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Net Neutrality Day of Action: Help Preserve the Open Internet

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Re: Net Neutrality Day of Action: Help Preserve the Open Internet

#101

Post by siliconc0w »

rtx wrote: post #7

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai: Why He's Rejecting Net Neutrality https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1IzN9tst28

He misrepresents the other side's arguments and makes inaccurate claims himself. There has been many examples of telecoms blocking competitors or pushing consumers to use their own (often mediocre) products over competitors.

There likely is room for some reasonable middle-ground that allows for some 'non-neutral' activity to truly benefit consumers but people don't trust that our political system can find it. It's much more likely that unfettered telecoms will further exploit their monopolies to collect data, segment the market (eliminate any consumer surplus), deincentivize competitors, push their mediocre products, or otherwise find ways of increasing revenue beyond being a 'dump-pipe' because they've exhausted the margin in that. They is is almost expected behavior from a commercial entity, it's the government's job to keep them in check.

Re: Net Neutrality Day of Action: Help Preserve the Open Internet

#102

Post by bogomipz »

mabbo wrote: post #19

If Google were actually serious about Net Neutrality, they would use their insane market power to protect it. How? Well, a simple statement saying "any ISP who abuses net neutrality will have their customers cut off from Google products". No Google search, no YouTube, no Gmail. Have those requests instead redirect to a website telling the customer what their ISP is doing, why Google won't work with them, and how to c…

Using regular folks who are already a captive audience, as foot soldiers against big telecom is not very efficient and probably a non-starter from a PR perspective.

What is the net result of this? People call up and complain to their ISP? Complaining hasn't worked yet and that's the problem. You can complain all you want but when there's no competition it doesn't matter.

A far better idea in my opinion would be for Google to spend money and muscle in partnering to provide municipal broadband.

If people had a choice between a municipal broadband provider that preserved net-neutrality or choosing the existing duopoly that wants to "rent seek" then I think the net-neutrality issue might finally be able to be put to rest.

There are some case studies in successful municipal broadband deployments here:

http://www.bbpmag.com/snapshot/snap0612.php

Google is already partnering with NYC via Sidewalk Labs. See:

https://sidewalklabs.com/about/

and LinkNYC is already up and running, so its not much of a stretch:

http://screenmediadaily.com/citybridge-to-launch-linknyc-lar...

Re: Net Neutrality Day of Action: Help Preserve the Open Internet

#103

Post by reitanqild »

mabbo wrote: post #19

If Google were actually serious about Net Neutrality, they would use their insane market power to protect it. How? Well, a simple statement saying "any ISP who abuses net neutrality will have their customers cut off from Google products". No Google search, no YouTube, no Gmail. Have those requests instead redirect to a website telling the customer what their ISP is doing, why Google won't work with them, and how to c…

Well, -just place an annoying ad that shows up for everyone including customers, employees and executives who use any google property:

"""You seem to be using which is a lousy internet provider for reasons x, y and z.

Feel free to call them now at or send a mail to and let them know what you think.

Also here are other known providers in your area:

You can also sign and to show your interest to other sane providers that are considering offering fiber in your area."""

Re: Net Neutrality Day of Action: Help Preserve the Open Internet

#104

Post by scottLobster »

cracell wrote: post #92
scottLobster wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know right? The question for me is why? Netflix has gone on record saying "well, we're big enough to negotiate the deals we want so we don't particularly care if the ladder gets pulled up behind us". I imagine many other big corporations/sites are in similar positions. But even so I doubt they'd want to make said deals in the first place, they'd be expensive. So isn't a stronger response in their best interest? Or…

I think they just don't see the point. I don't think the people pushing to dismantle net neutrality are stupid. They know that removing it is bad for innovation and consumers but they'd rather help the ISPs make more money than help keep America's economy healthy overall. Probably because they directly receive benefits from the ISPs. So since we are all being ignored, why will yelling louder make a difference?

It worked against SOPA/PIPA, although granted that was legislation up for a vote, not the policy of a commission. At the very least it might give some of the politicians a moment of pause to know they're seriously pissing off other powerful moneyed interests, and it would certainly increase public awareness and perhaps make more people care. If you talk about how YouTube might be throttled without Net Neutrality, people will definitely care.

Re: Net Neutrality Day of Action: Help Preserve the Open Internet

#105

Post by baq »

bnewbold wrote: post #59
mabbo wrote: post #19

If Google were actually serious about Net Neutrality, they would use their insane market power to protect it. How? Well, a simple statement saying "any ISP who abuses net neutrality will have their customers cut off from Google products". No Google search, no YouTube, no Gmail. Have those requests instead redirect to a website telling the customer what their ISP is doing, why Google won't work with them, and how to c…

To state the obvious, this proposal is antithetical to the concept of network neutrality. Also, the belief that there would be "competitors in the user's area that don't play stupid games" that offer comparable services (eg, within a factor of 5x bandwidth-per-dollar value) seems to be a misunderstanding of the utility/monopoly/duopoly economics in play in many regions of the USA.

> To state the obvious, this proposal is antithetical to the concept of network neutrality.

the culture employs special circumstances when the situation exceeds the moral capacity of contact.

or to put it differently, sometimes outside forces are so strong that you either let your ethics... be flexible for while or just disappear in the annals of history.

whether OP's particular action would be effective is a different question - bing, ddg or baidu would gladly jump at the opportunity if this wasn't coordinated.

Re: Net Neutrality Day of Action: Help Preserve the Open Internet

#107

Post by anth1988 »

bobcallme wrote: post #32

"Net Neutrality" in its final form did not solve or fix any problems with the Internet. The definition of "Net Neutrality" is poorly defined, too vague and does not have any proposed legislation attached to "fix" things. Even when new rules were implemented, ISPs still throttled torrents and manipulated traffic. The only way to fix the Internet is to do so from a technical perspective, not by adding more regulations…

Classic "implementation is imperfect so lets do nothing instead".

Makes as little sense here as it ever does.

Re: Net Neutrality Day of Action: Help Preserve the Open Internet

#108

Post by clarkevans »

mnm1 wrote: post #13

Sorry Google (and FB, Amazon, etc.) this doesn't actually count as taking action. Not even a single link on their home page. An obscure post on a blog won't do shit. Let's stop pretending that you want net neutrality, Google, et al. Day of action my fucking ass.

Indeed. With prior threats I seem to remember Google having some sort of front-page search page link to the issue. Perhaps I'm not remembering correctly? Why no Google search page love?

I was at least expecting what is currently at https://duckduckgo.com/

Re: Net Neutrality Day of Action: Help Preserve the Open Internet

#110

Post by ZainRiz »

baq wrote: post #105
bnewbold wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To state the obvious, this proposal is antithetical to the concept of network neutrality. Also, the belief that there would be "competitors in the user's area that don't play stupid games" that offer comparable services (eg, within a factor of 5x bandwidth-per-dollar value) seems to be a misunderstanding of the utility/monopoly/duopoly economics in play in many regions of the USA.

> To state the obvious, this proposal is antithetical to the concept of network neutrality. the culture employs special circumstances when the situation exceeds the moral capacity of contact. or to put it differently, sometimes outside forces are so strong that you either let your ethics... be flexible for while or just disappear in the annals of history. whether OP's particular action would be effective is a differe…

Therin lie dragons

That's how you start thinking it's okay to drop napalm and nuclear bombs on cities since "it'll end the war faster"

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