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Join the Battle for Net Neutrality

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Re: Join the Battle for Net Neutrality

#61
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would stop ISPs from turning the Internet to Cable if Net Neutrality is removed?

Other than common sense? Targeted policy?

> Targeted policy?

Hmm, good idea. Let's see... maybe we could have a policy something like If you are one of the few companies providing Internet service, and are protected by various laws and regulations that limit who may provide such service to end users, then you must not discriminate or charge differently by user, content, website, platform, application, type of attached equipment, or method of communication.

How about something like that?

That way, we could promote neutrality with regard to people's network access.

Re: Join the Battle for Net Neutrality

#62
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would stop ISPs from turning the Internet to Cable if Net Neutrality is removed?

Other than common sense? Targeted policy?

> common sense?

Common sense says that, as a corporation, if I have a regional monopoly on internet access I should exploit that to the point that maximizes profitability.

Re: Join the Battle for Net Neutrality

#63
post #50

Is anyone actually against net neutrality? I don't think I've ever seen a con argument.

Some organizations such as the Wikimedia Foundation, Google, and Facebook believe that their services are more important than others. As such, they consider themselves deserving of cheaper, free, or the "fast lane" internet, especially in less developed areas without sufficient infrastructure to serve all websites. The rationale is that providing a limited set of websites for free is better than if those areas have n…

I want to understand this better, but I can't grasp the concept of a "fast lane" in anything but an artificial sense - how can an ISP create a "fast lane" for a website - can't they only create "slow lanes" for everything BUT "fast laned" websites?

Re: Join the Battle for Net Neutrality

#64

Is anyone actually against net neutrality? I don't think I've ever seen a con argument.

We have had the internet for a long time without net neutrality why do we all of sudden need it?

This is horrible argument.

We had cars before seat belt laws why do we all of sudden need it?

We had cars before airbags why do we all of sudden need it?

We've has guns before gun control so why do we all of sudden need it?

Edit: People have been giving birth for a long time without doctors so why do we all of sudden need it?

Re: Join the Battle for Net Neutrality

#65
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry, what? The lesson of the last couple years is that we should act more like extremists drumming up outrage with misinformation?

He's not wrong. People are lead by how they feel and not facts. There are responsible ways to make pleas to emotion on a large scale and there are manipulative things that bad actors can do with it as well. You will not win hearts and minds with pure rationality when your opponent doesn't give a shit about that. Emotional lives are just as real as cold hard facts, and as we've seen, can be so real that they manifest…

>You will not win hearts and minds with pure rationality when your opponent doesn't give a shit about that.

Where are these hardline radical pro-Comcast types?

>There are responsible ways to make pleas to emotion on a large scale and there are manipulative things that bad actors can do with it as well.

Frankly, the net neutrality movement has failed that test miserably in this latest campaign in particular. It's disappointing to see this from the side I support, to the point that I find myself alienated from the viewpoint altogether and have to remind myself that the policy is the only part that is important.

Exhibit A: https://imgur.com/gallery/CD9H7QU

>I'm not an expert, nor am I an activist, but I have been reading about people studying 4chan's tactics in a post prez45 world. How a culture of open dialog to extreme gave a small group of people a weapon. Erudite "rationals" considered this sort of thing to be stupid nonsense, but it trained an entire culture to be massively effective at steering people's emotions. Their ideas can move faster without the absolute need for sensitivity or maybe because of a pathological need to offend. The current interest is in finding ways to work that radical acceptance into progressive discourse. It's important but I don't think anyone has a playbook yet.

Liberals (in the academic/international sense) used to see these unfortunate behavioral quirks of humanity exploited by fascists & autocrats and vow to be better than appealing to basic instincts and herd mentality. I do not look forward to a world where radicalization and alarmism are viewed as standard tools in a campaigner's belt and reasonable people intentionally spread hyperbole or outright lies to convince the public to go their way.

Re: Join the Battle for Net Neutrality

#66
post #50

Is anyone actually against net neutrality? I don't think I've ever seen a con argument.

Some organizations such as the Wikimedia Foundation, Google, and Facebook believe that their services are more important than others. As such, they consider themselves deserving of cheaper, free, or the "fast lane" internet, especially in less developed areas without sufficient infrastructure to serve all websites. The rationale is that providing a limited set of websites for free is better than if those areas have n…

Isn't Google's project loon open internet, compared to Facebooks free basics?

Re: Join the Battle for Net Neutrality

#67
Playing the devil's advocate here - Don't all big media companies rely on some form of CDN providers who themselves have some form of deals and agreements with ISPs or Internet exchange. Example - Netflix in India:

https://www.medianama.com/2017/05/223-netflix-begins-directl...

In which case how does this law change anything? And what effect this might have on CDN providers?

Re: Join the Battle for Net Neutrality

#68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, Ajit Pai says it stifles investments. Apparently investments fell by 5% or so over a period of time since the Title II classification. While I love NN, I also hate no viable competition to cable/ISP monopolies. I don't think NN would be an issue if everyone had at least 3 viable choices of broadband providers. That's the right (tm) way to address it, or should I say market-based, by fostering competition via po…

I think the free market proponents are harming US infrastructure and in the future competitiveness. Like roads and bridges etc are built with taxes. The internet infrastructure needs to be built or at least controled by the government federal, state or city. I like what Singapore did got bids and fixed prices for fiber deployment. Now all the isp's have to compete for providing services and the fiber deployer is paid…

Precisely. Communications infrastructure is a natural monopoly that should be regulated like roads, electricity, water, sewer, etc. The fact that it was privatized early on the U.S. means we've open pandora's box of lobbying, so it would be difficult to close it again.

The federal government could foreseeably take back some of that infrastructure by building it itself. The last mile is the most expensive part, so why not build a fiber backbone to every public school, and then let the municipal government's decide if/when/how they cover the last mile implementation?

Re: Join the Battle for Net Neutrality

#69
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ISPs are free to compete with Google, Facebook, etc by offering competitive web services. Instead, ISPs want to leverage their almost-exclusive control of Internet access to unfairly crush competition. Users can choose not the use Facebook. Many users cannot choose not to use Comcast, because Comcast is the only ISP in the area. Lack of competition among ISPs make them different from web companies.

> ISPs are free to compete with Google, Facebook, etc by offering competitive web services. By definition you're devaluing the infrastructure. This is saying, infrastructure does not deserve to make money, only ads deserve to make money. I'd rather ISPs not compete in web services and instead make money providing the pipes as it's an important job in its own right. Your logic leads to bad incentives for ISPs, leading…

There is a ton wrong with what you just commented.

First of all, Google Fiber's strategy was not to make money but to push the industry to start installing new fiber-speed infrastructure, and it was successful (see the new ATT Fiber, etc.). Google did this because consuming it's services (like youtube) instead of watching TV are tied to having access to low-cost fast internet.

You're also not understanding that communications infrastructure is a natural monopoly. Infrastructure costs are the barrier to entry, meaning that even if ISPs make more revenue, they're still not going to have competition. ISPs are no more likely to invest in infrastructure without net neutrality than they are now, making your argument pointless.

Re: Join the Battle for Net Neutrality

#70
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Other than common sense? Targeted policy?

> Targeted policy? Hmm, good idea. Let's see... maybe we could have a policy something like If you are one of the few companies providing Internet service, and are protected by various laws and regulations that limit who may provide such service to end users, then you must not discriminate or charge differently by user, content, website, platform, application, type of attached equipment, or method of communication. H…

I don't have a problem with zero rating, the policy you describe prohibits it.

I identify with the fundamental concept that "it's all just bits streaming" and that it could "stifle competition".

But to me both are an oversimplification.

"It's all just bits" except sometimes it's 100 megabytes of video a second and sometimes it's a 100kb HN post and delivering those things satisfactorily does not take the same levels of resources. There was a time when I think that analogy was satisfactory, and I think we've left that time.

And it definitely could stifle startups trying to become the next Google... except I get the feeling zero rating won't be why the next Google doesn't form between patents issues, Google just buying them outright, Google having better response times because of peering, and a million other issues (replace Google with any tech incumbent as wanted)

To me this entire issue is a red herring, the real issue is a lack of ISP competition. That's why we're even willing to entertain the idea of our ISPs turning the internet into cable packages instead of realizing that with real competition no ISP would have the slightest inclination to do something so blatantly anti-user.

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