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

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

washingtonpost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 674 posts

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

#181

Post by creaghpatr »

michaelbuckbee wrote: post #102

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…

Don't you see that Google does this already with zero government/user oversight?

This deeply cynical view has already come true.

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

#182

Post by el_benhameen »

jfaucett wrote: post #152

As someone who is not in the US and will not suffer any negative consequences of this, I'm interested to see what will happen. We know the catastrophe hypothesis - ISPs will throttle content, customers will lose badly, innovation will plummet, etc. We also know people outside the tech field disagree with that and some seem to think the opposite could happen [1]. Honestly, I wish our societies would do way more experi…

>will not suffer any negative consequences of this

Sure, you won't initially have to pay higher prices for un-throttled traffic, but don't think for a second that there won't be knock-on effects on innovation and consumer choice that affect everyone on the internet.

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

#183

Post by Crespyl »

pneill wrote: post #126
Crespyl wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Ne…

Good point, but if there was real competition in the ISP market, you could switch providers that do this. Don't fight for net neutrality. Fight for ISP marketplace

Should I also fight for the road and sewage pipe market places while I'm at it? There are some pieces of infrastructure that only make sense as natural monopolies.

I recently moved to Texas and was surprised and rather impressed at their two-layered electrical market. There is one "power distribution company" for an entire region, regulated (I assume) by the state/county. I never do business with them, but they hook my building up to the grid and maintain the lines. Then I choose a power generating company from a wealth of plans and providers, based on whatever criteria I care about.

Doing something similar for internet service would be fantastic, but still requires neutrality from the last-mile infrastructure. Apparently in the UK they've managed something like this through something called local-loop unbundling, which I assume is part of why we don't hear so much about NN from over there.

I would love to see something like that in the US; ISPs will fight tooth and nail to prevent it.

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

#184

Post by mancerayder »

coloneltcb wrote: post #2

I love how political posts (particularly about this corrupt, incompetent administration) get flagged on HN because they're not "on topic" Well here you go, turns out politics affects real life, and even the tech industry.

I've struggled with this, too, and disagree strongly with the flagging of political posts. As if the intersection of technology and politics is an annoying childish distraction beneath more clever and neutral discussions about Rust releases or (on today's first page and not for the first time) Getting Things Done.

I feel there's an INCREASE in the intersection between tech and politics, because tech has become more accessible both to the masses but also to the courts and politicians who write our destinies.

To wildly flag posts as political or (StackOverflow-style 'off-topic') is, arguably, morally wrong. I saw an introduction-type post by a new HN moderator a few months back who described his reasoning for reduction of political posts. Alas, the mission is in vain.

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

#185

Post by tzs »

vorpalhex wrote: post #53
dinoleif wrote: post #40

"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…

Does your ISP have the ability to censor the internet for you? Do you watch Netflix? If you don't, that's ok, because most consumers do use it or a competing service. Internet Companies absolutely did try to charge Netflix extra, and in some cases throttled them. This was well documented. I don't know if you're a corporate shill or just genuinely lack the ability to comprehend how bad this is. Spectrum, Verizon and t…

Netflix is a special case, because it was generating some unbelievable fraction of the total internet traffic in the US for a few hours each evening. The internet was not designed for such large amounts of traffic in such a short time all coming from one source. Almost all cases of Netflix throttling or blocking turned out to be due to legitimate traffic management of overloaded links.

I believe most of the cases where Netflix ended up paying were also to deal with the effect of the large traffic on peering arrangements. You have networks that have a peering arrangement where neither charges the other for transit for the other's traffic, relying on the fact that each is sending on average about the same amount through the other, so it all balances out. Netflix traffic greatly upset that balance.

I'm not sure that even now the Internet can really handle a Netflix-like service well. Netflix at least partly addressed the problem by putting their content in a CDN, often making arrangements to host their machines right in ISP data centers, so that the Netflix load would be coming from all over instead of just a small region.

That can work for Netflix, and the next few things that get big, but how far can that go? We can't have everyone that gets big putting machines in ISP data centers, can we?

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

#186

Post by bluetwo »

timemct wrote: post #105
bluetwo wrote: post #66

We screwed up by not making this a campaign issue.

That would imply that we had a choice in what would be campaign issues. I'd like to think that we do, but my cynicism grows stronger everyday.

We did. And we lost it. It was obvious this would come under attack but we didn't mobilize when it mattered.

Yes, you could argue that one candidate didn't know how to use email and the other couldn't operate her printer, but it was us who failed to make it an issue.

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

#187

Post by eregorn »

dinoleif wrote: post #124
charonn0 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Switch to another internet provider. That's not an option for most Americans, and part of the reason why net neutrality is necessary.

This is plainly false. Most households have multiple internet providers.

I'm wondering where you are getting your information from. Particularly, when I search my own zip on ISP search sites, I get anywhere from 4-6 providers even though I only have 2 options. There's possibly a discrepancy between what's reported and what customers actually have.

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

#188

Post by ghrifter »

bluetidepro wrote: post #159

What I don't fully understand is why isn't larger tech companies like Facebook, Netflix, Google, Twitter, Amazon, etc. making a big fuss about this on their sites to warn their users and help fight against it? Are they not as worried about this? Does it actual benefit them in some ways cause they can box out smaller competition since they can afford to pay ISP's or something? For example, if Facebook saw this as a re…

Its taking away title 2, not enforcing draconian content policing like PIPA and SOPA

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

#189

Post by Spivak »

the_cat_kittles wrote: post #156
jfaucett wrote: post #152

As someone who is not in the US and will not suffer any negative consequences of this, I'm interested to see what will happen. We know the catastrophe hypothesis - ISPs will throttle content, customers will lose badly, innovation will plummet, etc. We also know people outside the tech field disagree with that and some seem to think the opposite could happen [1]. Honestly, I wish our societies would do way more experi…

are you a paid troll? what good comes from selective throttling?

Just as an example, not getting shit internet speeds around 7:30 when everyone turns on Netflix.

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

#190

Post by Fnoord »

username223 wrote: post #75
yobrien wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My apartment complex has a contract with AT&T. I either have ATT or I don't have anyone. I can't be "gone". I just have to suck it up and pay unless I want to go to the library for basic internet then.

Talk to your neighbors and offer to split the internet bill. This doesn't solve the long-term problem, but at least it hurts the local internet monopoly.

I really like your idea, but it has legal implications (accountability) because your neighbours would end up doing things on the internet on your account or vice versa.

I would suggest to do this in combination with a VPN but 1) even with OpenVPN those are often insecure 2) they cost additional money 3) with these new FCC rules their bandwidth might get limited.

Post reply on HN