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

ISPs Aim to Use Facebook Fracas to Saddle Silicon Valley with Crappy New Laws

techdirt.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 116 posts

Re: ISPs Aim to Use Facebook Fracas to Saddle Silicon Valley with Crappy New Laws

#51

Post by saagarjha »

ethbro wrote: post #49
drawkbox wrote: post #20

The ISPs are in an all out attack on competitors like Facebook/Google/Netflix/others. ISPs bought their way into the market with the ISP privacy protections being removed [1][2] and net neutrality being killed rather than innovating. The privacy protections being removed helped lessen the FCC grip on privacy and helped their case, with legislators not the people, to remove FCC net neutrality protections. It is obviou…

I find it ironic that two classes of monopolies (ISPs and Big Web) are being discussed here with diametrically opposed recommendations. For ISPs, the council is that they should be regulated (e.g. net neutrality, data privacy). For Facebook, Google, et al. the council is that they shouldn't be regulated (e.g. EU GDPR). I have yet to see a cogent argument justifying that difference. My suspicion is that it ultimately…

> For Facebook, Google, et al. the council is that they shouldn't be regulated (e.g. EU GDPR).

GDPR is regulation, so I'm not sure what you're getting at here.

Re: ISPs Aim to Use Facebook Fracas to Saddle Silicon Valley with Crappy New Laws

#52

Post by moate »

mkirklions wrote: post #17

As someone that is programming a finance tech app, every regulation is bad for the future. I am not afraid of regulation but its an annoying burden to keep big players big, and small players non-existent. Most people do not have the money or motivation I have, and those people lose out because of regulations. Never let a good tragedy go to waste.

If you don't regulate you allow bad players to keep doing bad things.

If you do regulate you force bad players to work harder to keep doing bad things.

I understand that regulation has negative side effects and unintended consequences. But truly free markets lead to child labor and depressed worker wages. It's impossible to craft perfect regulations, but it's implausible to assume "everything will just sort itself out if we let the free market be completely free" since that has literally never happened on a broad scale.

Re: ISPs Aim to Use Facebook Fracas to Saddle Silicon Valley with Crappy New Laws

#53

Post by ethbro »

saagarjha wrote: post #51
ethbro wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it ironic that two classes of monopolies (ISPs and Big Web) are being discussed here with diametrically opposed recommendations. For ISPs, the council is that they should be regulated (e.g. net neutrality, data privacy). For Facebook, Google, et al. the council is that they shouldn't be regulated (e.g. EU GDPR). I have yet to see a cogent argument justifying that difference. My suspicion is that it ultimately…

> For Facebook, Google, et al. the council is that they shouldn't be regulated (e.g. EU GDPR). GDPR is regulation, so I'm not sure what you're getting at here.

And HN comments haven't trended neutral to critical on GDPR?

Re: ISPs Aim to Use Facebook Fracas to Saddle Silicon Valley with Crappy New Laws

#55

Post by TAForObvReasons »

ethbro wrote: post #49
drawkbox wrote: post #20

The ISPs are in an all out attack on competitors like Facebook/Google/Netflix/others. ISPs bought their way into the market with the ISP privacy protections being removed [1][2] and net neutrality being killed rather than innovating. The privacy protections being removed helped lessen the FCC grip on privacy and helped their case, with legislators not the people, to remove FCC net neutrality protections. It is obviou…

I find it ironic that two classes of monopolies (ISPs and Big Web) are being discussed here with diametrically opposed recommendations. For ISPs, the council is that they should be regulated (e.g. net neutrality, data privacy). For Facebook, Google, et al. the council is that they shouldn't be regulated (e.g. EU GDPR). I have yet to see a cogent argument justifying that difference. My suspicion is that it ultimately…

The difference, if you want an honest answer, is that many HN denizens have worked or are currently working for Google or FB, or they hope that their startups will eventually be acquired by one of them. When Comcast gets in the game of providing exits for numerous startups, then we may start to see a shift in HN sentiment.

Re: ISPs Aim to Use Facebook Fracas to Saddle Silicon Valley with Crappy New Laws

#56

Post by sangnoir »

ethbro wrote: post #49
drawkbox wrote: post #20

The ISPs are in an all out attack on competitors like Facebook/Google/Netflix/others. ISPs bought their way into the market with the ISP privacy protections being removed [1][2] and net neutrality being killed rather than innovating. The privacy protections being removed helped lessen the FCC grip on privacy and helped their case, with legislators not the people, to remove FCC net neutrality protections. It is obviou…

I find it ironic that two classes of monopolies (ISPs and Big Web) are being discussed here with diametrically opposed recommendations. For ISPs, the council is that they should be regulated (e.g. net neutrality, data privacy). For Facebook, Google, et al. the council is that they shouldn't be regulated (e.g. EU GDPR). I have yet to see a cogent argument justifying that difference. My suspicion is that it ultimately…

> I have yet to see a cogent argument justifying that difference. My suspicion is that it ultimately falls down to "ISPs are unpopular, web companies are popular."

To paraphrase a (disputed) John Steinback quote, "HNers see themselves as temporarily embarrassed founders of the next Google or Facebook". There's vicariousness to the support, in addition to those with actual employment links past, present, or future (hopefully).

Re: ISPs Aim to Use Facebook Fracas to Saddle Silicon Valley with Crappy New Laws

#57

Post by wgerard »

TAForObvReasons wrote: post #46
wgerard wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Every single regulation starts from an "untenable place", almost by definition. I guess I'd disagree with that. Many environmental regulations are highly defensible, for example, especially when they arise in light of new evidence. I could also be wrong, but I don't believe most environmental regulations are proposed by powerful, monopolistic competitors of oil companies (which is a big part of what makes this prop…

Environmental regulations are a great example because large parts of the US population are in communities tied to industries that were eventually saddled with environmental regulations. Many of those people believe that the regulations are part of why their industries declined. For them, the environmental regulations are not highly defensible. Similarly in tech, many of the people arguing against regulations are econ…

> Environmental regulations are a great example because large parts of the US population are in communities tied to industries that were eventually saddled with environmental regulations.

I don't think that makes those regulations un-defensible. It just means there are tradeoffs.

Maybe we're just disagreeing about what the word "defensible" means in this context.

> Similarly in tech, many of the people arguing against regulations are economically incentivized to minimize the regulations

Except in this particular instance, the people arguing FOR regulations are economically incentivized to maximize the regulations. That's what makes this particular proposal untenable.

Outside of the renewable energy industry, the people pushing for environmental regulations don't have much economic incentive to do so (other than some very trivial ones, like that the economy will suffer if the planet declines).

Re: ISPs Aim to Use Facebook Fracas to Saddle Silicon Valley with Crappy New Laws

#58

Post by _bxg1 »

cwyers wrote: post #50

This article feels so slanted it's unreadable. Conceding that Facebook and Google probably actually do need to be regulated happens near the very bottom of the article; until then you'd be forgiven for thinking that the ISPs made all their concerns about those companies up.

Agreed. Silicon Valley could frankly use some "crappy new laws". Of course, so could ISP's, and that didn't happen.

Re: ISPs Aim to Use Facebook Fracas to Saddle Silicon Valley with Crappy New Laws

#59

Post by saagarjha »

ethbro wrote: post #53
saagarjha wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For Facebook, Google, et al. the council is that they shouldn't be regulated (e.g. EU GDPR). GDPR is regulation, so I'm not sure what you're getting at here.

And HN comments haven't trended neutral to critical on GDPR?

Not in my experience. Most comments I've seen laud it for providing protections for user privacy.

Re: ISPs Aim to Use Facebook Fracas to Saddle Silicon Valley with Crappy New Laws

#60

Post by Benjamin_Dobell »

ethbro wrote: post #49
drawkbox wrote: post #20

The ISPs are in an all out attack on competitors like Facebook/Google/Netflix/others. ISPs bought their way into the market with the ISP privacy protections being removed [1][2] and net neutrality being killed rather than innovating. The privacy protections being removed helped lessen the FCC grip on privacy and helped their case, with legislators not the people, to remove FCC net neutrality protections. It is obviou…

I find it ironic that two classes of monopolies (ISPs and Big Web) are being discussed here with diametrically opposed recommendations. For ISPs, the council is that they should be regulated (e.g. net neutrality, data privacy). For Facebook, Google, et al. the council is that they shouldn't be regulated (e.g. EU GDPR). I have yet to see a cogent argument justifying that difference. My suspicion is that it ultimately…

Given the conversation is regarding the US, the difference is obvious.

Users choose to use Facebook, Google, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft or whichever "Big Web" services they want.

However, many people in US have absolutely zero choice regarding their ISP, because ISPs have monopolies in the regions they serve, there's no competition. It's inherently not a free market.

Post reply on HN