Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

F.C.C. Repeals Net Neutrality Rules

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

881–890 of 1001 posts

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

#881

Post by PhasmaFelis »

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…

> it is more than a little aggravating to see us as a community winding ourselves in knots over market-based regulation of telecom at the same time as the (largely unprincipled) Republican congress is putting the finishing strokes --- literally in ball-point pen --- on a catastrophically stupid tax bill that threatens universal access to health insurance, not just for those dependent on Medicare but on startup founders as well.

Yeah. It was nice to see people coming together to fight for net neutrality, but it would have been nicer to see some of that energy and excitement used to fight something that will actually kill people.

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

#882

Post by mcantelon »

blunte wrote: post #876
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…

1. voters did not elect a Republican government. Gerrymandering has given Republicans wins in many places where Democrats would have won in any other universe. Likely rigged electronic voting machines that have no audit trail have given Republicans votes they would not have had. *Targeted voter suppression campaigns have prevented people from voting who would have tipped the scales in favor of Democrats. 2. Republica…

>Targeted voter suppression campaigns have prevented people from voting who would have tipped the scales in favor of Democrats.

And the Democrats have spun reasonable measures, such as requiring some sort of identification to vote, as "suppression", possibly so those who aren't citizens can vote. Who cheats more? Who knows.

The low-hanging fruit for the Democrats is, however:

1) Prioritize lower/middle class economic concerns over progressive identity politics

2) Push the DNC not to scuttle candidates, like Bernie, that people don't universally loathe

If those two things get done, the Democrats have a good chance going forward. Otherwise, who knows.

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

#883

Post by debugxyz »

tptacek wrote: post #192
russdill wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I think the biggest take away of this is to push the fact that republican legislators did not listen to their constituents. At all. They did not put their constituents first. At all. The chairman actually talked about consumers working with the FCC to enforce regulations as a bad thing.

I do not agree. I believe Republican voters do not in fact want the government extensively regulating the Internet. It is very difficult to argue in 2017 that the Republican party is the party of a pragmatic, consumer-protected regulatory state. The Republicans believe that the market will take better care of Internet users than any regulatory agency. On this one issue, it's possible they're even right.

A poll "found that 83 percent overall favored keeping the FCC rules, including 75 percent of Republicans"

http://thehill.com/policy/technology/364528-poll-83-percent-...

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

#885

Post by mcantelon »

ace_of_spades wrote: post #880
betterunix2 wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"That a Republican-led FCC would err on the side of under-regulating telecommunications companies is about the least surprising outcome you can imagine." That is not why this is shocking. This proceeding is shocking because the legal basis for this change is dependent on a false statements about the technology involved. It goes beyond just, "Republicans prefer deregulation," or, "Republicans favor market-based approa…

So what you are saying is that the republican party in its current form is unvotable. I agree. Even people holding dear republican aligned beliefs should take note and realize that the party is not able to act aligned with their own interest. I guess partisanship might simply be a huge problem because democrats can‘t recognize republicans as republicans any more - still because there are only 2 relevant parties - rep…

>Why not create a new republican party?

The system is heavily weighted in favor of the duopoly (televised debates, etc.). Fixing that might increase the odds a third party would be able to be a genuine contender, rather than simply splitting one side's vote.

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

#886

Post by nickysielicki »

bo1024 wrote: post #871
nickysielicki wrote: post #768

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For power users on websites like HN and reddit, this might seem true. But if you take a step back and realize that the large majority of Americans don't use the internet like you do, and maybe never will use the internet like you do, I think this argument holds far less water. Consider that it's estimated that 13% of Americans don't use the internet-- at all , for anything, ever.[1] Think about how many people probab…

Netflix has 52 million subscribers in the United States. https://www.statista.com/statistics/250934/quarterly-number-... 55% of Americans watched Netflix in the last year. http://www.businessinsider.com/percent-of-americans-who-watc... 98% of Americans think internet speeds need to be improved. https://tech.co/americans-internet-speeds-improving-2017-06 Roughly 50% are 'satisfied' with their home internet speeds but…

> Netflix has 52 million subscribers in the United States.

Put another way, about five of every six Americans doesn't subscribe to Netflix.

> 55% of Americans watched Netflix in the last year.

That article is based on a "study" whose source is an online survey (surveymonkey) with 1046 respondents.

> 98% of Americans think internet speeds need to be improved.

Blogspam article which cites, though does not link, to an alleged study from Cambium Networks. Cambium Networks sells WISP equipment.

> Roughly 50% are 'satisfied' with their home internet speeds but this is according to the FCC, which has lied to me a lot recently.

Wow, that's a serious misrepresentation. It says that 50% are "very satisfied" with their internet speeds, but you conveniently left out the line that follows: an additional 41% are "somewhat satisfied" with their internet speeds. So it's really saying that 91% are 'satisfied' with their home internet speeds.

The broader point you can take from that document is that, between two different studies, only 20% of homes had respondents who were aware of their network speed... It's not a tremendous leap to assume that most people are not savvy enough to understand whether their network issues are caused by their ISP, or whether their network issues are caused by an old and flakey combo-WAP-router-modem that lacks modern developments in things like traffic shaping. A lot of hatred for ISPs probably comes from misinformed consumers cursing their ISP for network slowness that is actually due to wireless congestion or old/slow computers running a virus scan.

> This is a natural result of lightly-regulated monopolies and oligopolies. It doesn't mean that their choices not to invest are somehow best for the long-term growth of the internet, in any way shape or form. Their monetary incentives are not aligned with long-term growth of the Internet.

My argument is that there is no real monopoly, the average internet user has a lot of choices that meets the needs of their usage patterns-- usage patterns that seem completely alien to HN readers and reddit users.

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

#887

Post by mcantelon »

goalieca wrote: post #766
betterunix2 wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"That a Republican-led FCC would err on the side of under-regulating telecommunications companies is about the least surprising outcome you can imagine." That is not why this is shocking. This proceeding is shocking because the legal basis for this change is dependent on a false statements about the technology involved. It goes beyond just, "Republicans prefer deregulation," or, "Republicans favor market-based approa…

> what do you expect from Republicans Disclaimer: I am a canadian citizen. What I expect from republicans is the opposite of evidence based policy making. None of their policies are supported or motivated by evidence. Pick one from taxes to gun control to sex education.

Informed gun advocates can actually make a pretty compelling case against gun control, but few are interested in listening. Canada's gun control IIRC isn't that much stricter than the US's, yet there's significantly less gun crime. As Michael Moore pointed out in "Bowling for Columbine" culture seems to play a significant part.

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

#888

Post by harryf »

a_tractor wrote: post #792
socrates1998 wrote: post #492

Slowly but surely, our open internet will get choked. This is just one step in horrible path that will lead to our largest corporations controlling almost everything in our lives with very little competition. I am blaming the tech giants for this ruling. They are the only ones with enough power to challenge this horrible ruling and they sat idle and watched it happen. They may have given lip service to net neutrality…

Seriously, silicon valley playing the role of "poor ole me" content provider that's "with the people" trying to defeat the big bad telecoms was completely absurd. I mean good lord, I am supposed to believe GOOG and APPL and FB and AMZN couldn't match lobbying efforts? Please. The other absurd thing is people worried about Netflix, which as far back as I could remember is a big reason why this whole debate started in…

> Seriously, silicon valley playing the role of "poor ole me" content provider that's "with the people" trying to defeat the big bad telecoms was completely absurd. I mean good lord, I am supposed to believe GOOG and APPL and FB and AMZN couldn't match lobbying efforts? Please.

What's not clear is how much money Google, Facebook, Amazon and Netflix put into firing up the keep net neutrality campaign, but I'd assume there was quite a significant war chest available, judging by the size of the outcry. There were "viral" vids showing up on Reddit for example where the channel looked a lot like it was run by a think tank or similar.

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

#889

Post by nickysielicki »

thomastjeffery wrote: post #804
nickysielicki wrote: post #768

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For power users on websites like HN and reddit, this might seem true. But if you take a step back and realize that the large majority of Americans don't use the internet like you do, and maybe never will use the internet like you do, I think this argument holds far less water. Consider that it's estimated that 13% of Americans don't use the internet-- at all , for anything, ever.[1] Think about how many people probab…

> the large majority of Americans don't use the internet like you do They might not for the majority of the time , but they certainly do use the internet like you and I do. Were this not the case, "googling" would not have become such a common word.

Google is useful to everyone no matter if you're just a casual internet user or very technical, but a google page is like 80kb so it's not relevant in the conversation about what usage patterns are pushing the need for improvement of internet infrastructure.

Things like streaming media, file sharing, big game downloads, etc. are what's contributing meaningfully to filling up pipes and making it necessary to improve the links. And my point is that HN readers are far more likely to take part in these usage patterns, and underestimate how many Americans have zero interest in using the internet that way. They think that because their usage patterns could not be met by a cellular or satellite internet plan that it means that it wouldn't fit the needs of most everyone else, either. It's just not true.

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

#890

Post by kurthr »

mcantelon wrote: post #882
blunte wrote: post #876

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. voters did not elect a Republican government. Gerrymandering has given Republicans wins in many places where Democrats would have won in any other universe. Likely rigged electronic voting machines that have no audit trail have given Republicans votes they would not have had. *Targeted voter suppression campaigns have prevented people from voting who would have tipped the scales in favor of Democrats. 2. Republica…

>Targeted voter suppression campaigns have prevented people from voting who would have tipped the scales in favor of Democrats. And the Democrats have spun reasonable measures, such as requiring some sort of identification to vote, as "suppression", possibly so those who aren't citizens can vote. Who cheats more? Who knows. The low-hanging fruit for the Democrats is, however: 1) Prioritize lower/middle class economic…

No, in person voter fraud is well studied and considered so uncommon that it is a red herring. If it were truly considered a problem then mail in ballots would require some proof that the correct person voted. That's the low hanging fruit for vulnerability of voting, why isn't it fixed? You can't even catch the perpetrator! Because rural voters who support them would scream, they don't care about fixing the gaping security hole.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/12/12/16767426/...

1) has identity politics has been shown to be such a loser for republicans? 2) since more people voted for Hillary than Trump, is "universal" loathing actually a problem for presidential candidates?

Roy Jones won 6/7 districts and lost the popular vote. Pretty much the definition of gerrymandering, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/12/13/how-d...

Post reply on HN