i've been calling senators' offices from republican states left and right. the office worker for the senator in kansas informed me that repealing net neutrality "levels the playing field." i didn't understand his argument well enough to counter it, unfortunately...it just didn't make sense and I thought perhaps I was missing something.
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
#492i've been calling senators' offices from republican states left and right. the office worker for the senator in kansas informed me that repealing net neutrality "levels the playing field." i didn't understand his argument well enough to counter it, unfortunately...it just didn't make sense and I thought perhaps I was missing something.
You're not missing anything. It literally doesn't make any sense.
Its a talking point the ISPs have been using for the last few years, that they're "Pro-Net Neutrality, but want it enforced differently, legally." Its a propaganda tactic in that it is both factually incorrect, misleading, and is a response created to make the public lose interest in what sounds like a nuanced debate. ISPs arguments against net neutrality have all, repeatedly, fallen apart every time this has come to the political forefront; they simply do not have a leg to stand on in the US.
The only reason we're going through this again, is because Trump and the Republican Party put a stooge in charge of the FCC. This has, incredibly, somehow become a partisan issue with each political party taking explicit stances for or against NN.
Re: FCC plan would give Internet providers power to choose the sites customers see
#493Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's a step in between Comcast's stranglehold and full mesh nets: municipal broadband/fiber. The more towns get municipal fiber, the more Comcast's grip loosens, until they're forced to compete at a local level with local ISPs run by people you know and trust who support Net Neutrality. If a local ISP doesn't support Net Neutrality, drop their ass and use one of the 20 other ISPs that rent the infrastructure from…
I am a fan of muni broadband as a competitive alternative to the incumbents. But wouldn’t that enable a demagogue mayor to issue censorship directives via Executive Order?
They could theoretically but there's a big difference because that's in the public sphere and subject to much higher scrutiny. A major making that decision would have to answer about their legal authority to do so; public records laws would apply to anything used in that process; the local council and prosecutors, etc. would have an easier time getting information and acting on it, and the local citizens would be able to vote them out in the next election.
That's not to say that this works perfectly everywhere but the framework is setup to be a lot more open than the workings of a private company.
Re: FCC plan would give Internet providers power to choose the sites customers see
#494The other day I was sitting at home with my family. My parents, two siblings and my grandma, who moved from Germany after WW2.
My parents and siblings are sitting around talking about how Trump is going to save America. My brother mentions how a guy in town (also a Trump supporter) said he's a fascist. I'm sitting on the other side of the table and my grandma is looking down at her plate not saying anything. She's about 80 years old at this point.
I can't help but think she knows we're about to go through it all over again.
Edit: I don't think Trump is Hitler but I do think we are losing freedoms. I'm also not trying to even argue that it's Trumps fault. This was just an observation about my surroundings. I felt it relevant due to the seeming zealotry of my family and their lack of questioning certain decisions and outcomes coupled with the fact that today it looks like we lost more freedom due to that mindset.
Re: FCC plan would give Internet providers power to choose the sites customers see
#495Used to work for a local ISP (ILEC). "Deregulation" isn't a real thing until they remove the incumbent local exchange carrier (ILEC) and competitive local exchange carrier (CLEC) regional monopolies enforced by law. Until that happens, all this does is screw consumers. Honestly, internet service needs to be declared a public utility.
Why? The biggest ISPs in most markets aren't ILECs or CLECs right?
Untrue. In any US market, for each class of service (copper, coax and now fiber) there's rarely ever more than one of each because the big ISPs do not compete with each other in such fashion.
Muni service is a huge threat to them for this reason.
Re: FCC plan would give Internet providers power to choose the sites customers see
#496Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don’t think it as as ‘tinfoil’ as people may suggest. Moves like this combined with the lift on local news station ownership restrictions make plans to ‘control what people see’ more and more plausible.
As long as my guys (Republicans) are winning and our ideas (conservatism) are pushed through, I'm happy and I don't give a hoot about what twisted ways they use to win politically. I'll also criticize Democrats for doing the exact thing, or deflect any bad-doing by my guys to point to Democrats as my go-to defense.
Poe's Law applies here (at least for me).
It is so sad we live at a time when one doesn't know if this is sarcasm or a genuine sentiment.
Re: FCC plan would give Internet providers power to choose the sites customers see
#497Tweet 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…
">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." Freedom for whom?
I wonder how they'll vote.
Re: FCC plan would give Internet providers power to choose the sites customers see
#498Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wait but I thought the free market operated in good faith and not by brutally cutting corners on service, monopolizing, and lobbying government for preferential treatment?
No, you got it wrong. The free market operates by brutally cutting corners on service, monopolizing, and lobbying government for preferential treatment.
If there's a government regulating the market in such a way that a firm can "lobby government for preferential treatment" then it isn't a free market.
Re: FCC plan would give Internet providers power to choose the sites customers see
#499Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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://consumeris…
What is the actual reason they shouldn't? This is a highly politicized topic but it's hard to find rational discussion. If I built a network I would expect to be able to charge whatever I wanted to whomever I wanted in exchange for the use of my network. Is the answer that taxpayers helped fund the network so now feel they deserve not to pay twice? How much of the current internet infrastructure is paid for by taxpay…
Building a network requires laying cables on other people’s private property.
Without the government giving them the right to do this they would never be able to negotiate with each individual land owner and networks would not be possible.
Wireless has the same problem: use of the airwaves, a public good no one can own. We issue licenses for them otherwise it would be a tragedy of the commons situation where no one would be able to successfully use them.
The internet (and most of its popular protocols) was invented and established due to public funding and released to the world for free.
So quite literally ISPs would not have a business whatsoever without free public assistance. As a result they owe us a lot more than the average business.
Re: FCC plan would give Internet providers power to choose the sites customers see
#500Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The problem is that ISP shills that make these decisions don't care about public opposition But they do care most about making money from the public and no one has convinced me that filtering internet packages by website makes any technical, marketing, or business model sense at all. This has proven to be incredibly unpopular idea with the public for over a decade as well, whenever it has come up in the press. It w…
> This would be a boon to any ISP who DIDN'T do this. Competition, and obvious lack of business sense, has always been a far larger counter-balance to this idea. Competition surely can help, but currently there is no competition in a lot of places. It's basically monopoly / oligopoly situation, with collusion and market division to boot. So increasing competition is a good goal, but it shouldn't block preventing mono…
> Competition surely can help, but currently there is no competition in a lot of places.
Places with a lot of people? People who have been harmed by what NN is intending to fix?
> Monopolists also created a lot of blockers that prevent increasing competition.
Facilitated by government. If government was responsible in the first place, why not just undo what they did?