111–120 of 674 posts
I don't know, the Internet got on fine without those rules for a lot longer than we've had those rules, I feel like the gloom-and-doom over this is highly overstated.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
OK, I take the bait: Netflix and it's customers were harmed by traffic being throttled and customers being held hostage.
In what way are customers "held hostage"? If you sign up for an internet plan that promises not to throttle certain sites and then that provider throttles those sites, you can sue them. If you sign up for an internet plan that makes no such promises, why would one expect anything different? This may sound like a harsh reality, but it's called "taking personal responsibility" and "voting with your feet". Switch to ano…
That's not an option for most Americans, and part of the reason why net neutrality is necessary.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Life in society and politics cannot be dissociated.
And often times "not on topic" is just an excuse to silence unpopular opinions. Many people consider the things they disagree with to be "political" while the things they agree with are just common sense.
There's certainly lots of artificial barriers to entry to competition, but Google managed to overcome these in a number of regions. Yet somehow Google Fiber was ultimately a failure. It's already been downsizing and put all further expansion plans on hold. So what happened? You could write a novel there, but the most basic point is that not enough people signed up. After 5 years of operation Google managed a whopping 68,715 television subscribers and 453,000 broadband subscribers. They found that in poorer neighborhoods people would, inexplicably, not even sign up for the free option! That factoid alone, which is really hard to even conceive of, I think emphasizes how much of a bubble we all, including Google, live in. They responded by sending out grants to digital literacy groups.
Nobody seems to really like Comcast/Time Warner, yet people apparently are not sufficiently incentivized to swap carriers when the possibility arises. If the doomsday scenarios do come to pass, this could hopefully change. Ultimately the power is with the people, but most are not yet willing to speak with their wallet. The time when things will finally change is when this happens, or when a new competitor (perhaps satellite/balloon internet) enters the picture.
"Net neutrality" is one of the most Orwellian terms in modern usage. It's a corporate welfare play by large tech companies to "solve" a "problem" that nobody can identify. It's pre-emptive, busy-body regulation at its worst. Who was being harmed in the first 20 years of the internet without these regulations? Whose lives have been made better? Compared to what? Net neutrality advocates are utterly unable to give conv…
Stopping them from doing that was one of the reasons that first Congress and then the FCC took up the net neutrality issue about 10 years ago.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
OK, I take the bait: Netflix and it's customers were harmed by traffic being throttled and customers being held hostage.
In what way are customers "held hostage"? If you sign up for an internet plan that promises not to throttle certain sites and then that provider throttles those sites, you can sue them. If you sign up for an internet plan that makes no such promises, why would one expect anything different? This may sound like a harsh reality, but it's called "taking personal responsibility" and "voting with your feet". Switch to ano…
How can you sue your ISP if there is a clause that you must go through binding arbitration instead?
How can you switch to another internet provider if AT&T is the only game in town?
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…
This is actually pretty likely to happen.
Of course I suppose it'll be kind of funny to see God Emperor Trump usher in policies that make things like Gab and Voat unreachable. Top Kek!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
OK, I take the bait: Netflix and it's customers were harmed by traffic being throttled and customers being held hostage.
In what way are customers "held hostage"? If you sign up for an internet plan that promises not to throttle certain sites and then that provider throttles those sites, you can sue them. If you sign up for an internet plan that makes no such promises, why would one expect anything different? This may sound like a harsh reality, but it's called "taking personal responsibility" and "voting with your feet". Switch to ano…
Would you be happy if your electricity provider was free to block access to, I don't know, refrigerators?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
OK, I take the bait: Netflix and it's customers were harmed by traffic being throttled and customers being held hostage.
In what way are customers "held hostage"? If you sign up for an internet plan that promises not to throttle certain sites and then that provider throttles those sites, you can sue them. If you sign up for an internet plan that makes no such promises, why would one expect anything different? This may sound like a harsh reality, but it's called "taking personal responsibility" and "voting with your feet". Switch to ano…
We wouldn't need net neutrality if the ISPs didn't have a monopoly.
This is a simple tool that calls you and puts you through to your legislators, one after another.