Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The FCC plan to undo its net neutrality rules

washingtonpost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 206 posts

Re: The FCC plan to undo its net neutrality rules

#131

Post by UnpossibleJim »

michaelmrose wrote: post #129
lettergram wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually think the "D's" are equally bad, if not worse. But saying that potentially leads to an argument. That's why it's incendiary, because it leads directly to bashing, skipping civil debate. Plus, it's condecending to at least half of the people in the U.S. The parent commenter acts as though they know they're correct and every other person is wrong. The comment comes across very close minded, and not really in…

You can't join in the political discussion and wag your finger at those talking politics. I also don't think much of the both sides are equally bad dismissal of the current disaster that is American politics. Its a disappointing lack of analysis.

I understand that in the current state, not much argument can be made, but if qe roll the clock back to September of last year, a scant 8 months ago, the actions of "both" parties was pretty equally toxic. As I know this will draw fire from one side or the other for not being biased in their personal direction, I cannot and will not support either party due to nonpolitical bias. Analysis of a political state cannot be true if viewed over a (horrible) four month period. The current Democrats took to Reagan policy, as a whole, pretty well. It's just a slightly different flavor. All that having been spewed out of my opinion hole, is Hackernews going to become embroiled in "my team v. your team" political discussions? I gotta find something new to read on the bus, if so (insert pedantic emoji here)

Re: The FCC plan to undo its net neutrality rules

#132

Post by foxylad »

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…

Thanks for explaining the point, and I note that you are not necessarily supporting what you are explaining.

To be honest, I'm unsure about the whole "make it worth more and they'll invest more in it" argument, but I do think that abandoning net neutrality has a chilling effect on small startups. Or small bloggers, or small anyone.

Re: The FCC plan to undo its net neutrality rules

#133

Post by mschuster91 »

ShameSpear wrote: post #10

I just feel hopeless. I don't think there's anything we can do at this point

Get organized. There are, depending on your willingness to occasionally bend the law, groups ranging from militant antifa to the organizers of March for Science.

You can also call, email or fax elected representatives (this one works at its best when you follow up e.g. with ACLU and their targeted campaigns) - or if you want, also run for an elected office. Surprisingly easy depending on where you live.

Or you can just talk with your family, friends and neighbors and explain to them that Trump is feeding them untreated sewage while marketing it as deluxe bottled water. Read up on the latest tweets of Donald Trump, check their validity (e.g. Snopes comes in handy) and show those who you talk to the facts. Sometimes it just needs someone from the "outside" to break a Trump fan out of the Facebook fascist filter-bubble.

Re: The FCC plan to undo its net neutrality rules

#134

Post by krisdol »

splintercell wrote: post #56
__jal wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's just spewing bullshit to get past the decision becoming final. Engaging on a level of logic with someone who is seeking an outcome and just says whatever they think will support their view. This is about the exercise of power. And as has happened since Reagan, when the clownshow in office is finally shown the door, the D's get to clean up the mess, work towards fixing economy yet again, and the cycle of life is…

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.

HN isn't generally liberal leaning. HN is generally libertarian leaning. Not all of us, of course, but the sentiment here is very pro-business.

Re: The FCC plan to undo its net neutrality rules

#135

Post by Veratyr »

sinak wrote: post #5

Here is the "fact sheet" that Ajit Pai distributed at the event at the Newseum today: https://twitter.com/davidshepardson/status/85728851922775655... Also of note, YC, TechStars and Engine Advocacy released their "Startups for Net Neutrality" letter to Pai this morning: http://www.engine.is/startups-for-net-neutrality

It's factually incorrect though.

> Two years ago, the FCC suddenly changed course – even though there was no problem that the agency needed to solve.

There was a problem. The FCC enacted the Open Internet Order establishing Net Neutrality in 2010, Verizon sued the FCC in 2014 and the court said the FCC could only enact the order if Verizon was a Title II common carrier. The FCC reclassified so that they could enforce the Open Internet Order, like the court said it must.

You could argue that there was no problem that the Open Internet Order addressed but that happened in 2010, 6 years ago, not two.

Re: The FCC plan to undo its net neutrality rules

#136

Post by acjohnson55 »

krisdol wrote: post #134
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.

HN isn't generally liberal leaning. HN is generally libertarian leaning. Not all of us, of course, but the sentiment here is very pro-business.

I'd gamble the liberals have the plurarilty, but just with a much higher representation of libertarians than broader society.

Re: The FCC plan to undo its net neutrality rules

#137

Post by awalton »

cmdrfred wrote: post #118
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You're claiming "There is no way they will go for business model 2, they will go for business model 1". But you have no presented any reason why they would do that? There are two reasons they would do that. The first is price discrimination. Suppose Spotify makes $2/month worth of profit but uses $0.05/month in bandwidth. Now Verizon can charge them $2/month for that amount of bandwidth and take their entire margin…

What happens when Spotify emails its customers saying "sorry we can't provide service to Verizon customers anymore, they charge us too much" Some may stay and downgrade their service as they don't require as much bandwidth and some may leave Verizon entirely. It's not all roses for them. Then Comcast, AT&T, Google or anyone else frankly begins offering "True unlimited full access internet" and eats Verizon's breakfas…

> Then Comcast, AT&T, Google or anyone else frankly begins offering "True unlimited full access internet" and eats Verizon's breakfast, lunch and dinner.

You seem to be intentionally forgetting that these ISPs have segregated themselves such that they do not have to compete with one another. In most of the US, you get one choice of fast internet (Verizon or Comcast or Time Warner) and one choice of slow internet (whatever DSL you can find) - you may not even get satellite or dial up anymore.

So, when Verizon says "Screw you Google and Netflix and Spotify", their customers don't go "hey Comcast/AT&T/Google, c'mere", they say "how much do I have to pay you to make the pain stop... for now..." (The customers of all of these horrible ISPs have been screaming the "hey [other ISP] come to my area" line for literally decades, but the ISPs don't listen because they have either agreed explicitly or implicitly not to push into one another's turf to maximize everyone's profits.)

This is why we need net neutrality. If the market was competitive, it'd be a different story altogether. But it is provably not (hell, they've used the fact the markets are not competitive to try to convince the FTC to allow them to merge with other ISPs because "it would not reduce overall competition, since they do not compete in such-and-such markets"), and despite the government drowning AT&T and its many children with hundreds of billions of dollars over the past few decades to build high speed networks for everyone, they still organized their networks in such a way to maintain monopoly powers (albeit in smaller, more fragmented markets).

ISPs in America do as little as possible, collecting the biggest check as possible, and use the massive profits to squeeze competitors out (like they have successfully done with Google giving up the ghost of expanding even in Mountain View California where they are headquartered and as they are scaling up to do to municipalities creating their own networks like Chattanooga). They're consistently rated as the worst businesses in America, but they are infrastructure, so we pay them anyway. And now they're learning that more profits exist in content than it does in carrying the content fairly, so they want to be the source of the content too. And that means killing net neutrality to making themselves the sole arbiters of the market.

Re: The FCC plan to undo its net neutrality rules

#138

Post by aeze »

cmdrfred wrote: post #118
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You're claiming "There is no way they will go for business model 2, they will go for business model 1". But you have no presented any reason why they would do that? There are two reasons they would do that. The first is price discrimination. Suppose Spotify makes $2/month worth of profit but uses $0.05/month in bandwidth. Now Verizon can charge them $2/month for that amount of bandwidth and take their entire margin…

What happens when Spotify emails its customers saying "sorry we can't provide service to Verizon customers anymore, they charge us too much" Some may stay and downgrade their service as they don't require as much bandwidth and some may leave Verizon entirely. It's not all roses for them. Then Comcast, AT&T, Google or anyone else frankly begins offering "True unlimited full access internet" and eats Verizon's breakfas…

Unfortunately in many places, there isn't real competition.

Re: The FCC plan to undo its net neutrality rules

#139

Post by dang »

krisdol wrote: post #134
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.

HN isn't generally liberal leaning. HN is generally libertarian leaning. Not all of us, of course, but the sentiment here is very pro-business.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14207836

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13932041

Re: The FCC plan to undo its net neutrality rules

#140

Post by vacri »

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.

> The more heavily you regulate something, the less of it you’re likely to get.

Sounds like Pai should talk to someone on a cardiac pacemaker.

Post reply on HN