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Ask HN: What is the “other side” of the Net Neutrality argument?

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Re: Ask HN: What is the “other side” of the Net Neutrality argument?

#11

Post by pedalpete »

I like your approach, so let's take a look at this from the perspective of a traffic lane, which is how it is often described.

What if your local roads had two lanes, a fast lane and a slow lane. Anybody who pays to drive in the fast lane gets to go faster, anybody who doesn't pay is forced into the slow lane.

All the busses and other gov't vehicles get to drive in the fast lane. Uber makes a deal with the gov't which lets them drive in the fast lane.

The slow lane is set to an arbitrary 30km/h. You want to get to work, but it's 80km away. You could be there in an hour in the fast lane, but it's more than 2 in the slow lane. What do you do?

The gov't will tell you that the fast lane is great for prioritising traffic. Which may be true, but they've decided on the priority based on who has paid the most. Does that actually help you? They say, with the new system, we have all sorts of data on who travels on which roads and we can sell that data to pay for the system.

Ok, how do you benefit from that payment of a system which is actively preventing you from getting to work?

I don't know. Maybe I'm too close to the issue to see what the "other side" may be, other than $$$.

Re: Ask HN: What is the “other side” of the Net Neutrality argument?

#12

Post by AnimalMuppet »

eridius wrote: post #8

AIUI the basic argument against net neutrality is "government regulation is bad, capitalism is good, let the ISPs do what they want and have the free market sort it out". And of course this is worth a lot of money to the ISPs. But the big problem here is there is no free market for ISPs.

> But the big problem here is there is no free market for ISPs.

What is the average number of ISPs available to a home? I have no data, but I'm guessing it's not very many. Not enough that there is effectively a free market.

Re: Ask HN: What is the “other side” of the Net Neutrality argument?

#13

Post by rlyshw »

pedalpete wrote: post #11

I like your approach, so let's take a look at this from the perspective of a traffic lane, which is how it is often described. What if your local roads had two lanes, a fast lane and a slow lane. Anybody who pays to drive in the fast lane gets to go faster, anybody who doesn't pay is forced into the slow lane. All the busses and other gov't vehicles get to drive in the fast lane. Uber makes a deal with the gov't whic…

This is the most common argument FOR Net Neutrality, but I don't think there is any evidence to believe that this is exactly what ISPs will do if Net Neutrality ends.

Re: Ask HN: What is the “other side” of the Net Neutrality argument?

#14

Post by rlyshw »

I've found snippets of Rand Paul's opinions on net neutrality, which basically sum up to "any government control in a market is bad".[1]

[1] Campaign for liberty's "The Technology Revolution" http://www.campaignforliberty.org/national-blog/c4l-introduc...

Re: Ask HN: What is the “other side” of the Net Neutrality argument?

#15

Post by namelost »

The other side is that net neutrality is just a bandage around the more fundamental problem: that there is not much competition between ISPs in the USA.

The seemingly endless debate around "net neutrality" arguably benefits ISPs, who have little to gain by being "non-neutral" but MUCH to gain by maintaining their local fiefdoms.

Re: Ask HN: What is the “other side” of the Net Neutrality argument?

#16

Post by dragonwriter »

rlyshw wrote: post #5
dragonwriter wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> From my point of view, a curated internet would be much less noisy. I'd only be allowed to access to the content that I want to have access to. No, you'd only have access to the content that curator wanted you to have access to.

Ok, but the curators would need to provide a suitably large range of content in order to stay competitive.

> Ok, but the curators would need to provide a suitably large range of content in order to stay competitive.

Assuming that there was robust competition or low barriers to entry so that new competitors could easily jump in, sure.

But that's basically nothing like the US ISP market.

Re: Ask HN: What is the “other side” of the Net Neutrality argument?

#17

Post by dragonwriter »

gordonyx wrote: post #9
renko wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't need to stay competitive because most areas of the country only have one option.

Nothing is less competitive than a government monopoly.

If something is going to be uncompetitive in any case, you strip the power to leverage that for additional control from the uncompetitive thing. Government road networks face no competition, but that's virtually never an issue because no one is leveraging that monopoly to restrict competition elsewhere, not to charge rents beyond what it takes to maintain he road network (or even sufficient to that end.)

Last mile connectivity is a natural monopoly, whether or not it is a government monopoly.

Re: Ask HN: What is the “other side” of the Net Neutrality argument?

#18

Post by eridius »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #12
eridius wrote: post #8

AIUI the basic argument against net neutrality is "government regulation is bad, capitalism is good, let the ISPs do what they want and have the free market sort it out". And of course this is worth a lot of money to the ISPs. But the big problem here is there is no free market for ISPs.

> But the big problem here is there is no free market for ISPs. What is the average number of ISPs available to a home? I have no data, but I'm guessing it's not very many. Not enough that there is effectively a free market.

Exactly. I believe that, for most places in the US, it's 1 or 2, though I don't actually have any concrete data.

Re: Ask HN: What is the “other side” of the Net Neutrality argument?

#19

Post by markbarrington »

The main argument against the current net neutrality laws is that they are unnecessary legislation and that government should only intervene with rules when some harm has been shown.

The internet worked just fine with respect to ISPs not favoring content before the net neutrality laws were passed in 2015. Yes, there were some instances of push and shove between content providers and ISPS but overall not a big problem. After all the internet has exploded in reach and scale prior to 2015 without that law.

Re: Ask HN: What is the “other side” of the Net Neutrality argument?

#20

Post by cdoxsey »

You can read Ajit Pai's statement here:

http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2017...

> Today, I have shared with my colleagues a draft order that would abandon this failed approach and return to the longstanding consensus that served consumers well for decades. Under my proposal, the federal government will stop micromanaging the Internet. Instead, the FCC would simply require Internet service providers to be transparent about their practices so that consumers can buy the service plan that’s best for them and entrepreneurs and other small businesses can have the technical information they need to innovate.

If you get around the spin in that statement the argument is a fairly conventional one:

Government regulation inhibits technological innovation by requiring internet service providers to provide their services in the same way they always have. If regulations were removed new ideas could be tested in the market and no one can predict what new technological innovations may occur.

How is removing a regulation limiting freedom?

The real heart of this issue is not what Comcast or Verizon will do. If they did things that customers didn't like, and customers were free to leave (as they are now), then they would leave.

Rather the real heart of the issue is that customers may actually welcome the changes. Maybe most people would be happy with only having access to a few sites, or a slow lane for less cost. And the kind of folks who read hacker news would end up being collateral damage, and the original, global, universal vision of the internet will have been lost.

In my opinion the worst-case, dystopian scenario here is unlikely to happen. There are just too many people out there who really do value an open internet, and although there may be a period of adjustment, someone will enter the market to provide what customers want, though it may be significantly more expensive than before.

But I guess it comes down to whether or not you believe in the free market or not. The pendulum swings in american thought, and I'd say we're currently in the panic, distrust and pessimism side, but we'll head back the other direction in a few years.

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