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Net neutrality is dying with a whimper

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Re: Net neutrality is dying with a whimper

#61

Post by Arubis »

gremlinsinc wrote: post #51
crispyambulance wrote: post #5

Net neutrality is dying because no one has been able to make a compelling case for it that can be understood by constituents, let alone politicians. There is one thing that just enough politicians do understand, however, and that's money. In their pockets. From ghouls who will profit handsomely when online access in the USA becomes effectively equivalent to shitty cable-tv service.

Here's a compelling case: -- All big sites ban users from Comcast, Verizon, ATT every monday, explaining to them what Net Neutrality is, and that if they don't want to pay for special 'access' to sites like google/facebook etc the same way they have to pay for HBO, then they better contact their congressmen or their internet service provider and complain.. Something like: "I'm sorry your provider Comcast is against N…

As much as that would be emotionally satisfying, I suspect that would be handing victory to Comcast et at., as they could claim the moral high ground of "we're just trying to best serve our customers".

One-offs raise visibility. Scheduling pain for people you're trying to convince that you're right will just make them resent you.

Re: Net neutrality is dying with a whimper

#62

Post by longliveNN »

I work at BigCo and heard that we wanted to do more for the net neutrality day of action but were deterred due to getting "gentle reminders" from certain politicians and regulators from within the government about other avenues for potential consequences. Which makes me suspicious that the other BigCos were put into a similar position.

Re: Net neutrality is dying with a whimper

#63

Post by crispyambulance »

gremlinsinc wrote: post #53
cribbles wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The alt-right is a small fringe movement with outsized presence in election post-mortems due to their visibility on digital platforms used by journalists and bloggers. Trump voters were (mostly) Romney voters.[1] Clinton lost by failing to galvanize voters who turned out for Obama in prior elections[2] and neglecting to campaign in Rustbelt states.[3] [1] http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/11/09/behind-trump..…

Clinton lost because the DNC cheated to get her where she was in the first place... She was supposed to be the candidate that could never lose, and Bernie Or Bust isn't a real thing... Sure as heck was, I know Bernie supporters who voted Trump out of spite (mostly the independents) -- I wrote Bernie in personally, because I'd rather see the shit storm that is Trump -- piss people off so badly and ruin the entire repu…

Bernie will be nearing 80 years of age by then, making it iffy that he will even survive his first term. We're more likely to see Elizabeth Warren run, IMHO.

Re: Net neutrality is dying with a whimper

#64

Post by cmahler7 »

rpedroso wrote: post #42
cmahler7 wrote: post #31

Wouldn't getting rid of net neutrality actually be good for startups and smaller companies? People are effectively subsidizing the internet giants right now, if telecoms charged extra for them people would move on to different services? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it's odd to see people banding together to defend Google, Amazon, Netflix, etc. Although the companies on the other side are obviously scum as wel…

Suppose that we eliminate net neutrality. Further suppose that, in a few years, I start a video streaming service called "Notflix". Because ISPs are no longer required to be dumb pipes, they've started charging their customers a premium for access to video content. This is bad for Netflix, of course, because it cuts into their subscriber base. They crunch some numbers and come up with an amount they're willing to pay…

>I also disagree with your assessment that anybody is subsidizing internet giants. All those players pay for the bandwidth they consume to dump their data into the network. The end-user pays for the other end of the connection. Everything is being paid for, proportionally to the usage.

I know very little about the situation, hence the naive question, that statement was based off all the websites like reddit putting up fake pay walls to show what things would be like without net neutrality.

Re: Net neutrality is dying with a whimper

#65

Post by Arubis »

uncletammy wrote: post #47
d--b wrote: post #18

Is there any hope that some new ISP gets created that does follow net neutrality? What's likely to happen to an ISP that doesn't play the fast/slow lane approach?

I would expect the major hurdle by any new ISP to be ownership of infrastructure. If anti-neutral firms own the poles, they are likely to put up one hell of a fight to keep them. That being said, it would make sense to me that scrapping neutrality might be the very thing needed to encourage Google to finish their fiber roll out across the US. Incumbent telecoms have incentive to restrict access to content. Google bei…

Screw poles. In sufficiently dense metro areas, microwave or similar is competitive on price and bandwidth.

This is deeply unfair to less dense areas, though. Google Fiber is shiny and alluring, but there's other solutions for us urbanites. What I'd love to see, and would make a difference, is competition for last-mile delivery _outside_ of cities.

Re: Net neutrality is dying with a whimper

#66

Post by epmaybe »

fredley wrote: post #16
hartator wrote: post #15

I don't see what this fuss is all about. If Facebook wants to offer cheaper Internet with their services prioritized, why not? Plus Internet is far from being neutral right now. Emails got deliver depending on your server IPs. CDNs already pay to be hosted by ISPs for a fast lane. Torrents don't reach the full capacity of your bandwidth. Etc. The case against government regulations for the Internet is easy to make: E…

Because the fear is that the internet will become like TV: you can't buy access to 'TV', despite the fact there's no technical limitation. You have to buy packages, from different providers in order to get what you want. You have to sign up to hefty subscription packages with loads of bundled shite just to watch 7 hours of Game of Thrones. Currently you buy access to the internet, and that's all internet , at equal p…

Not discounting your argument, but HBO Now is cable-independent, so you can pay just for HBO and get Game of Thrones.

Re: Net neutrality is dying with a whimper

#67

Post by losteric »

hartator wrote: post #15

I don't see what this fuss is all about. If Facebook wants to offer cheaper Internet with their services prioritized, why not? Plus Internet is far from being neutral right now. Emails got deliver depending on your server IPs. CDNs already pay to be hosted by ISPs for a fast lane. Torrents don't reach the full capacity of your bandwidth. Etc. The case against government regulations for the Internet is easy to make: E…

The "let websites subsidize users" meme is a red herring. Net neutrality is about killing competition in the consumer sector and further consolidating the corporate multimedia monopolies.

No net neutrality = no competition in the ISP space; any new ISP has to build out a parallel network all the way to a fair ISP. Net neutrality is what guarantees that peered traffic is fairly prioritized.

My first apartment was wired and run by an 8 man startup that operated a few contiguous apartment complexes. They connected the complexes to Comcast but dealt with all the last-mile (last block?) issues... but here's the kicker, Comcast also offered services in the area. My ISP only existed because Comcast was required to fairly prioritize their traffic. Without net neutrality, that ISP's traffic would have been deprioritized by Comcast.

Re: Net neutrality is dying with a whimper

#69

Post by uncletammy »

splintercell wrote: post #30
burkaman wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are the economic incentives to keep Internet free?

There are economic incentives to deliver what people want. Fox news is hugely profitable because it delivers to people what no other media organization delivers, and that is a right wing perspective on events. Throughout the Obama years, Fox News made insane amount of money precisely for this reason.

You're being downvoted for making people read the words "Fox news" but you're absolutely right about this.

I would state it another way though. Fox news is hugely profitable because it provides information to people that validates, reinforces, and legitimizes their particular social and political beliefs. It thickens the walls of their bubble. Fox news led the way with this and every other network quickly followed suit.

Re: Net neutrality is dying with a whimper

#70

Post by ajross »

unclesaamm wrote: post #60

This article buys way too much into the concept of "democratic efficiency", that "being heard" leads directly to government action, and therefore lack of action (or the wrong kind of action) is _caused by_ a lack of "being heard". This is so, so, so wrong, and is just further setting the stage for net neutrality to be repealed and for the blame to be cast at activists' feet. Net neutrality is one of the most popular…

Pai's immediate predecessor literally flipped his position on net neutrality, owing largely (at least as is commonly assumed) to political pressure from the White House, itself driven by clearly expressed sentiment among the democratic base. Absent the earlier burst of activism, it's unlikely the Obama administration would have cared enough to lean on Wheeler.

That doesn't mean that it's going to work on Trump and Pai in the same way, but arguing that activism "doesn't work" based on this one data point is silly. It does work, sometimes. The details matter.

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