Who "licenses" the CDNs? That sounds scarier to me than adding more caching to an already heavily cached infrastructure.
You do realize this is all just a matter of degree, right? There are probably a half dozen caches involved in every request you make. Certainly DNS has multiple caches along the path to getting your data, your browser caches local copies of lots of data, and your ISP probably has a cache as well. A CDN is just a specialized form of cache that can be a little bit smarter than each of those caches.
these will all be negotiated, bundles will be introduced, and you'll kill the promise of a free and unfettered internet where we all have equal footing
I think this assumes a difference in performance expectations that isn't reflected in reality. The difference between data coming from Dallas, or San Jose, or Chicago, or coming directly from your ISP data center is measured in the tens of milliseconds. I don't think this could realistically be expected to result in "packages". Who would sign up for a "Google/MSN/Yahoo/eBay" Internet that merely promised "30 ms faster!"?
Who "licenses" the CDNs? That sounds scarier to me than adding more caching to an already heavily cached infrastructure.
You do realize this is all just a matter of degree, right? There are probably a half dozen caches involved in every request you make. Certainly DNS has multiple caches along the path to getting your data, your browser caches local copies of lots of data, and your ISP probably has a cache as well. A CDN is just a specialized form of cache that can be a little bit smarter than each of those caches.
these will all be negotiated, bundles will be introduced, and you'll kill the promise of a free and unfettered internet where we all have equal footing
I think this assumes a difference in performance expectations that isn't reflected in reality. The difference between data coming from Dallas, or San Jose, or Chicago, or coming directly from your ISP data center is measured in the tens of milliseconds. I don't think this could realistically be expected to result in "packages". Who would sign up for a "Google/MSN/Yahoo/eBay" Internet that merely promised "30 ms faster!"?