AMA: NY AG Schneiderman on net neutrality and protecting our voice in government • Hacker News Board

Re: AMA: NY AG Schneiderman on net neutrality and protecting our voice in government

#211

Post by codemati » Wed, Dec 06, 2017, 3:32 AM UTC

dingo_bat wrote: post #207

I understand the motivations behind net neutrality. What I don't understand is why do we not extend this to all kinds of communication monopolies. Some examples: 1. Reddit is the monopoly in online newsboards. As long as it is there, nothing else can prop up and gain traction. However, I cannot exercise my right to free speech on the website without risking getting blocked by a moderator or even admins. Net neutralit…

These are higher abstractions than the internet itself.

Net neutrality does not exclude these.

What happens if Comcast decides to dramatically slow down Reddit/Facebook/YouTube in favour of another service? Your point no longer stands.

Re: AMA: NY AG Schneiderman on net neutrality and protecting our voice in government

#212

Post by thomastjeffery » Wed, Dec 06, 2017, 4:05 AM UTC

_d8fd wrote: post #102

If net neutrality fails, would it makes sense aggressively pursue a legal effort to break up "big cable"? Back in the long distance/DSL days, the local telcos were forced into allowing alternate vendors to sell long distance & Internet service over the copper wire running to one's house. Can we bust up Comcast's strangehold on the Internet service available to my apartment by forcing them to allow any vendor to sell…

> If net neutrality fails, would it makes sense aggressively pursue a legal effort to break up "big cable"?

It already makes sense.

If there were a competitive free market, then there would be a rational argument against net neutrality rules, but that simply isn't the case unless you live in North Dakota.

It's ironic that Ajit Pai acts like he can back up his argument against net neutrality with nothing but a short-sighted libertarian stance, yet he is so clearly helping support the current oligopoly, rather than fighting for a competitive free market.

Re: AMA: NY AG Schneiderman on net neutrality and protecting our voice in government

#213

Post by nitrogen » Wed, Dec 06, 2017, 4:11 AM UTC

freedomben wrote: post #119

zzzeek wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> actual technical discussion about the matter for the purposes of illustrating to others that its largely an undefined, impossible to enforce concept. In fact, the idea is impossible NN means an ISP cannot place artificial speed limits on packets that I send or receive, based on the contents of the packets; e.g. the protocol, the port, or the destination address. NN rules have already existed for several years, for…

This is illustrative of the main problem I've run into discussing NN. Everybody has a different definition of what it is, and many are not even close yet they both get the mental satisfaction of "being on the team for a free net" To be clear, I don't disagree with your post. I just chose it as an outlet to vent my frustration that language and words are so hard.

By hijacking a thread that's about taking action to argue technicalities, you are kind of contributing to the problem by decreasing SNR. If you are just here to argue, you are wasting the time and brainpower of people who could actually be contributing to solutions.

At the very least, instead of saying "see, I told you it wasn't easy," why don't you summarize the responses you have received and formulate a set of rules that would satisfy as many as possible?

Re: AMA: NY AG Schneiderman on net neutrality and protecting our voice in government

#214

Post by jknz » Wed, Dec 06, 2017, 4:17 AM UTC

Dear AG,

I am wondering if net neutrality should not be enforced by international trade agreements, such as TAFTA and others.

Net neutrality means that European ISPs cannot slow down the internet from American Companies and vice versa.

What Pai is proposing will give frightening ideas to foreign ISPs. Ask Facebook a cut of its ads or slow down its traffic. Ask Apple a cut of app purchases, or slow down downloads from the app store. Ask a cut of the streaming of any Hollywood movie, otherwise the streaming quality will be inferior to local European movies.

My intuition is that moving away from net neutrality is dangerous for healthy trade between countries and should be enforced at the international level.

I am wondering if current trade agreements already have implicit net neutrality rules. If it's not the case, we should promote such measures for the next generation of international trade agreements.

Re: AMA: NY AG Schneiderman on net neutrality and protecting our voice in government

#215

Post by dingo_bat » Wed, Dec 06, 2017, 4:22 AM UTC

jjazwiecki wrote: post #208

dingo_bat wrote: post #207

I understand the motivations behind net neutrality. What I don't understand is why do we not extend this to all kinds of communication monopolies. Some examples: 1. Reddit is the monopoly in online newsboards. As long as it is there, nothing else can prop up and gain traction. However, I cannot exercise my right to free speech on the website without risking getting blocked by a moderator or even admins. Net neutralit…

1. Is Reddit the only online newsboard you can access locally? If the answer is "no", I don't see how it's a monopoly. Aren't you...here? Posting?

As I noted in my comment, it doesn't matter if I can access voat. Because reddit is much better and I simply won't get relevant news from voat. Just because you can access a 3G GSM network at home doesn't mean Comcast doesn't have monopoly.

Re: AMA: NY AG Schneiderman on net neutrality and protecting our voice in government

#216

Post by dingo_bat » Wed, Dec 06, 2017, 4:27 AM UTC

codemati wrote: post #211

dingo_bat wrote: post #207

I understand the motivations behind net neutrality. What I don't understand is why do we not extend this to all kinds of communication monopolies. Some examples: 1. Reddit is the monopoly in online newsboards. As long as it is there, nothing else can prop up and gain traction. However, I cannot exercise my right to free speech on the website without risking getting blocked by a moderator or even admins. Net neutralit…

These are higher abstractions than the internet itself. Net neutrality does not exclude these. What happens if Comcast decides to dramatically slow down Reddit/Facebook/YouTube in favour of another service? Your point no longer stands.

> Net neutrality does not exclude these.

It does if my reddit blocks my account for posting in /r/fatpeoplehate. It does if facebook shows an advertisement post to more people than my status.

> What happens if Comcast decides to dramatically slow down Reddit/Facebook/YouTube in favour of another service? Your point no longer stands.

My point becomes stronger. This is exactly why we need net neutrality for youtube, reddit, and amazon. What happens if amazon blocks the sale of chromecast on their website? What happens if Youtube blocks me when I'm using an Aamazon stick? These things are happening and they are as wrong as Comcast slowing down Netflix.

Re: AMA: NY AG Schneiderman on net neutrality and protecting our voice in government

#217

Post by dingo_bat » Wed, Dec 06, 2017, 4:31 AM UTC

Hasz wrote: post #210

dingo_bat wrote: post #207

I understand the motivations behind net neutrality. What I don't understand is why do we not extend this to all kinds of communication monopolies. Some examples: 1. Reddit is the monopoly in online newsboards. As long as it is there, nothing else can prop up and gain traction. However, I cannot exercise my right to free speech on the website without risking getting blocked by a moderator or even admins. Net neutralit…

I wouldn't be so quick to conflate market share with a monopoly. We're one a message board other than reddit, and I could name hundreds with 10K+ users. Is reddit popular? No doubt. But it's far from a monopoly. A monopoly is generally defined as having a high barrier to entry, combined with price discrimination. You can certainly argue that the userbase/content of reddit/facebook/youtube constitutes a high barrier t…

> It's simply not possible for every New Yorker to dig up the sidewalk to lay fiber. That is what constitutes a natural monopoly.

It's simply not possible for every reddit user to code up their own reddit. Why is this not a natural monopoly?

Re: AMA: NY AG Schneiderman on net neutrality and protecting our voice in government

#218

Post by thomastjeffery » Wed, Dec 06, 2017, 4:36 AM UTC

rsync wrote: post #201

AGSchneiderman wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m glad you asked – this is a very important question. In short, the regulation is needed to protect against ISPs prioritizing their profits over their consumers, which is something we have seen in the past where regulations were lacking. As a preliminary matter, it’s important to recognize that net neutrality principles and protections in different forms have actually been around since 2005 and even earlier. So the…

"In short, the regulation is needed to protect against ISPs prioritizing their profits over their consumers" It's not encouraging to see that your broad, summary statement is nonsensical. A for-profit business firm prioritizes their profits over their consumers by definition. I am sympathetic to the cause of net neutrality but surely you can do better than this ...

Internet is a utility, and it is controlled predominantly by 6 companies.

There is simply not enough competition to rely on the free market to keep net neutrality as a fiscal priority.

Until the oligopoly is broken up, and everyone has competitive access to the internet, we need some way to ensure that net neutrality happens.

Without net neutrality, businesses using the internet itself , and even free nonprofit services will be unable to compete with large corporations like Facebook, Google, etc. because they won't be able to afford to pay ISPs for the right to reach customers without unreasonable bandwidth constraints.

Re: AMA: NY AG Schneiderman on net neutrality and protecting our voice in government

#219

Post by l3v3ll » Wed, Dec 06, 2017, 5:01 AM UTC

I checked a lot of my family and friends names. I found my friend on the list. Without letting him know, I asked if he was for or against it. He said he's never made a comment, and there are 2 comments with his name and current address. I believed the fake comments were happening, but this is actual proof for me that it did happen. He is submitting a report on AG Schneiderman's website now.

Re: AMA: NY AG Schneiderman on net neutrality and protecting our voice in government

#220

Post by thomastjeffery » Wed, Dec 06, 2017, 5:02 AM UTC

freedomben wrote: post #118

omg_ketchup wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They should treat the internet like they treat electricity. It doesn't matter if you're using it for a hair dryer or a work light or to charge your phone- you get it the same as everyone else for the same price. Why aren't we de-regulating power companies too?

Do you also extend this to allow for pay-for-what-you-use? I don't disagree with charging people more for how much they use, but a lot of net neutrality proponents lose their minds at the suggestion that somebody who uses 5 GB a month should pay less than the kid streaming 10 TB of torrents every month.

The problem with data caps is that it makes people afraid to use any new service that requires a significant amount of data, especially when they can't easily count the data that service will use, which is usually the case.

The other problem with data caps is that they aren't a good description of bandwidth use. Bandwidth isn't a bucket of water that runs out after a certain amount has been poured. Bandwidth is the maximum flow rate of pipes connected to an infinite reservoir. Capping transfer speeds makes sense, because there is only so much that can be delivered during the same period. Capping transfer amounts doesn't make sense, because that kid streaming 10TB of torrents can push most of her bandwidth usage to off hours like 3am on a Wednesday, rather than getting it all during peak hours like 8pm on a Friday.