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

72% of Consumers Don't Know What Net Neutrality Is

exstreamist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 138 posts

Re: 72% of Consumers Don't Know What Net Neutrality Is

#111

Post by twblalock »

sharkweek wrote: post #6

Doesn't surprise me at all - the level of energy in the most recent protests around the repeal was optically quite a bit lower than previous efforts. We were basically warned this would happen too, that Net Neutrality opponents just keep beating the drum until the general population got tired of resisting.

> We were basically warned this would happen too, that Net Neutrality opponents just keep beating the drum until the general population got tired of resisting.

The general population never resisted, because they were never really participants in the conversation.

Most of the net neutrality activism happened within the bubble of people who work in or care deeply about tech. I don't know very many people in the general public who had heard the term "net neutrality" before I mentioned it to them, and I live in Silicon Valley, so I would expect the general public here to be a bit more technology-inclined than in the rest of the country.

This should be a wake up call to proponents of net neutrality -- better marketing and communication with the general public is going to be needed.

Re: 72% of Consumers Don't Know What Net Neutrality Is

#112

Post by michrassena »

dieterrams wrote: post #5

Survey methodology and all that, but it wouldn't surprise me in the least if most of the affected population didn't know. Net Equality would have likely perked up more interest.

Net neutrality has to be one of the most poorly marketed concepts of the past decade. When you're head-to-head with global companies with tremendous budgets, it's a good idea to have people trained in PR doing your branding.

The biggest failure of the net neutrality movement was it did nothing to undermine the belief that net neutrality represented a change in the status quo. It would have been better to lead with the idea of big business (telecoms) or the government (FCC) meddling with the Internet.

This highlights an unfortunate aspect of our public sphere. The unvarnished truth is rarely enough to influence public opinion. Those of us in the computers, and engineering must recognize that rhetoric based on emotion is a more effective tool when communicating with the general public. Facts are necessary but not sufficient.

Re: 72% of Consumers Don't Know What Net Neutrality Is

#113

Post by Animats »

Clubber wrote: post #69
Animats wrote: post #64

That's not bad. Over half the US population doesn't know that over-the-air TV still works.

They miniaturize people and put them in the box like on Willy Wonka.. Duh..

No, not "how". Merely that it still works at all. A big fraction of the population assumes you have to buy cable to get TV. Some think that selling TV antennas is illegal. [1]

[1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/millennials-unearth-an-amazing-...

Re: 72% of Consumers Don't Know What Net Neutrality Is

#115

Post by seanp2k2 »

twblalock wrote: post #111
sharkweek wrote: post #6

Doesn't surprise me at all - the level of energy in the most recent protests around the repeal was optically quite a bit lower than previous efforts. We were basically warned this would happen too, that Net Neutrality opponents just keep beating the drum until the general population got tired of resisting.

> We were basically warned this would happen too, that Net Neutrality opponents just keep beating the drum until the general population got tired of resisting. The general population never resisted, because they were never really participants in the conversation. Most of the net neutrality activism happened within the bubble of people who work in or care deeply about tech. I don't know very many people in the general…

It's hard to fight with lawyers who have the full-time job of doing things like repealing net neutrality. This is even more true when they don't care about public opinion, have strong industry ties, and literally run the FCC.

Re: 72% of Consumers Don't Know What Net Neutrality Is

#116

Post by seanp2k2 »

michrassena wrote: post #112
dieterrams wrote: post #5

Survey methodology and all that, but it wouldn't surprise me in the least if most of the affected population didn't know. Net Equality would have likely perked up more interest.

Net neutrality has to be one of the most poorly marketed concepts of the past decade. When you're head-to-head with global companies with tremendous budgets, it's a good idea to have people trained in PR doing your branding. The biggest failure of the net neutrality movement was it did nothing to undermine the belief that net neutrality represented a change in the status quo. It would have been better to lead with th…

I'm not convinced that facts are even necessary right now. You can literally just make stuff up and make up arguments around it, then scream about it until people start getting onboard.

Re: 72% of Consumers Don't Know What Net Neutrality Is

#117

Post by dragonwriter »

seanp2k2 wrote: post #116
michrassena wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Net neutrality has to be one of the most poorly marketed concepts of the past decade. When you're head-to-head with global companies with tremendous budgets, it's a good idea to have people trained in PR doing your branding. The biggest failure of the net neutrality movement was it did nothing to undermine the belief that net neutrality represented a change in the status quo. It would have been better to lead with th…

I'm not convinced that facts are even necessary right now. You can literally just make stuff up and make up arguments around it, then scream about it until people start getting onboard.

That's always been true, and frequently been exploited throughout history.

Re: 72% of Consumers Don't Know What Net Neutrality Is

#118

Post by SkyMarshal »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #8
sharkweek wrote: post #6

Doesn't surprise me at all - the level of energy in the most recent protests around the repeal was optically quite a bit lower than previous efforts. We were basically warned this would happen too, that Net Neutrality opponents just keep beating the drum until the general population got tired of resisting.

I'd argue that at this point, the protests are arguably irrelevant. Ajit Pai has made his position clear, he has no intention of changing it. With a Republican Presidency, the FCC has a Republican majority, and votes on party lines. The only alternate path to this issue is Congress, which is also Republican. No Congressmen cares strongly enough about net neutrality (it's not an issue that's going to lose them reelect…

Everything you say is true, but the protests and public comments need to happen anyway, for the record, since the current regime won't be in power forever.

Re: 72% of Consumers Don't Know What Net Neutrality Is

#119

Post by SkyMarshal »

michrassena wrote: post #112
dieterrams wrote: post #5

Survey methodology and all that, but it wouldn't surprise me in the least if most of the affected population didn't know. Net Equality would have likely perked up more interest.

Net neutrality has to be one of the most poorly marketed concepts of the past decade. When you're head-to-head with global companies with tremendous budgets, it's a good idea to have people trained in PR doing your branding. The biggest failure of the net neutrality movement was it did nothing to undermine the belief that net neutrality represented a change in the status quo. It would have been better to lead with th…

Good point. The telecom industry started this back in the 2000s with their astroturf "Hands off the Internet" campaign, implying NN was about applying new regulations to the Internet. NN's big failure was in not finding an effective way of pushing back against that.

Re: 72% of Consumers Don't Know What Net Neutrality Is

#120

Post by WillPostForFood »

jandrese wrote: post #105
WillPostForFood wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not even sure this would fall under the net neutrality umbrella. Comcast and Verizon weren't specifically discriminating or shaping Netflix traffic. Netflix was buying and over saturating the cheapest bandwidth they could. The question became who pays to upgrade to accommodate it. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but the current Net Neutrality rules don't address this situation.

It's kind of like a business saying that it doesn't discriminate against a minority, but when one of those people walk in the door they just never get served. It's still discrimination even if it's not overt. It's the kind of thing that Netflix could definitely argue as a Net Neutrality violation over at the FCC, especially once they got a demand to pay up. It's not like the consumers could switch to a less dickish p…

All Cogent traffic was being affected, not just Netflix, so the analogy doesn't hold. Everyone at the restaurant was being served, equally slowly.

You may also note that there were no repeats of this problem after 2015

Implicit in that statement is that there have been no paid peering agreements (the Netflix/Comcast solution) since 2015, which I know for fact is not true.

many high bandwidth services appeared and grew in this time.

Examples? What high bandwidth companies appeared after 2015 that have even 1% of Netflix traffic?

Post reply on HN