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FCC plan would give Internet providers power to choose the sites customers see

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Re: FCC plan would give Internet providers power to choose the sites customers see

#101

Post by imglorp »

ChicagoDave wrote: post #69

It's unlikely popular and profitable services will be hindered by the lack of net neutrality. But any new services that threaten existing ones will be hard-pressed to compete. Imagine I start a new streaming service. In order for my service to reach people, ISP's will charge me a higher price than Netflix, probably a _significantly_ higher rate. This will make it extremely difficult for my new service to reach enough…

> It's unlikely popular and profitable services will be hindered by the lack of net neutrality.

Huh? Did you forget already that both Verizon and Comcast throttled services like Netflix? They both argued they should get a cut if they were going to carry the traffic to their customers. Now they're getting exactly what they wanted.

1. https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/07/veriz...

2. https://consumerist.com/2014/02/23/netflix-agrees-to-pay-com...

Re: FCC plan would give Internet providers power to choose the sites customers see

#102

Post by michaelbuckbee »

I feel like the making the examples about Netflix/Google misses the point. This is way more dangerous than that - without Net Neutrality rules there's nothing to legally stop an ISP from "prioritizing" and "deprioritizing" any number of political and social sites.

Digital fundraising for politicians is a very real and active thing. Would they be upset with if their side was suddenly hit with a 30s / page load penalty? DNS blackholed?

The deeply cynical part of me thinks that's exactly what they want.

Re: FCC plan would give Internet providers power to choose the sites customers see

#103

Post by Chiba-City »

I don't watch TV, cable or NFLX. I read newspapers, nerd papers, old Project Gutenberg philosophy books and watch YouTube lectures or instrumental music. Amazon is great for my never shopping habit. Hobbyist sites are better than magazines used to be for user product reviews.

But I never enjoyed speaking with people who watch TV. That's why I found the Ultrix and the Net in the 1980's back at Harvard. I live in DC and like cities for policed walkable streets (I don't drive), live jazz, museums, book clubs and small ethnic restaurant venues.

But our consumer Net has been been a waste of time just like roadside American life has always been.

This is like the film "China Town" with cable utilities filling in for water utilities. I know I'm an old man, but nothing has changed much despite our SFX propaganda fictions.

Re: FCC plan would give Internet providers power to choose the sites customers see

#104

Post by rsynnott »

adrr wrote: post #41

Google, Facebook, Netflix and Amazon should just start charging ISPs a per user fee to similar to how cable channels work. If ISPs don't pay, they should display ISP's phone number and ask the customer to call their local ISP and demand access. Content is king even in you have a monopoly on distribution .

In practice, it's not, primarily, these companies (with the possible exception of Netflix) who are going to be hurt by this. They're too important; if ISPs try to traffic-shape Facebook noticeably their users will revolt. It'll be smaller companies and startups.

Re: FCC plan would give Internet providers power to choose the sites customers see

#106

Post by qaq »

pneill wrote: post #32

Maybe I'm lone dissenter, but I don't understand the push back on this. People who read hacker news should be among the elite technologist, do we really all believe that every packet should be treated the same? Should an E911 call or tele-surgery packets really be treated the same as Netflix? Net neutrality forces the ISP to do that and that seems like madness to me.

Yes Comcast is spending a ton of money lobbying this because they want to prioritize E911 traffic.

Re: FCC plan would give Internet providers power to choose the sites customers see

#107

Post by Crespyl »

pneill wrote: post #32

Maybe I'm lone dissenter, but I don't understand the push back on this. People who read hacker news should be among the elite technologist, do we really all believe that every packet should be treated the same? Should an E911 call or tele-surgery packets really be treated the same as Netflix? Net neutrality forces the ISP to do that and that seems like madness to me.

Quality-of-Service controls for different classes of traffic are already an important part of how the internet works, but is entirely separate from Net Neutrality.

An operator like Verizon, for example, that runs phone service (including emergency calls) over the same lines as their standard internet service pretty much has to prioritize packet types differently. This is expected and understood by all parties.

The Net Neutrality that people are up in arms about is related to limiting traffic of the same class based on which endpoints are involved. For example, Verizon cannot throttle (or worse, outright block) HTTP traffic to Netflix/Hulu/Youtube to 1KB/s to drive users to their own competing service.

Re: FCC plan would give Internet providers power to choose the sites customers see

#108

Post by exabrial »

graycat wrote: post #73

Yes, but what the FCC declines to regulate the FTC might decide to regulate. Indeed, it sometimes has appeared that this division, reallocation, reassignment, of regulation has been a goal of the administration. That is, FTC type stuff belongs in the FTC, not the FCC. Maybe that will happen in this case.

I absolutely keep advocating for this, but that headline doesn't get as many clicks as "Trump is destroying the internet" unfortunately.

The FTC can regulate all areas business, the FCC can only regulate communication. If people stop turning this into a red vs blue issue we could actually get somewhere.

Re: FCC plan would give Internet providers power to choose the sites customers see

#109

Post by pneill »

CodeCube wrote: post #49
pneill wrote: post #32

Maybe I'm lone dissenter, but I don't understand the push back on this. People who read hacker news should be among the elite technologist, do we really all believe that every packet should be treated the same? Should an E911 call or tele-surgery packets really be treated the same as Netflix? Net neutrality forces the ISP to do that and that seems like madness to me.

It shouldn't be up to the individual and profit-seeking ISPs to decide that E911 and tele-surgery packets get priority. If there's a QoS concern for something, and it's deemed important enough, this is a perfectly rational place for regulation to step in and mandate it from every ISP equally.

How would you propose that packets be prioritized? I don't like the idea of the government telling me what packets should be prioritized. And saying that they all need to be treated the same is equally as bad.

But the real issue here is that the need for net neutrality is a symptom and not the root disease.

The disease that needs to be solved is a complete lack of competition in the ISP market. Service providers could differentiate themselves by QoS.

You wouldn't need a net neutrality law if you had competition.

Re: FCC plan would give Internet providers power to choose the sites customers see

#110

Post by ams6110 »

dragonwriter wrote: post #63
ams6110 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are dropping cable due to the heavy-handed control and lack of choice. Why would ISPs want emulate that failing model? If Comcast is going to try to charge me more to be able to access Netflix, I'm gone.

> People are dropping cable due to the heavy-handed control and lack of choice. Why would ISPs want emulate that failing model? Because the cable companies are the ISPs, and without ISPs acting differently, there's less impetus for people to ditch their cable companies as cable companies. Especially when the phone/cable/ISP firms can block or tax into submission services that compete with their phone and video offeri…

I don't know anyone who has a land-line phone anymore. I know many people who have dropped cable. It won't be that easy to force people back to those things now that they have experienced the alternative.
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