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The FCC plan to undo its net neutrality rules

washingtonpost.com

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Re: The FCC plan to undo its net neutrality rules

#71

Post by ue_ »

vijayr wrote: post #58
MS_Buys_Upvotes wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not. Not to get too political but there are two groups: "the people" and "business". Watch every decision the current administration makes. It's helpful for "business" and hurts "the people". This is the opposite of what most people think it should be.

In the (very) short run, yes what you say makes sense. How does it make sense in the long run? "Business" can't exist without "the people", right? If I don't have money to buy shit then I can't be a good consumer, what are they going to sell to me then? Replace I with millions of people, then what?

You're quite leading onto an important point with this - businesses require wage labour, capitalism does on a large scale - in order to make sure that there is a large number of people who are able to buy products. Periods of increasing automation means that there are fewer people employed in the old jobs, so they have to be repurposed, or learn new skills. Too much of this is bad for property owners, so there is also a long-term incentive to keep automation growth at a certain level.

But that doesn't mean that people are thrown under the bus - that's a view without nuance. Governments recognise that business can only work when there is a certain degree of freedom to the people (a "double freedom" as Marx put it), and this is done mostly or even wholly for the purpose of ensuring this constant flow of capital. As such, the nuanced view is that while it is capital versus "the people" (wage labourers), to protect the status of capital, "the people" must be afforded certain freedoms, or things break down.

Re: The FCC plan to undo its net neutrality rules

#72

Post by kevin_b_er »

splintercell wrote: post #53
outsidetheparty wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, but that only works if we keep net neutrality as is! With Pai's changes, why would they spend money improving their pipes to handle more traffic, when instead they can just throttle their competitors' traffic down to the point where their existing pipes are sufficient?

Because that can't make you more money. The only reason why doing that would make sense if you want to purposely do harm at the cost of making profits. If UPS slows the packages of Amazon down because they're accepting money from Jet.com then they would be violating their consumer agreement with Amazon. If UPS provides faster delivery for Jet.com for higher fee, then Amazon's products would be delivered slower but ch…

You are looking at it the wrong direction.

This is a model where average residential person is paying UPS to deliver all packages they ask for. But UPS has decided that jet.com must pay extra or their packages will be arbitrarily delayed vs amazon because UPS has invested in amazon. Then the customer cries foul because they thought they were paying for arbitrary package delivery.

The government tried to say packages should be treated equally by treating the package delivery as the USPS, but UPS has paid off the party members to ensure they can continue to double dip.

Also remember it isn't that a given company isn't paying for "priority" it is that they're going to be actively underprioritized unless they pay.

Re: The FCC plan to undo its net neutrality rules

#73

Post by msoad »

Like many other republican policies it's going to hurt the poor more than others. I would probably be fine paying extra to access "all of internet" but for a low income person it's going to be devastating. They will lose access to many useful resources due to this policy.

Re: The FCC plan to undo its net neutrality rules

#74

Post by MrFantastic »

splintercell wrote: post #28
outsidetheparty wrote: post #8

> Pai argued that rolling back the rules will encourage ISPs to spend more on their broadband networks How? How on earth does letting ISPs milk more money out of their existing network incentivize those ISPs to expand that network? It's just so frustrating that these guys no longer even bother to pretend that their arguments make any logical sense at all. "We'll protect user privacy by eliminating these rules that pr…

> How on earth does letting ISPs milk more money out of their existing network incentivize those ISPs to expand that network? The fundamental idea is that the amount of investment done in a venture is directly proportional to the profitability of that venture. If govt makes a regulation saying that Google can provide Hangouts service, but it cannot charge more for Enterprise Hangouts features, then Google has no addi…

ISP's are not a free market in most rural areas. They were subsidized by taxpayers and given sweet non-compete contracts in return for Lobby money.

Re: The FCC plan to undo its net neutrality rules

#75

Post by [deleted] »

ThePurpleKnight wrote: post #64
prklmn wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not having adequate competition plays a major role in this. If the market was actually competitive, they would have to invest more to stay alive, regardless of the regulations. It's the lack of competition that's driving the industry.

And to be fair to Pai, he has consistently said his main goal is to reduce the regulatory burdens preventing people from getting in to the market.

[deleted]

Re: The FCC plan to undo its net neutrality rules

#76

Post by ficho »

twoodfin wrote: post #69
ficho wrote: post #49

"“Two years ago, I warned that we were making a serious mistake,” Pai said. “It’s basic economics: The more heavily you regulate something, the less of it you’re likely to get.” Just reading this makes me angry. Has he ever heard of monopolies / oligopolies, or simply the place of government in regulating public utilities. Apply his quote to water supplies and see what happens.

Demand for water isn't growing at nearly the rate of demand for bits. If communities expected their regulated water utilities to deliver twice as much water every 18-36 months, they'd be in for some tough times.

That's irrelevant, if anything in your example you should compare growth in productivity for bits and for water independently and see if they manage to meet their demands Also water is a much more finite supply.

The point of my example was that as you leave government out of the tap water market and instead of getting more of it, you get less, more expensive and of lesser quality. Economics teach that in some industries, the government and a certain amount of regulation is healthy and good for the market; leaving actors to themselves just makes them tend naturally towards monopolies which then trifle innovation. Communications is one of those markets.

Re: The FCC plan to undo its net neutrality rules

#77

Post by hanspragt »

sxates wrote: post #51

I'm paying 30% more each month to use a local ISP that's dedicated to Net Neutrality and online privacy (sonic.net) instead of Comcast/xfinity, because Comcast, along with the other large telecom companies, are actively undermining competitive markets, consumer freedom, and in a sense, our democracy. An extra $20-30/month is a small price to pay to keep what little competition they have alive. I'd encourage everyone…

I am a Sonic subscriber myself, but they just resell AT&T so I am not sure how much a difference it really makes.

Re: The FCC plan to undo its net neutrality rules

#78

Post by [deleted] »

splintercell wrote: post #59
leereeves wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Incentives to encourage competition do little good when regulations prevent competition. Even if there's a lot of money to be made providing better service than Comcast, who will receive approval to dig up the ground and place new cables?

> Incentives to encourage competition do little good when regulations prevent competition. Well then why introduce more regulation like 'Net Neutrality'?

[deleted]

Re: The FCC plan to undo its net neutrality rules

#79

Post by outsidetheparty »

TearsInTheRain wrote: post #57
outsidetheparty wrote: post #8

> Pai argued that rolling back the rules will encourage ISPs to spend more on their broadband networks How? How on earth does letting ISPs milk more money out of their existing network incentivize those ISPs to expand that network? It's just so frustrating that these guys no longer even bother to pretend that their arguments make any logical sense at all. "We'll protect user privacy by eliminating these rules that pr…

> We'll boost competition and choice, by giving the existing entrenched players more control and power! Pai's position is that there is a healthy amount of competition in the isp space(he points to things like mobile competition and network development as evidence) and net neutrality is at best not needed and at worse harmful to innovation.

His position is plainly false. As we all know, broadband service is already an effective monopoly in the vast majority of the US.

And the argument that net neutrality harms innovation is a simply ridiculous inversion of fact. "Curse this level playing field! what would really help innovation is if we give carriers the power to throttle any new competing ideas out of existence!"

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