Re: [p2pi] We don't need to treat users fairly, we need to maximize their happiness!

On Jun 12, 2008, at 4:31 AM, Laird Popkin wrote:

> The term 'fairness' is (IMO) distracting us from the real goals,  
> since that word has emotional implications (e.g. "unfairness"). And  
> a discussion about fairness assumes that our goal is equal resource  
> allocation in the context of a 'zero sum game'. I think that there  
> equal allocation of resources isn't the best answer for users (e.g.  
> a VOIP call and a PodCast aren't equal value bits), and there are  
> certainly some cases where we're not in a zero sum game (i.e. being  
> smarter can get much more performance out of the same physical  
> resources). And, at least as relates to the p2p issues we're  
> discussing, I don't know that fairness is even particularly important.
>
> I think what we're ultimately trying to achieve is to maximize user  
> happiness when on a constrained network. This is different from  
> "fairness" in that there are some pretty obvious cases where being  
> "fair" does not maximize user satisfaction. That's not to say that  
> fairness is bad - fairness is the best the network can do if there's  
> no visibility into the actual value of the data, or ability to  
> influence application-level decisions. But fairness isn't really our  
> goal. Maximized user satisfaction is our goal.
>

The problem is, if you want to maximize the aggregate user  
satisfaction for a large number of users, rather than fairness, you  
are going to invite protocol-based discrimination between users.

EG, if "Happyness" is defined as "My voip works, my interactive  
sessions are great, my web surfing is OK, etc" for a large group of  
users, dropping all bulk-data P2P on the floor is a great maximizing  
function in times of congestion!

Look at it this way, except for a few individuals, Comcast killing  
seeds and leeches increases user "happyness" by a considerable amount  
(they stopped getting complains about deliberately disrupting VoIP  
services), and unless the seeding was deliberate, it even increases  
happyness for the local users' whos traffic it kills.

Fairness, on the other hand, can be quantified, defined, and,  
critically, does not and should not require INTER-user protocol  
discrimination.

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