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

washingtonpost.com

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

#601

Post by cannonedhamster »

DigitalJack wrote: post #332
fokinsean wrote: post #18

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…

I'm curious for your take on the wsj article: https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-the-fcc-can-save-the-open-i... I don't think it's paywalled.

The one written by Ajit Pai? It's paywalled, just like the every page on the internet once this guy is done screwing it up.

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

#602

Post by Terr_ »

wang_li wrote: post #469
ghewgill wrote: post #89

For those who don't understand why net neutrality is important, it is worthwhile to read about the history of communications (telephone, radio, TV). There is an excellent book by Tim Wu called The Master Switch [0] which investigates the history of communications (with an American focus), describes how each industry start out open to all (farmers using fences for telephone, independent radio broadcasters), and each o…

The problem with the current net neutrality debate is that it seems to stop at layer 3 of the ISO stack. There's no reason why we should have dozens of incompatible video calling apps, why media streaming only works with a particular vendor's application. Not to mention that many of the big players in silicon valley like to jump back and forth over the line of "is a provider" / "is not a provider". Twitter and Google…

TBF, it's called network-neutrality, not data-and-application-neutrality.

The latter isn't something traditional we're about to lose, but a novel goal for the future which is qualitatively and quantitatively different.

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

#603

Post by gech »

jedberg wrote: post #524
opportune wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These ISP companies use legal shenanigans, coupled with the unavoidably large startup costs of creating a new/competing ISP, to effectively run regional monopolies. Google kind of gave up their master plan for Fiber after they were litigated in multiple jurisdictions essentially over bullshit that they were legally within their right to do, such as use shared lines - and that was Google, which had a ton of cash to th…

> I'm not sure what most of the anti-net neutrality side's supporting arguments are My friend was a lawyer for an ISP and now works for the FCC (I promise she's a good person otherwise). The main argument is that small ISPs can't compete if Net Neutrality exists, because they can't build a network big enough for every customer to stream Netflix and YouTube. If they could have most of their customers blocked from thos…

>The main argument is that small ISPs can't compete if Net Neutrality exists, because they can't build a network big enough for every customer to stream Netflix and YouTube. If they could have most of their customers blocked from those services, they could afford to offer it to the few that want to pay extra for it.

What? This logic is like saying, hey the only business model that should exist is one where we should only cater to those that pay the most (whether through ignorance or lack of options, etc).

>The other main argument against it is that it's not fair that Grandma, who only wants to read email once a day and look at the kids on Facebook, pays the same as the kid next door who is watching Netflix while playing an RTS while torrenting three movies.

It's not fair that grandma is going to be even more duped by the limited offerings of news and media that these companies will tighten their grip on through this move. Also the pipe is just sitting there. It's not like Comcast is manufacturing electrons and packets that get consumed by users.

Ask your friend to study other countries internet situations.

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

#604

Post by wanderer2323 »

mindcrime wrote: post #498
irl_zebra wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Well then free market is a useless theoretical concept that does not exist anywhere, has not existed anywhere and cannot exist in any non-trivial environment, and as such should not be discussed.

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

#605

Post by agumonkey »

I'm poking around the web about the feasibility of local wireless networks.

mesh networks or any kind of connectivity, enough to have basic web (mail, chat, irc, hn class websites).

anybody with knowledge is welcomed

ps: some articles recently popped up about Detroit hackerspaces doing just that. So far 3 small areas were built.

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

#606

Post by _justinfunk »

Chiba-City wrote: post #593
_justinfunk wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why did you type this?

I typed this to let younger folks know that plenty of older Netizens do not care one little bit about any consumers or programmers making money off consumers. I wrote the late 80's Harvard Ultrix manual and worked with Steve Crocker, Brad Cox, Mark Pincus (pre-Zynga) and many others. None of us let our kids near the consumer Web (or TV's). The faster our consumer Net dies on the vine the better. Wield code to automat…

While I respect your opinion, it seems to me that your use of the internet is just as vulnerable to the net-neutrality doomsday scenario as everyone else's.

Your basic internet is only $50/mo, but you'll need to purchase the "hacker" package for an additional $25/mo to get access to the Ultrix forums.

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

#608

Post by smnrchrds »

wang_li wrote: post #469
ghewgill wrote: post #89

For those who don't understand why net neutrality is important, it is worthwhile to read about the history of communications (telephone, radio, TV). There is an excellent book by Tim Wu called The Master Switch [0] which investigates the history of communications (with an American focus), describes how each industry start out open to all (farmers using fences for telephone, independent radio broadcasters), and each o…

The problem with the current net neutrality debate is that it seems to stop at layer 3 of the ISO stack. There's no reason why we should have dozens of incompatible video calling apps, why media streaming only works with a particular vendor's application. Not to mention that many of the big players in silicon valley like to jump back and forth over the line of "is a provider" / "is not a provider". Twitter and Google…

I remember having to explain to my younger sibling that "yes, you can send an email to a Yahoo address from your Gmail account. No, seriously, try it, I am not kidding." They are much younger than I am and they grew up in a world of walled gardens. To them, that's just the way things are and have always been. It's a shame.

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

#609

Post by macinjosh »

This whole "net neutrality" thing is overblown and sadly the future of the Internet, a technical endeavor, has been swept up in the idiotic partisanship of the existing two party system. A system that instead of calm reasoning and logic employs slanted and selective "points" to further agendas.

The rules that are being repealed actually enshrined into case law a loophole that allows ISPs to edit which sites are visible as long as they inform customers they are doing so. This case law is now forever on the books even though the rules were temporary. [0]

This is really a battle between tech giants and telecommunication giants. Neither care about you.

[0]: http://reason.com/archives/2017/07/18/net-neutrality-support...

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

#610

Post by macinjosh »

cannonedhamster wrote: post #601
DigitalJack wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious for your take on the wsj article: https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-the-fcc-can-save-the-open-i... I don't think it's paywalled.

The one written by Ajit Pai? It's paywalled, just like the every page on the internet once this guy is done screwing it up.

Hyperbole anyone?
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