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

washingtonpost.com

451–460 of 674 posts

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

#451
But does it though? I don't recall this being a common occurrence before NN. In reality this sounds more like FUD. It's literally a hypothetical.

"Internet providers will be able to do X!"

Okay, so who can already choose what sites you see? Well there's your browser, Google could (and does) block sites, so could (and does) Microsoft. How do you find out about content on the internet? ISPs? No you probably find a link on Twitter, Reddit, Facebook, or by searching. Well those are all censored, they can literally decide what you do and don't see. Google's own CEO has even been quoted in video saying they're fine doing that.

What about at the infrastructure level? There are in reality two vectors to getting software on the most popular devices on the planet: phones. You've got to deal with Apple's store or Google's store. There're plenty of examples of apps being blocked for political reasons from both of these. They can literally choose what you're allowed to see, what software you're allowed to install ON A COMPUTER THAT YOU OWN. Google just killed a website, The Daily Stormer, by seizing the DNS, and any registrar can do this. Whatever you think about that website, we do have a fundamental freedom of speech in the US, where this site and Google operates, but that doesn't stop Google from just arbitrarily killing a site they disagree with. How about payment processors? There aren't many, they're mostly big companies, and they forbid you from using their systems to do certain things, most of which aren't criminal. They literally decide what you can and can't do at a business level, which indirectly impacts customers.

I could go with hundreds more examples just like this.

These things exist, they're abused, these aren't FUD, and the tech media turns a blind eye to much of it. Every single day.

This regulation is absurdly dubious in its value. The most common FUD are "but your ISP will be able to block what you see!" Maybe I want them to. Some person gets infected with malware, maybe I want that person's access to be restricted. Maybe I don't want to even be able to visit a machine known to be compromised. Google already does this in Chrome, to the benefit of most users.

How about "but they can shut down a competing service." No, no they can't. The citations where this has happened can mostly be explained by QoS, which is necessary to keep a network functioning properly, and is effectively illegal by NN. We have laws against anti-competitive behavior like this. Why do we need yet another? Those laws work. And if they are insufficient, maybe Congress should do something about it, and while they're at it deal with all those other examples of companies doing much worse.

At the end of the day, I'm so unconvinced that this is actually a concern, that I've started totally ignoring discussions about Net Neutrality. Is HN really so devoid of people who have ever operated a large network or dealt with issues of scale? I would expect that not to be the case, but requiring ISPs to overprovision and to bear the burden of infrastructural growth at whatever demand their customers make seems unreasonable at the very best. Don't cite AT&T and Comcast at me, fuck them, I don't care if they are shady shitty companies. What about new ISPs? What about the hundreds of small ISPs destroyed by NN, the ones you don't hear non-stop complaining about? What about the ISPs that can't exist because without hundreds of millions of dollars they can't afford to achieve a level of quality customers expect from hundred billion dollar ISP monopolies.

I want competition. I don't want my world to be ruled forever by Google, Apple, Comcast, and AT&T. I sure as hell don't want shitty rules in place that effectively ensure these largely unethical borderline sociopathic companies remain in their positions. I really don't want Net Neutrality, because it doesn't do what it says and fundamentally harms the internet in a way only hypothetically compared to the real evils these companies impart on us EVERY SINGLE DAY.

When you end all the abusive bullshit already happening on the internet, end the censorship, and break up these monopolies, when you put your effort into fixing problems we actually have rather than fighting fictional dragons, then and only then will I be again open to discussions about this topic.

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

#452
post #34

Tweet in article: >On December 14, the FCC will vote on Chairman Pai's plan to repeal President Obama's heavy-handed Internet regulations and restore Internet freedom. I love how these laws are veiled with patriotic sentiments, e.g. "Internet Freedom". Just like the "Patriot Act", it is reasonable to assume anything with these sort of labels will likely be an encroachment on your freedoms. Also >"The job of the FCC i…

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.

You have choice. I live in this little place that the Internet hardly knows called Berkeley, CA, home of one of the original 4 IMPs of the very first networked connection -- and my only choice above 20mbps is Comcast.

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

#453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The argument that Netflix needs to pay Comcast is absurd. Absurd for you, not for the carriers. And, unfortunately, they are the ones dealing the cards now. Outrageous, for sure, but according to Chairman Pai's plan, carriers will be able to charge both consumers and content providers.

That's fine. If the charges are onerous enough, then the content providers may choose to build new carriers of their own.

> the content providers may choose to build new carriers of their own

Oh sure. Suppose I'm about to found yaymoviesyay.com to compete with Netflix. I learn that if I don't pay Comcast, its subscribers can't use my site. Same deal for AT&T and Charter.

Before this rule change, my cost to do business was "hosting costs."

Now it's either:

    A) hosting costs + payola to ISPs
    B) hosting costs + cost of building my own last-mile network
Guess how likely I am to start that new business?

    A) Super incredibly unlikely
    B) Ridiculously unlikely
    C) Extremely, ludicrously unlikely

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

#454
post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're assuming that most people have access to more than one ISP (they don't), or that statements by ISPs about what they intend to do or not do are truthful (they aren't). Specifically statements promising they would never do anything that would break net neutrality rules, while arguing against the imposition of net neutrality rules, would not make sense. Why oppose something you have no intention of doing?

My counter point does not depend entirely on competition. That is merely one counter-balance available to much of the country who have more than one ISP available, of the many I mentioned (technical, marketing, business model). Why not create regulation in response to real scenarios that have actually happened instead of hypothetical ones that are already have plenty of other drawbacks?

> Why not create regulation in response to real scenarios that have actually happened instead of hypothetical ones that are already have plenty of other drawbacks?

The FCC adopted NN principles in 2004 and did reactive, case-by-case enforcement of the principles without general regulation up until the federal courts stopped that approach in 2010. The two regulatory packages in 2010 and 2015 were largely based on the actual things that had been observed in the 2004-2010 period. That is, while they did consider and seek to preempt some new violations of the same principles, they were very much reactions to real scenarios that happened.

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

#456
post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> then I will cancel both. Which is exactly why it won't happen even if they were given the option... Everyone would flock to the ISPs who didn't do this. Or to technology options such as encryption and VPNs to circumvent it, while still using the cheaper packages. Selective internet packages has been an incredibly unpopular idea among the public and has been for over a decade. I'm not sure why people think the only…

> I'm not sure why people think the only that has held ISPs back from doing this is a 3yr old FTC regulation The FCC has been enforcing neutrality principles since 2004, through case-by-case actions through 2010, and through regulatory orders in 2010 and 2015. Even in the brief window between case-by-case enforcement being struck down in 2010 and the 2010 Open Internet Order and the longer window between the 2010 Ord…

Google or Amazon, or the rest of the tech industry, wouldn't be able to find the capital to build fast/unthrottled internet to eat Comcast's lunch? Alienating an entire industry and customer based like this would be a huge incentive for many parties, the market forces here are very much being downplayed.

Not to mention the technical hurdles (encryption, VPNs) outside of the risk involved of convincing an executive board to engage in a PR disaster and expose themselves to the risk of Google competing with them.

Besides has any company have tried to push TV-style packages, where they throttle websites depending on your package... and the FCC regulations stopped them? This is the scenario I keep reading about as what will happen if these regulations didn't exist. But I've yet to hear of an actual ISP trying this...

Typically with regulations you have the industry pushing back against them because they want to do certain things. But I'm not seeing that here, multiple ISP have already claimed they have no interest in engaging in this type of throttling and I personally don't see how this would ever fly even if they did.

Yes, cable companies have taken advantage of their political pull and monopoly positions to do some shady stuff but I'm very skeptical they could ever pull anything like that off in the internet. That's a whole different ball game than the tightly corporate controlled finite-content TV market and the tech industry and the public have clearly stated they won't sit idly by, regardless of regulations.

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

#457

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…

> This is just another nail in the oligarchy coffin we are actively sealing ourselves in.

Or rather, that we're being sealed into, since this can hardly be called democracy.

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

#458

While this is disappointing news and I think it will take years before it gets better. My prediction is that this won't last. When the mobile internet was first getting it's roots most of the American mobile providers offered unlimited bandwidth. Once the network become constrained and consumers started overloading the networks with streaming content the industry moved to tiered bandwidth plans. Years later a few com…

I can change my cellphone provider, but there is only one ISP in my area. Competition doesn’t bring down prices when there is none.

What I was trying to say was that I believe competition will come as it won't be required to run expensive wire everywhere. Wireless, long distance wifi, satellites, balloons, etc. could bring competition to areas that traditionally haven't had it. That may or may not affect price, but it could affect internet filtering and throttling.

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

#459

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 will also allow ISP's to control and block content if someone pays them to do so.

Content is controlled and blocked by advertisers in the application layer already. E.g. youtube

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

#460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I gather in the brief comment, the apartment complex only allowed AT&T to install cabling to the building, so those apartment buildings are only serviced by AT&T. The apartment complex will not allow another ISP to dig up their property to install internet service for tenants, leading to an exclusive AT&T monopoly. I've had friends in similar apartment buildings. Calling other ISPs operating across the stre…

FCC instituted rules in 2008 abolishing the payola-style deals that stifle ISP competition in apartment buildings [0], but in the biggest surprise ever , the apartment owners and would-be-monopolist ISPs have been avoiding compliance by hiding the exclusivity part of their contracts. The apartment owner simply leaves open the prospect that another ISP could install access, but never actually allows them to do so. Or…

Getting a lawyer and suing the owner is not a reasonable thing to ask of people living in apartments.
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