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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

#91

Post by prklmn »

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.

That's lip service so the big players can have their regulatory burden reduced. High startup costs and anticompetitive practices are the most significant mechanisms preventing new market entrants.

Re: The FCC plan to undo its net neutrality rules

#92

Post by grzm »

F2 wrote: post #82
splintercell wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In past I've seen comments and incendiary language like this be given warning from the mods. I come to this site because despite of being more liberal leaning, I can have calm conversations with people.

How exactly is the comment you're replying to "incendiary"?

The comment includes highly partisan and uncivil language:

> spewing bullshit

> the clownshow in office

> D's get to clean up the mess

Regardless of how right (or wrong) the commenter may be, this type of language does not invite or encourage the civil and productive discourse that is strongly valued on HN. There are ways to express such opinions in a civil way, though it requires more effort. Given the current polarized environment in the US, it's difficult enough to engage in constructive discourse on political topics: on a forum such as HN with only text as the medium of communication it's even more difficult without using language used above.

Re: The FCC plan to undo its net neutrality rules

#93

Post by kakarot »

We're all getting very tired. If this doesn't pass today, it will pass tomorrow. The slow entrenchment of government over our freedoms and rights as international sovereign beings seems relentless. If we cannot push for high-order legislation outlining very clear rules for our digital rights soon, we won't have any rights left to claim. And then we can only take them by force. I would prefer to avoid that.

Re: The FCC plan to undo its net neutrality rules

#94

Post by astrocat »

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…

>In a non-net neutrality world, faster == expensive, and there is no business model for ISPs where they can provide cheaper services AND provide faster delivery.

Wait... but ISPs CAN charge consumers for faster speeds. There are most definitely price/speed tiers of service. Net neutrality was about not allowing an ISP to artificially throttle the speed of individual services going over their pipes, not about throttling total connection speed for an end user based on price.

The complexity seems to be that ISPs have 2 customers - end consumers, and content owners (to keep it simple). Comparisons to UPS aren't accurate because UPS contracts with ONE party - the shipper - for service. ISPs are contracting with both ends, and unless one side is neutral, they will be allowed to sell one thing but not provide it arbitrarily because some other party didn't also pay up. I can pay Comcast for gigabit access, but it isn't required to provide it to me at all because it can throttle any service it wishes. It's contract with me is purely to the curb.

Imagine this scenario: I pay for access to a toll road that runs for a few miles through Houston, TX. However, because my final destination on my trip is Florida, and Florida doesn't pay the toll road operator a special fee, my car is magically restricted to 15 miles per hour. The toll road provider provider sold me a pass to access the road at full speed 75 mph, but can arbitrarily (and magically) limit my speed without notice or consent based on information that is really arbitrary to the toll road's existence: my final destination.

Re: The FCC plan to undo its net neutrality rules

#95

Post by zkms »

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…

There's a fundamental material difference between Uber/Lyft/UPS and ISPs -- the initial costs to get into business for people/package transportation services are orders of magnitudes less than for ISPs.

The minimum cost of a transportation venture is extremely cheap -- a working vehicle and its operating costs (petrol, insurance, maintenance). Of course, it won't be as profitable as UPS and such a venture won't be able to out-compete UPS nationwide but there certainly are small local courier services that provides faster and cheaper service than UPS for limited use-cases.

There is no equivalent of a public national roads network for ISPs -- stringing up fibre is expensive as all hell and involves having to get permission from land owners, municipalities, and utilities. National-scale incumbents (who can easily afford to throw a few million dollars here or there to put in fibre of their own in a new region/market) currently are not subject to real competition from local ISPs (who don't have a comparable ability to throw cash around).

Re: The FCC plan to undo its net neutrality rules

#96

Post by Romanulus »

grzm wrote: post #92
F2 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How exactly is the comment you're replying to "incendiary"?

The comment includes highly partisan and uncivil language: > spewing bullshit > the clownshow in office > D's get to clean up the mess Regardless of how right (or wrong) the commenter may be, this type of language does not invite or encourage the civil and productive discourse that is strongly valued on HN. There are ways to express such opinions in a civil way, though it requires more effort. Given the current polar…

Holy fuck, get a load of this asshole.

Re: The FCC plan to undo its net neutrality rules

#97

Post by __jal »

grzm wrote: post #92
F2 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How exactly is the comment you're replying to "incendiary"?

The comment includes highly partisan and uncivil language: > spewing bullshit > the clownshow in office > D's get to clean up the mess Regardless of how right (or wrong) the commenter may be, this type of language does not invite or encourage the civil and productive discourse that is strongly valued on HN. There are ways to express such opinions in a civil way, though it requires more effort. Given the current polar…

For the record, I use 'bullshit' as a technical term[1].

I can imagine why someone might dislike 'clownshow'. Frankly, I find it accurate, or I wouldn't have written it, and I didn't use such terms in the past to describe pols I disagree with - it is specific to what I see as a historically bad outfit.

"Clean up the mess" is "uncivil"? Sorry, that's silly, and another demonstration that politically correct language policing isn't just for lefty college-kids.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Bullshit-Harry-G-Frankfurt/dp/0691122...

Re: The FCC plan to undo its net neutrality rules

#98

Post by milcron »

zkms wrote: post #52
cakeface wrote: post #21

The sneakiest thing just happened to me on that Washington Post site. There was an overlay ad, no big deal, with an X to close it in the upper right of the screen. I moved my mouse up there to click the X and the site shifted slightly so what I actually clicked was "Subscribe"!

This is why I disable javascript on my laptop and block ads on my iphone. I shouldn't have to chase around advert-closing buttons that's jinking like a high-performance fighter aircraft.

If you run Firefox on Android, you can use the NoScript extension there as well.

Sadly, Firefox for iOS is just a wrapper around WebKit, so Firefox extensions do not work there.

Re: The FCC plan to undo its net neutrality rules

#99

Post by jimktrains2 »

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'?

Because non promotes completion, not hinder it. Not all regulations are bad.

Re: The FCC plan to undo its net neutrality rules

#100

Post by Veratyr »

s73ver wrote: post #87
Veratyr wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you think a US government commission is being run in the interest of consumers or the internet in general? How much money do consumers and internet users donate to the government's election campaigns compared to the cable companies?

Why do you think simply leaving that in the hands of the ISPs, who have demonstrated in the past that they are more than willing to screw over consumers, is better?

I'm not saying it's better, I'm saying it's reality. Too many people are delusional and don't recognize that the problems they're seeing aren't isolated incidents, they're symptoms of a much larger underlying problem. Trying to treat the symptoms is futile without doing anything about the problem.
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