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Ask HN: What is the “other side” of the Net Neutrality argument?

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Ask HN: What is the “other side” of the Net Neutrality argument?

#1

Post by rlyshw »

Everything I've read or seen on the internet has told me companies are trying to end Net Neutrality and that this is a really bad thing and I should do something about it. All of the publications I've seen have been pushed by Reddit or Youtube or some site that would be negatively affected by the decision. Surely, the content-creators on these platforms are biased against ending Net Neutrality.

Instead of blindly following and accepting the rhetoric of these content-creators, I want to explore all sides of the argument.

If ending Net Neutrality meant the end of everything that is "good" about the internet, there wouldn't be proponents pushing for it.

I refuse to believe that mega-corporations like Comcast, AT&T, and Verizon are 100% evil, and that they want to end Net Neutrality just to screw over their customers and get more money. After all, the employees of the ISPs are humans and must also be benefiting from Net Neutrality, no?

So, what is the other side of the argument? Why would anyone want to end net neutrality?

Re: Ask HN: What is the “other side” of the Net Neutrality argument?

#2

Post by rlyshw »

From my point of view, a curated internet would be much less noisy. I'd only be allowed to access to the content that I want to have access to.

Reducing the amount of useless and distracting information that I can see would increase my overall productivity. I realize I could just blacklist sites like reddit and youtube on my laptop, but when I have control over it, I'll just turn it off and browse anyway. If access came at a premium, I'd be much more selective of the information and content I consume through these distracting sites.

I don't think ending Net Neutrality is the best way of filtering the noise, but I think it is one (naive) attempt at doing so.

Re: Ask HN: What is the “other side” of the Net Neutrality argument?

#3

Post by dragonwriter »

rlyshw wrote: post #2

From my point of view, a curated internet would be much less noisy. I'd only be allowed to access to the content that I want to have access to. Reducing the amount of useless and distracting information that I can see would increase my overall productivity. I realize I could just blacklist sites like reddit and youtube on my laptop, but when I have control over it, I'll just turn it off and browse anyway. If access c…

> From my point of view, a curated internet would be much less noisy. I'd only be allowed to access to the content that I want to have access to.

No, you'd only have access to the content that curator wanted you to have access to.

Re: Ask HN: What is the “other side” of the Net Neutrality argument?

#4

Post by dragonwriter »

> After all, the employees of the ISPs are humans and must also be benefiting from Net Neutrality, no?

Corporate policy is not written based on fully-informed democratic vote of employees. Its set by management who is paid to act as an agent of the shared (usually, purely financial for a large public firm) interests of the shareholders.

Re: Ask HN: What is the “other side” of the Net Neutrality argument?

#5

Post by rlyshw »

dragonwriter wrote: post #3
rlyshw wrote: post #2

From my point of view, a curated internet would be much less noisy. I'd only be allowed to access to the content that I want to have access to. Reducing the amount of useless and distracting information that I can see would increase my overall productivity. I realize I could just blacklist sites like reddit and youtube on my laptop, but when I have control over it, I'll just turn it off and browse anyway. If access c…

> From my point of view, a curated internet would be much less noisy. I'd only be allowed to access to the content that I want to have access to. No, you'd only have access to the content that curator wanted you to have access to.

Ok, but the curators would need to provide a suitably large range of content in order to stay competitive.

Re: Ask HN: What is the “other side” of the Net Neutrality argument?

#7

Post by renko »

rlyshw wrote: post #5
dragonwriter wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> From my point of view, a curated internet would be much less noisy. I'd only be allowed to access to the content that I want to have access to. No, you'd only have access to the content that curator wanted you to have access to.

Ok, but the curators would need to provide a suitably large range of content in order to stay competitive.

They don't need to stay competitive because most areas of the country only have one option.

Re: Ask HN: What is the “other side” of the Net Neutrality argument?

#8

Post by eridius »

AIUI the basic argument against net neutrality is "government regulation is bad, capitalism is good, let the ISPs do what they want and have the free market sort it out". And of course this is worth a lot of money to the ISPs. But the big problem here is there is no free market for ISPs.

Re: Ask HN: What is the “other side” of the Net Neutrality argument?

#9

Post by gordonyx »

renko wrote: post #7
rlyshw wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, but the curators would need to provide a suitably large range of content in order to stay competitive.

They don't need to stay competitive because most areas of the country only have one option.

Nothing is less competitive than a government monopoly.

Re: Ask HN: What is the “other side” of the Net Neutrality argument?

#10

Post by sp527 »

You could argue that ending net neutrality enables more precise pricing models that would reflect the underlying cost of provision, so that people who aren’t consuming substantial bandwidth with services like Netflix, Spotify, BitTorrent, et al won’t be penalized by an implicitly higher plan price (because plan prices are likely currently modeled on consumption behavior near the median/mean).

For the record, I highly doubt the ISPs would pass any savings along to customers but you did ask for the other side :)

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