BlackBerry CEO John Chen has published an open letter to US president Obama on net neutrality. Interestingly enough, he conflates net neutrality with what he calls “content/application neutrality”. At the beginning of the letter it’s a bit unclear what he means by this, but later one, all pieces of his puzzle fall into place.
Unfortunately, not all content and applications providers have embraced openness and neutrality. Unlike BlackBerry, which allows iPhone users to download and use our BBM service, Apple does not allow BlackBerry or Android users to download Apple’s iMessage messaging service. Netflix, which has forcefully advocated for carrier neutrality, has discriminated against BlackBerry customers by refusing to make its streaming movie service available to them. Many other applications providers similarly offer service only to iPhone and Android users. This dynamic has created a two-tiered wireless broadband ecosystem, in which iPhone and Android users are able to access far more content and applications than customers using devices running other operating systems. These are precisely the sort of discriminatory practices that neutrality advocates have criticized at the carrier level.
Therefore, neutrality must be mandated at the application and content layer if we truly want a free, open and non-discriminatory internet. All wireless broadband customers must have the ability to access any lawful applications and content they choose, and applications/content providers must be prohibited from discriminating based on the customer’s mobile operating system.
I’m not entirely sure what to say about this. While I would personally welcome a world where companies are multi-platform by nature, it is completely preposterous to legally force them to do so. I could somewhat understand (but still oppose) a call for using open standards so third parties could e.g. create their own Hangouts, WhatsApp, iMessage, or Skype clients, but legally forcing companies to create applications for competing platforms? That’s insane.
Except for those with an agenda, we would all love to live in a world where companies like Apple, Google, and Microsoft use nothing but open standards and protocols, creating a level playing field for newcomers and small players. However, unless the closed nature of a protocol harms consumers, companies should be free to be as closed as they very well please.
Just legislate that all companies are only allowed to build technologies on 100% RAND, Open, Free, published via. a recognised standards body standards with 100% certified compliant implementations. Perfect interoperability and the wishes of Blackberry have been granted.
Oh what’s that, Blackberry wouldn’t be able to make any money from their own proprietary locked down systems if we did that? Oh dear, what a pity etc. etc.
“If you can’t innovate, legislate!” – Milton Friedman on how courts enforce cronyism.
Legislation should not cover such things at all, it is up to the consumer to decide if they want the product, not the “i know better” elites in Washington.
judgen,
I agree with the sentiment here, consumers should be the ones to choose. However when we look past the ideologies and see what’s actually happening on the ground, when consumers aren’t given rights in law, then it’s frequently the corporations who will decide by defacto rather than consumers. A consumer’s ability to choose presupposes that there are a plethora of competitive choices in the dimensions that they care about.
You guys should know me well enough to believe when I talk about wanting open technology over proprietary stuff, I’m serious about it. I don’t want to be a hypocrite, but the reality is I’m frequently forced to buy proprietary stuff. Sometimes we speak in tautological language like “the product is successful because that’s what the consumers want”, but the truth is purchases are a terrible way to assess consumer wants with inadequate representation in the market to begin with.
For example, I purchased a lantronix Spider Duo and a cyberpower PDU, both will be extremely useful to me for remote controlling my computers. However I was not able to find products with open hardware. Being the “open” promoter that I am, I gave serious thought to building by own using capture cards and rigging something up to remote boot virtual USB devices, but it would have been a Frankenstein mess of adapters, bit banging, soldering…long story short I caved and bought the proprietary units which are of better workmanship than I could ever achieve. Frustratingly the spider has a trivial bug with wake-on-lan but lantroix said they weren’t interested in updating the firmware. I know I should have bought something open, but the market didn’t give me a choice.
Back to yours and Vander’s points, consumers should be the ones making the choices, but sometimes legislation is needed to make sure those choices are available. Closed hardware & proprietary protocols are one of the worst enemies for software alternatives, so that’s why it might make sense to intervene.
Edited 2015-01-22 22:26 UTC
BlackBerry is not asking for support. They (Chen) is asking for “no blocking and no locking” (see below).
But I cannot blame anyone for making this the headline because it is based on these 2 sentences:
1. “Customers would benefit from the ability to access any mobile broadband service, any application, or any other lawful content ^aEUR“ on any network, using any device.”
That sentence contains a big logic error. If you prevent blocking and locking, that doesn’t mean that you can access any application from any device.
It WOULD prevent Apple from throwing out BBM from the AppStore to promote IMessage, but wouldn’t create IMessage for BlackBerries. (and Apple could probably still prevent BBM from getting into the appstore for another reason)
2. “Therefore, if we are truly to have an open internet, policymakers should demand openness not just at the traffic/transport layer, but also at the content/applications layer of the ecosystem.”
There is no such thing as a content/applications layer. Content is allowed to be blocked by region (right to be forgotten, US-Only-video’s, Private websites, etc
And even if content is freely available, there can never be an obligation to make an application for every hardware/software combination that exists (any application on any device) because I can’t even imagine what a github-client for my bluetooth-mouse would look like. Another example: “BES12, a cross-platform EMM solution by BlackBerry^A(R), lets you manage enterprise mobility across iOS, Android^a"c, Windows Phone^A(R) and BlackBerry^A(R) devices.”….so where is Tizen, FirefoxOS, etc etc?
[,,]
No blocking. The C Block rules prohibit wireless carriers from restricting customers from using devices and accessing applications or any other lawful content of their choice on the C Block network, except as necessary to manage or protect the network for the benefit of all other users.
No locking. The C block rules also prohibit wireless carriers from disabling features on mobile devices they sell to customers, or rigging those devices to prohibit their use on competitors^aEURTM networks.
Edited 2015-01-22 13:46 UTC
I don’t think so.
No Blocking and No Locking are sub categories under Carrier Neutrality and do not apply to the Application/Content Neutrality section of his letter.
Within the second section he’s clearly asking for legislation to force private companies to create and release Blackberry-compatible versions of their software, and presumably versions compatible with every other mobile OS.
Look at the examples used:
Netflix, which has forcefully advocated for carrier neutrality, has discriminated against BlackBerry customers by refusing to make its streaming movie service available to them.
You are failing to quote the portion of his writing where he specifically talks about his purported “app neutrality.” He clearly states several times, quite specifically, that apps should be forced to be developed for other platforms. So No.
Chen is asking for access to the service/content which is not the same as requiring that “there is an app for that”.
If Netflix would block the browser on BlackBerry OS from accessing your netflix-account/content he wants that block to be illegal
His wording is confusing but he is a smart guy that would understand there is no way “app availability” could be a requirement. If I write an app to access our companies internal XYZ-blabla and that app is only available for 1 platform, how could anyone force me to make that app available for all platforms by law?
mr. Chen is playing a very dangerous game here. He says “BlackBerry has lots of apps because it can run Android apps” but now he also says “people on BlackBerry cannot access services that people on IOS/Android” can access.
If I were working on the BlackBerry marketing department I wouldn’t want my boss to say such things
The only thing that keeps those services from being web apps is that the mobile web still sucks. But it’s steadily becoming better.
Better offline support for HTML5-apps is finally coming: http://www.serviceworker.org/
I believe it was made available today or in the next few days when Chrome 40 is released:
https://jakearchibald.github.io/isserviceworkerready/
Firefox will follow in the next few months I think because it has it already in Nightly.
Opera uses the same open source project as Chrome so I’m sure they’ll use it too soon.
Thom, you got this one wrong.
Read the article again and revise your claims
I did?
NetFlix is not a BlackBerry competitor. They’d be a supplier, or partner. You got it very wrong.
If instead of saying suppliers had to support multiple platforms, the government instead said, every platform has to support some cross platform app standard (and maybe market place), would that be “supporting competitors”?
The issues are similar to the open web, in which case we are fine with government intervention, but not with apps? There is a consistency problem here.
When has/does a/the government stepped in to enforce web standards?
Fair enough – it’s more of a direct comparison. They forced Microsoft to support their competitor’s browsers. Similar to what BlackBerry is asking for.
Edited 2015-01-22 19:26 UTC
Looks fairly accurate to me. Look, Thom even gave a direct quote
Which is quite unambiguously saying “All applications should be made for all mobile platforms”, which is clearly horseshit.
If that isn’t what the good Mr. Chen meant, perhaps he’d like to clarify?
That’s exactly how I read it as well.
The premise is correct, the conclusion is wrong. Mr. Chen isn’t *that* dense, nor that desperate.
I may be wrong but I read it more as “content providers should not explicitly block access to their platform based on the application/system where the access originates from. Basically a call for opening protocols.
Though I think it’s wrong of him to add this to the net neutrality debate. It only adds more confusion. One step at a time.
cfgr,
+10,
Maybe his logic is that “if you support net neutrality, then you should support this too”, but I think he has conflated things badly and the message is getting lost as a result.
I read it exactly like that as well.
Agreed.
It is something that has been unaddressed for way to long but into another topic, even if similar in nature, can only hurt both
Some websites we make intentionally block certain devices from accessing them. This is done intentionally for a number of reasons including;
1. We dont support said platform.
2. Allowing people to have a substandard experience is worse for the brand involved than denying them access.
3. Security.
An example of this is we block users trying to access one ecommerce site using IE6. Using IE6 gives a Terrible experience, full of bugs and issues. The payment gateway used also does not endorse its use which brings into question PCI-DSS compliance.
All in all, its better for the client to simply stop people accessing than give a bad experience.
Maybe this same decision was made by Netflix regarding blackberry?
I get the sentiment and would love Netflix on my Passport, but think support desks the world over don’t agree with Chen on this one.
Adurbe,
Your post is very confusing because it’s not clear if you are an ISP, manufacturer, website operator, or IT department, etc? This article is referring to the manufacturers, it’s not clear that it applies to you and it makes a huge difference in the context of what we’re talking about.
So tell your users up front that you won’t support it. Just bare in mind there is a difference in not supporting it and actively prohibiting it.
Nope, you tell them you don’t support it, you warn them about the consequences, but ultimately they should be free to choose for themselves. (depending on who you are of course, I would not say this about an employer/employee for example).
Same deal here, so long as it’s the owner’s own security that’s at stake, it should be their choice. Besides, unlike the evolution of PC platforms, most or even all mobile platforms incorporate application sandboxing. Even if it’s not perfect, it’s still more secure to run untrusted apps on a phone than on a typical PC.
Edited 2015-01-22 15:48 UTC
They are a website I believe.
Lennie,
Ok, that makes more sense. I was trying to parse Adurbe’s comment as alluding to BB’s stance on apps.
So switching gears and talking about websites, I’d say they are already, by and large, “neutral” owing to open standards. Any device maker can implement the open standards and become part of the web without negotiating for access rights, which is a huge benefit for almost everyone. Recent developments within the WC3 however are putting this at risk by pushing for proprietary DRM modules in HTML5. This will regress the web and mean that once again smaller players like BB or Julla will be disadvantaged because they will not automatically have equal access to the full web, they will lack the proprietary blobs and will have to negotiate for access rights with services like netflix, that is if those services even care to include support for such a tiny market share.
DRM on the web really is a shame.
I do know without it certain types of content would not get onto the web.
Without that share of the content the web ‘platform’ would be weaker, so I can see why they did it.
They folded to quickly though in my mind.
People talk about the Internet of Things, but it really is the Internet of everything. Take cryptocurrencies for example, that blockchain that Bitcoin introduces really is an innovative idea. So money is coming to the Internet. It is going to take a number of years though, but it’s coming.
As everything is moving into software and onto the Internet. So does the Web try to capture all of that.
As the web is the easiest delivery model of software to users.
And so everything that is telephone, movies-, music- and TV-content also tries to go on the Internet.
The client I was alluding to (but have to be careful not to name) has a large ecommerce presence in the UK. SO basically a website that sells stuff :-p
As happens with the netflix website when you navigate to it on a BB, the end user is blocked.
In Theory the browser has everything it needs to run the service, but Netflix have made the buisness decision that the support and QA costs associated with such a small userbase are not cost effective so it is better to block the users of these devices than provide a poor service (be it broken features or whatever).
I agree with Thom: It would probably do alot to help break up the mobile device oligopoly and enable smaller platforms to become viable, but I don’t really feel it’s reasonable to force companies to support platforms they don’t want to.
I would come in from a different (more reasonable IMHO) angle. Companies shouldn’t be forced to support different platforms, but on the other hand they should not be permitted to employ technological restrictions on consumer devices to ban competitors either. This is all too common and the practice should be outlawed. It is not in consumer interests to deny them choice of app stores. Having more store options would be good for both consumers as well as developers who are fed up with the manufacturer’s store control/cut. The tech industry was booming for years when 3rd party software developers were free to develop independently and consumers were free to buy/install their software. With more platforms popping up as walled gardens, and consumers not being free to choose alternative software stores, that’s just going to reinforce the oligopoly situation. If walled gardens are allowed to continue, we will end up with a couple hardware companies controlling all of the software market.
I’m glad we’re seeing resistance in terms of consumers jailbreaking and what not, but jailbreaking only works due to vulnerabilities in the platform. Manufacturer restrictions will move deeper in hardware where they will become much more effective against software attacks. It’s not a viable long term business case for software to rely on vulnerabilities that could be fixed at any time.
Open Standards are one thing, if everyone know what standards to write for then tons of software can be ported to different hardware.
But:
1) Who supports the hardware and at what cost? Many programs and apps come out for one machine/environment only at first, then as money flows in and users place their demands it is ported to other machines. The idea that an new program/app should be ported to all machines at the same time places a huge financial burden on any small company, and on some environments the users will not even want the created software.
2) And what happens to hardware that can not support the software? I can easily see software that needs a powerful CPU or even multiple CPUs to run but can not run on the user’s hardware because of it lack of CPU power.
Earl Colby pottinger,
Yes I agree, BB is asking for too much. As a developer, it may not make much sense to invest in BB’s platform instead of (or in addition to) something that will reach many more users. Developers should not be forced to support BB’s platform.
However I think if BB’s platform were great and could run on all phones, then it could be a clear winner for developers. This could even kickstart the demand for BB phones naturally without the use of coercive legislation to force us to support them. This is the way it should work IMHO, but it would require manufacturers to stop locking out competing software. I’d be curious what BB themselves would think about this.
Edited 2015-01-22 16:30 UTC
This is ‘normal business practise’, if your business model sucks you can always go for the last resort: ask the government to keep your business (model) a float.
That is what the telecom providers always try to do.
Here is a talk explaining similar practices:
https://ripe65.ripe.net/archives/video/3/
Edited 2015-01-22 17:48 UTC
Incorrect – they try and succeed in doing this. Competition isn’t the goal of businesses (unless they have lost the competition). But it’s not a bad governing theory. Yeah, I get why BB wants it, that doesn’t make it a bad idea.
If they can find a way which makes sense, I’ll support them no problem !
But so far I don’t see a realistic way.
Not to mention small or independent developers who may lack the expertise or skill necessary to adapt their software to every conceivable mobile platform out there.
NetFlix would be an important partner, not a competitor. I think what he said makes sense though. If we want competition – and supposedly, “competition is good” in modern western culture – then you have to regulate economic activity to create competition. Maybe this specific idea on how to do that is half baked, but that’s what is required to have actual competition (and 2 players – a duopoly – isn’t good enough).
I wonder what sort of negotiations have gone on between Blackberry and Netflix? What has John Chen offered Netflix in exchange for developing a Blackberry client?
That’s how partnerships work, not by force.
I expect a response or comment from Netflix shortly.
I doubt that BlackBerry needs Netflix to develop a client.
Their platform has a HTML5 video capable browser, they could easily embed that in a Netflix “skin” app if they wanted to.
The problem of course is that Netflix is using DRM and the supported DRM schemes are all from BB competitors, who will almost certainly not be in the mood to grant BB access.
I’d love to see how any of the DRM in HTML5 proponents try to spin this into how good that decision is for consumers
HTML5 has always just been a gambit designed to move from the open web (the previous dominant app platform – so dominant, it got some government regulation when IE6 was too popular for a few years), to a closed apps based ecosystem, where a few dominant players get to run the highway (Apple and Google so far). It was never a serious contender on mobile, because the HTML5 renderers are not well suited to battery sensitive environments, don’t support important APIs, but mostly because the app-like experience in mobile browsers simply isn’t as good as a native app experience, and never will be.
Aside, from that, I agree – BlackBerry’s problem is that no one outside of some niche tech circles even knows that BlackBerry has a nice new modern OS. Their marketing strategy should be letting people know, but it hasn’t done its job. If they want to build a user base, they need to find a way to get people talking positively about their platform, and creating a desire to purchase one. From my experience using BlackBerry Playbook, it seems pretty competitive in many ways with Android. It’s just that no one knows it. (Having Netflix and Hulu, etc. would make that marketing easier for sure.)
I get that. The issue isn’t personal relationships though, it’s the system. If you want a competitive system, sometimes (usually) it takes government intervention to get it. It all depends on what outcomes you want.
In the case of NetFlix specifically, its more sticky. I’m not saying I support making them support specific players. I’d be happier with a third party app store that certain device classes had to at least offer the option to support (using open source or free software, maybe based on Firefox OS), even though I’m sure the various players would find ways to make that suck.
That makes sense, more than Mr Chen’s letter anyway. But Netflix’s content is private property, technically no different than a copyrighted photograph that you or I upload to an online server. Why should Netflix (or anyone else) be mandated to provide access to their content?
Netflix is not a public utility and no one has a “right” to view commercial streaming videos.
Can you explain further?
I own my property, but I can’t just build anything on it any time I want. There are all kinds of rules I have to follow. This idea that the government can’t tell people what to do with their property is a weird modern fantasy.
Anyway, the point is, competition is good, and having a private player like Netflix or Hulu, or anyone else get to decide which app platforms are allowed to be competitive in the market place is bad policy. The specific ideas Chen or I have offered are likely not good enough to address the problem, but that doesn’t mean there’s not a problem.
It’s not the government’s responsibility to force successful companies to subsidize failing companies in the name of “competition”, which is what this “application/content neutrality” argument seems to amount to. Part of competition is that failing strategies/players get weaned out.
Agreed.
Net neutrality basically says “hands off my packets”. If legislated, it is a requirement to *not* do something, i.e. a negative requirement or a “Thou shalt not”.
If we’re reading this correctly, Mr. Chen is asking for legislation that requires a specific action, i.e. a positive requirement or a “Thou shalt”.
Trouble is, this positive requirement has a direct financial impact on those upon whom the legislation would be imposed, i.e. investment in developing applications for additional platforms, which, convenient for Mr. Chen, is “someone else”.
Now, if there were a supported application for Netflix on BB and an ISP in the path between Netflix and the BB client did a bunch of DPI, found “application = netflix && clientos = BB” and then screwed with the traffic, THEN I could see a case where we could talk about content/application neutrality. But, then again, at that point we’re talking about a negative requirement (“don’t screw with my packets!”) not a positive requirement (“build your app on my platform or else!”).
Aside from that:
It’s Netflix’s call as to what platforms they support with their content, and the “content/application neutrality” argument as we all seem to read it here is just an attempt to transfer your own failure to compete onto external parties in the form of mandated/legislated development investments that would otherwise not make the cut because of $MyBusinessDecisionThatIsNoneOfYourDamnedBusiness.
I actually don’t think that Chen is asking for mandatory porting, even if the letter uses the word applications.
In several occasions it uses “applications/content”, which I believe is a hint that the word application or app is a victim of necessary phrasing to convey “content” or “service access”.
Like you don’t actually need a special app for a streaming service, but people, including polititians this is targetted at, believe they do (while in reality the “app” is just single purpose web client).
The Netflix example shows that quite clearly: there is no need for a “Netflix app”, since we know from the desktop platforms that a web browser will do.
Or would do if Netflix would not deploy DRM to artificially restrict the options to web browser who’s manufacturers are “incidentally” also mobile platform providers.
So BlackBerry cannot even provide a “Netflix app” themselves, despite their devices having all the necessary video decoding capabilities.
It is good to see one of the DRM proponents being caught on the wrong side and even better for having to phrase around that badly just to make the hypocrisis less apparent
So Netflix would be forced to allow third-party software to access their content? That’s no less unrealistic or unreasonable than the earlier translation/analysis of Mr. Chen’s letter.
Either way it’s an unwilling partnership; if Netflix wanted to expand their market to Blackberry devices, they’re perfectly capable of doing it on their own.
Bobthearch,
We would like to avoid the scenario where the entire industry gets controlled by a few giant multinational corporations. If we leave things alone it will result in the market winners solidifying their grip and competition becoming less and less viable. There are no easy “free market” answers when it comes to these kinds of problems because it’s the free market that caused them. Without bargaining chips, would be competitors fail and become easy targets for acquisitions, further accelerating market consolidation. If we don’t act we already know the outcome: a duopoly (or oligopoly if we’re lucky) in control of virtually the entire sector. This is always the worse outcome for consumers, and is the reason why something should be done about it. And while I don’t feel BB’s proposal is the right one, our inability or unwillingness to take action today will lead to the detriment of independent innovation in the future since the big fish will control all of the assets that the small fish would need to succeed.
Without asking you to agree to a solution, do you at least agree in principal that this is a problem?
Edited 2015-01-22 20:36 UTC
I’d agree that more choices are better for the consumer. Absolutely. I’d further agree that government regulation of critical utilities are necessary to protect consumers and ensure reliable service.
I don’t agree that Netflix is part of the problem, considering the number of systems they support and range of companies they partner with. And I vigorously disagree that Netflix is a critical service or utility deserving of the same regulatory oversight as a water supplier, phone company, or even an ISP.
And I somewhat disagree that uncompetitive and/or incompetent “multi-national corporations” should be propped up by protectionism or special concessions for the sole purpose of providing competition. And even if the US Government was motivated to somehow prop up a company for the sake of competition, they would most likely choose an American company.
Here is an article from 2012 that I found insightful as to why Blackberry devices are not better supported by Netflix:
http://untether.tv/2012/why-netflix-wont-support-the-blackberry-pla…
Edited 2015-01-22 21:25 UTC
Bobthearch,
I don’t disagree. Like you, I don’t think “uncompetitive and/or incompetent ‘multi-national corporations’ should be propped up by protectionism or special concessions” either… I guess we should elaborate whether a company is uncompetitive because it’s doing a bad job or because it’s loosing ground on an uneven playing field; If it’s the later than that’s a problem.
In principal I believe the judgement of companies/products should lie with the consumers, however that falls apart when large corporations resort to DRM/patent lawsuits/device restrictions/monopoly tactics/etc to render smaller company products less useful for consumers. Saying the larger corporations are more competitive while they are doing this is like saying I’m faster than Usain Bolt while his legs are broken.
This is one of the most honest statements I’ve read on the matter. In business, one’s scale & influence can be more important to negotiations than the actual merit of one’s products. If BB had an absolutely terrible product, but with high market share, then Netflix would be knocking at BB’s door to promote the relationship.
Edited 2015-01-24 05:02 UTC
I also admit to being completely puzzled by one premise of the entire issue, who in the hell wants to watch Netflix movies on a three-inch screen anyway? I can’t think of anything more dumb or unnecessary.
I never felt the need for a netflix app either, but phones can project to external screens just like pc’s and laptops can. So having a dumb TV with a ChromeCast (or other HDMI-replacement) to display your netflix content from your phone makes sense to me.
Although in reality I do that from a laptop/tablet
No.
Netflix is already allowing third-party softwre to access their content.
But they are aribtrarly blocking access to such applications based on platform.
Same basic situation. A product that fell further and further behind, so the respective companies tried to get the government involved instead of making a product that people *want* to use and/or buy. Pathetic.
of calls for openness to come from Blackberry/RIM. Funny how they never was all that interested in this when they where the big cheese.