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F.C.C. Repeals Net Neutrality Rules

nytimes.com

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Re: F.C.C. Repeals Net Neutrality Rules

#601

Post by [deleted] »

quasse wrote: post #390
tcheard wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So an open-access network ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-access_network ). This is done quite successfully in other countries around the world, like New Zealand where we mainly have one infrastructure provider (selected and monitored by the Government), who must offer fair and standard pricing to any ISP who wants to add value to the network. As a result, we have many ISP options throughout the country and comp…

What value do the ISPs actually add to the market? It seems like a government granted middleman position to me, where I'd rather just purchase service from the government or the government's selected infrastructure manager. Presumably there's already some base price for service that this infrastructure provider is charging everyone (a controller monopolist), what are you gaining on top of that by having a second midd…

[deleted]

Re: F.C.C. Repeals Net Neutrality Rules

#602

Post by Danihan »

QAPereo wrote: post #381
tptacek wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don’t relocate. Stay in your damn house. Go talk to the people who are actually running in those districts. If you can write them even the cost of a ps4, they want to hear from you. In particular for Democrats running against entrenched Republicans, these people aren’t evil corporate fat cats. They own restaurants, teach high school, are small-town mayors, or nurses. They need help to compete. The DNC is not going to…

Are you sure that the time to be involved wasn’t say... a couple of decades ago? This feels like the terminal end-stage. It was time to be involved when Reagan was ending the hope of public education or mental health, during three or more decades of scientists and environmentalists screaming bloody murder, or at some point during our decades of failed adventurism abroad. This isn’t new, this is the sharp end of an ed…

Orange clown --> Racist

Henchmen --> Fear-mongering

Public Education --> We still have it.

Mental Health programs --> Still have 'em.

Insect Biomass --> It's almost as if having 7B humans on the planet has consequences. But sure, rabble rabble, it's all Reagan's fault.

Re: F.C.C. Repeals Net Neutrality Rules

#603

Post by acjohnson55 »

I'm curious how this could impact the cryptocurrency space. If the government is effectively showing willingness to hand the Internet over to moneyed interests, does that damage the assumption that the Internet is a failsafe medium for cryptocurrency networks to operate? Should we also fear the banks using similar leverage to protect their interests if it looks like cryptocurrencies stand a reasonable chance of circumventing their oligopoly?

Anybody counting on the Internet for their disruptive future plans should hear this message loud and clear.

Re: F.C.C. Repeals Net Neutrality Rules

#604

Post by remarkEon »

s73ver_ wrote: post #330
exabrial wrote: post #79

Unpopular opinion: Title II is not a great solution to Net Neutrality. The only thing I disklike is there isn't a better option already in place. I would rather see the FTC address EULAs. If a company says, "we may from time-to-time limit your bandwidth" I think they should be on the hook to produce a report every month when and why they limited you. This is not much different than the report you get from your invest…

"Unpopular opinion: Title II is not a great solution to Net Neutrality." Do you have a compelling reason why? Tittle II worked fantastically for phone calls. I see zero reason why it wouldn't work for internet as well.

https://stratechery.com/2017/pro-neutrality-anti-title-ii/

Re: F.C.C. Repeals Net Neutrality Rules

#605

Post by tptacek »

plandis wrote: post #599
tptacek wrote: post #127

The voters elected a Republican government. That a Republican-led FCC would err on the side of under-regulating telecommunications companies is about the least surprising outcome you can imagine. Anybody who told you that lobbying the FCC was going to make a difference here was, whether they meant to or not, selling a bill of goods. As someone who respects but mostly profoundly disagrees with principled Republican la…

So your solution is to spend money to move somewhere else? Government of the rich, for the rich, by the rich :-/

No, that is not my suggestion.

Re: F.C.C. Repeals Net Neutrality Rules

#606

Post by okreallywtf »

bjt2n3904 wrote: post #120

Common response on HN for the past two months has been nothing short of hyperbolic. "The world will end if NN is repealed". Speaking as a conservative: When Obama was president, I got told the same thing about the ACA. The world will end, the sky is falling, America is finished. But eight years later, here I am, nothing's that much worse. I have no reason to believe this is "the beginning of the end" of anything. Lif…

Just to make sure I understand, conservatives said that it would be a disaster if the ACA signed into law?

Assuming that is what you meant: just because that was not true doesn't mean that NN is not important. Granted, there is some fear mongering and worst-case thinking going on, but in the end I think that there is valid reasoning behind NN fears, just like the claims about the ACA were provably exaggerated at the time.

This kind of reminds me how the Iraq war is being used to sow distrust of the intelligence services now. Because there were mistakes made during a republican administration that was hell-bent to go to war in Iraq, we shouldn't trust them now when there is immense agreement about the Russian hacking and propaganda campaign.

Re: F.C.C. Repeals Net Neutrality Rules

#607

Post by rglover »

tobyhinloopen wrote: post #318
bjt2n3904 wrote: post #120

Common response on HN for the past two months has been nothing short of hyperbolic. "The world will end if NN is repealed". Speaking as a conservative: When Obama was president, I got told the same thing about the ACA. The world will end, the sky is falling, America is finished. But eight years later, here I am, nothing's that much worse. I have no reason to believe this is "the beginning of the end" of anything. Lif…

USA democracy is failing and this is something to freak out about.

It's failing for your point of view. Don't conflate that with democracy failing as a whole.

Re: F.C.C. Repeals Net Neutrality Rules

#608

Post by ethagnawl »

komali2 wrote: post #300
juris wrote: post #135

This wouldn't be a problem if ISP's weren't de facto monopolies. If there was competition in this space, then there would be incentive to improve the infrastructure and Internet speeds. However, ISP's kill competition by making legal arrangements with local governments to only do business with them, and by cutting competitors' cables. Since we have no way to guarantee reasonable speeds to small time websites now, we…

I've been thinking this over for the past couple months, because I was pretty sure this would be the outcome - that we would lose our net neutrality protection. So let's play out the worse case - Comcast, AT&T etc wait out the shitstorm and then start throttling traffic and packaging the internet, releasing cable-esque "plans." Is it feasible to just start running our own fiber to hubs? I want to learn more about the…

Building a mesh network* is a much cheaper, more realistic alternative.

Also, with regard to your point about "starting an ISP", I don't know the legalities and IANAL, but NYC Mesh goes out of their way to state that they _are not_ an ISP - there's probably a reason for that.

- https://nycmesh.net

- https://www.alliedmedia.org/dctp

Re: F.C.C. Repeals Net Neutrality Rules

#609

Post by btown »

spsful wrote: post #571
JohnTHaller wrote: post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it isn't. I live in NYC. I have access to exactly one broadband provider. So, if Spectrum starts blocking Vonage because they want you to pay for their VoIP instead (ISPs in the US have done this in the past), I'll have to drop Vonage and use Spectrum's VoIP. Repeat for blocking P2P, Google Wallet, Facetime, Netflix, etc (all of which have previous incidents in the US).

I'm definitely not going to be that guy who says his ISP is the exception, but Spectrum, basically the evolution of Time Warner Cable, hasn't even dabbled in paid prioritization. Time Warner Cable didn't start fiddling with fast and slow lanes when Comcast tried it and never put out any such policy. That's why I liked living in a TWC city and not a Comcast city (ever noticed there are barely any cities that have both…

If the thrown-together design of TWC's official app is any indication, I find it more likely that the previous leadership knew that software wasn't their specialty and (rightfully) shied away from building software businesses before they became worth prioritizing in the first place. Now that they can amortize the costs of such development over the entire Charter-TWC group, it may very well become worthwhile... not to mention that they'll be looking for new profit centers given the demise of cable [0]. So our insulation from this may be short-lived.

To your parenthetical point, I actually find it fascinating from a psychological perspective that someone like Ajit Pai can present himself as, and very possibly believe himself to be, a "man of the people" while simultaneously literally making a mockery of their interests [1]. Someone with a mind so ungrounded that it can function under that level of cognitive dissonance is as deserving of pity as they are of ire. (Or perhaps that's what I tell myself about most politicians so that my veins don't burst.)

[0] https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/11/chart...

[1] https://gizmodo.com/ajit-pai-thinks-youre-stupid-enough-to-b...

Re: F.C.C. Repeals Net Neutrality Rules

#610

Post by AlwaysBCoding »

acjohnson55 wrote: post #603

I'm curious how this could impact the cryptocurrency space. If the government is effectively showing willingness to hand the Internet over to moneyed interests, does that damage the assumption that the Internet is a failsafe medium for cryptocurrency networks to operate? Should we also fear the banks using similar leverage to protect their interests if it looks like cryptocurrencies stand a reasonable chance of circu…

Check out Nick Szabo and Elaine Ou's talk from Scaling Bitcoin about broadcasting Bitcoin blocks over shortwave radio.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkYXPJMqBNk&feature=youtu.be...

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