a jerk, but to me it seems that the tipping point occurred right when making money off content started being worth more than the content itself.

Ms. Boykis devotes a lot of attention to the fate of the internet to be just another platform for grabbing our attention to deliver advertising messages.

Of course, since the election, many people, including myself, have finally internalized that Facebook is a burning dumpster fire of memes and political messages that physically exhaust everyone and cause social anxiety, to the point of directly influencing our political process. But, we’re so wired to check for positive reinforcement that we can’t tear ourselves away.

Which brings me to the saddest thing about these platforms: they are taking all of our input and time, and our thoughts, energy, and content, and using all of that for free to make money. Think about how many times you’ve tweeted. Or written or commented on a Facebook post. Or started a Medium draft. These are all our words, locked in proprietary platforms that controls not only how our message is displayed, but how we write it, and even more worrying, how we think about it.

 None of this is new. It is all a predictable extension of the gigantic advertising industry that began its dominance of our culture and our visual landscape in the first decades of the 20th century. It gained strength and penetration into our lives with each communications revolution, radio, TV, now the internet. The internet brings such a granularity of messaging that if you do a few searches in Google for information about Iceland while in Hudson NY you will quickly see advertising pitches for hotels in Iceland appear all around you.

Since we have all grown up in the same corporate fish tank it is hard for us to recognize how complete the reach and scope of the demand management industry is. (Advertising executives referred to their industry with this term back in the 1920s – some economists have continued – see J.K. Galbraith New Industrial State 1978 for example)

Here are a few numbers about global spending on demand management. In 2016 all paid media spending was by region: North America: $202 billion (5.9% of world population), Asia-Pacific: $171 billion (59% world population), Europe: $98 billion (4% of world population) ROW: $90 billion. ((https://www.emarketer.com/Article/Worldwide-Ad-Spending-Growth-Revised-Downward/1013858))  So you can see how intensive the bombardment is here.

This intense focus on demand management is reflected in the amount of retail space there is here compared to other developed countries.

Since 1995, the number of shopping centers in the U.S. has grown by more than 23% and GLA (total gross leasable area) by almost 30%, while the population has grown by less than 14%. Currently there is close to 25 square feet of retail space per capita (roughly 50 square feet, if small shopping centers and independent retailers are added). In contrast, Europe has about 2.5 square feet per capita.
…….The primary and underlying reason for this condition, and why it will continue ad infinitum, is that growth expectations/demands of shareholders, independent owners and Wall Street are higher than the growth of the real economy. And this has been the case for at least the last 25 years ((https://www.forbes.com/sites/robinlewis/2015/03/17/retail-in-2015-a-reality-check/#517594ca27ef))

I point out these facts to suggest that our troubles with advertising on the internet fits into the long-term strategy of capitalists to grab our attention and shove their messages down our throats with ever increasing intensity. This is not new, we are just in a new technically more sophisticated era.

One idea about controlling advertising might be to require the facts and claims mentioned in advertising to in fact be verifiable. We are all intensely upset over our new age on non-fact, counter-fact, alternative-fact politics. Yet, for decades we have allowed advertisers to lie and cheat without bounds in their promotions. An effective enforcement of the  Truth in Advertising Law would be a start.But that would require a government controlled by the people not the corporations and rich.

Internet Access in Hudson- another revisit

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Using the library’s internet wi-fi Sunday morning.

I attended a meeting at CGCC Thursday 3/19 where the head of the NY State Broadband Program talked about the $1 billion initiative to bring true broadband to the whole state. 100 MBS everywhere excepting 25 in some really remote rural areas by 2019. The program will try to leverage private investment on a 1:1 basis.

Mention was also made of the $2 billion Smart School Initiative that includes access for libraries and other public uses.

A positive move by state government.

Internet Access in Hudson – redux

Using Hudson Area Library's wifi - 17 degrees - 25 mph winds 02152015

Using Hudson Area Library’s WiFi – 17 degrees – 25 mph winds Sunday afternoon 02/15/2015

Internet access continues to be a problem for many in Hudson and Columbia County. It is expensive and slow.

02152105-MHCable-adThere have been no substantive improvements in broadband service here in the nearly six years since we moved here. We continue to see the insulting advertising by Mid Hudson Cable. They may have the “fastest connection” in the county, but they are sadly slow by any world standard. Continue reading

Internet Access and Service Levels in Hudson and Columbia County

The Register Star featured an article today about internet service in the county, “County dials up broadband efforts: Working with local providers and developing a map of who can’t get high-speed Internet access among officials’ goals” By Nathan Mayberg. 

Counting the Number without Access Is Not Enough

It is good that our government officials are concerned with improving Internet access across the county. It is painfully obvious that Internet access is more important in our time than even rural electrification and telephone service was to earlier generations. Without Internet access people are increasingly cut off from an array of opportunities. They cannot participate fully in our culture and economy.

I want to focus on the quality of Internet access. Even in Hudson, the most densely populated part of the county, we barely have broadband service. Mid-Hudson Cable provides download speeds that are only marginally broadband. Despite their advertising campaigns proclaiming “blazing speeds” up to 5 MB/s (or for $5 extra per month – 10 MB/s) the actual service I have experienced, tested with easily available test sites on the Web, has averaged 3.7 MB/s over the last 2 years. Worse, the quality of this service is so bad that it has frequently made it difficult for me to conduct my business conferences over the Web. And, because cable Internet service is provided through a party line, when lots of people are online at the same time, the service becomes even slower and less responsive.

Some have said, “You live in Hudson, Get Verizon DSL.” Recently I have done just this. Now I get 5.2 MB/s download speeds and the service quality consistently allows for good video-conferencing. But this is as good as this service will ever get. DSL has its technical limitations. To be competitive in broadband access we need to reach for 20 MB/s and higher.

Use Next Contract to Leverage Services from Mid-Hudson Cable

What to do in the short term?

The contract between the city and Mid-Hudson is coming up for renewal next year. Our local government officials need to get involved.

  • Any new contract with Mid-Hudson must contain service level standards that are enforced by monetary means. 
  • We should expect Mid-Hudson to come to the table with a plan for enhancing Internet service in the future and this plan should be made part of the enforceable language of the contract. 
  • And, the contract should address a real economic barrier to access in Hudson. We need a three tier system. It might look like this: basic Internet with 5MB/s service for $20 per month; better Internet access with 10MB/s service for $35 per month and world class service with 20MB/s service for $60 per month. In all cases the service level agreement would guarantee that Mid-Hudson actually deliver these speeds not just their current “blazing speeds”. 

Hudson Takes the Lead –  County Benefits

If Hudson takes the lead on this, everyone in the Mid-Hudson Cable service area will benefit. We have the density and economic power to get Mid-Hudson to improve Internet access and service. Once we set the standard other communities in the county with less economic power can tag along.

Goodbye Mid-Hudson Cable – Verizon DSL and a Surprise

We pulled the plug on Mid-Hudson Cable (MHC) for our internet service a couple of weeks ago in favor of Verizon DSL service. I have written about MHC’s terrible service and misrepresentations earlier. Most recently here.

Being fortunate enough to live less than 17,000 ft ((the current maximum distance from a switch office for DSL)) from the Verizon office next to the Post Office, DSL is available to me. Through acquaintances I learned of their good luck with DSL. 

After the installation I ran a number of tests using the same test site, Speedtest.net,  that I have used to measure the bad performance of Mid-Hudson. This showed that Verizon is very consistently delivering 5.2 MB/sec download and 750KB/sec uploads with a ping of 50 millisecond. And, my continuing tests using Speedtest.net show that the service is consistent throughout the day. No more of the slow downs so common to the party line affair of cable internet services.

Though this is hardly world beating service ((the US is 13th in the world with South Korea at the top with an average 13.8MB/s download speed of )) the real surprise came from the impact of the fast ping speed. ((Ping is the time between the click of a mouse and the return of a packet of information from the host server to your web browser))

I use Skype videoconferencing for both business and family purposes. With MHC the ping regularly measured in the hundreds of milliseconds. This caused jittery or frozen video and chronic echoes in the audio. My first Skype conference with clients revealed great audio without echoes. I even abandoned by headset. Just using the microphone on the desktop gave me great sound and the frozen video are now a memory. ((Verizon logo used without permission))

Mid-Hudson Cable Continues To Be a Rip Off

Mid-Hudson Cable continues to provide substandard internet services here. I have written of this earlier. Last summer I suckered up for the “up to 10 MB/sec” service for an extra $5 per month. Recently I updated my test results over this time span. The average download speed (all results based on 130 tests from August 2011 through today) is 5.9 MB/sec; the average upload speed is .43 MB/sec. The ping time average is 160 milliseconds.

So, in the strange world of Mid-Hudson Cable 5.9 equals “up to 10 MB/sec”. One does not need a calculator to see that there is a 40% shortfall here.

You can download the spreadsheet here to check out the data

Internet Service in Hudson and the Surrounding Area – more about Mid-Hudson Cable

Mid Hudson Cable Internet OfferThis offer from Mid-Hudson Cable showed up today in a bank statement from The Bank of Greene County. Mid-Hudson always gets my attention but almost never for good reasons. This ad is a continuation of their finger in your eye approach to customers. Note that it offers “DOUBLE” and “TRIPLE” your speed for Internet service without ever mentioning what it is that they are doubling or tripling. This is simply a further progression in making it hard to find out what exactly you are paying for or even what it is they are promising to provide.

If you pop over to their website you can find this (my screen grab from today with added red arrow), that says that the regular residential service package provides “5 meg”. From other advertising I know that this is likely to mean 5 MegaBits/second (MB/sec) a meaningful identifier.

Here is the rub. In almost two years of experience with Mid-Hudson I have never experienced this level of service nor the 10 MB/s for which I am now paying in an effort to get my service level up to something useful. In fact, after hundreds of measurements over the last year, I can tell you with some assurance that “5 meg” really means 3.8 meg. And, if you use the Internet services during the peak hours of late afternoon and into the evening, the service level is significantly lower.

Mid-Hudson Cable screen grab 05232011

All of this has led me to think that Hudson and Columbia County needs an Internet Service Provider that is serious about both providing service to everyone and at world competitive levels of service. I had thought that perhaps when the contract between the City of Hudson and Mid-Hudson comes up for renewal that we could put some real teeth in a new contract. Yesterday CCSCoop published this story, “Mid-Hudson Cable Gets Icy Reception in Greenville” that included the following: “

The non-exclusive contract between the town and Mid-Hudson is for “video” service only, meaning for cable television and not internet service, explained Pat Johnson, senior municipal consultant with the state Public Service Commission (PSC).

“I think you are all here for the wrong reason,” Johnson told residents, emphasizing that by state law the cable agreement cannot include conditions for internet even though Mid-Hudson provides both.”

So this appears to leave us in a situation in which Mid-Hudson has a de facto monopoly on high speed internet service in the county (Verizon only offers DSL service which is, for technological reasons, limited to below 1 MB/sec service levels) without any regulatory or contractual leverage.

Internet Service, the New York Times and Choice in the World of Mono-Duo-poly Capitalism

What Planet is the Times Orbiting?

Today’s New York Times editorial page included a piece titled “How Fast Is Your Broadband?“. It provides a reasonable review of the sad performance of the Internet service providers in the US. It is widely known that Internet service providers like Comcast, Time-Warner and locally Mid-Hudson Cable chronically provide significantly less than their advertising claims. Here in Hudson, NY Mid-Hudson claims “blazing speeds” of 5 MB/sec (download). Repeated measurements, now numbering over 280 in the last six months prove that they provide speeds 30% less than this mark. Service technicians from M-H have acknowledged that this is the typical service they provide.

Worse is that the latency frequently reaches 2 seconds instead of being under the 100 milliseconds that is commonly accepted as OK latency on the Internet.. This means that after your click your mouse on a link in a browser, you can literally count “1 Mississippi 2 Mississippi” before you get any response to your query. This latency disables common communications tools like VOIP telephone services and audio and video services via Skype or Google. Continue reading