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Senate votes to reinstate net neutrality

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Re: Senate votes to reinstate net neutrality

#81
post #3

Time to call your Congressmen. I live in a purple district, and I'm going to make it clear to my Republican representative that: 1) I'm going to vote in November, 2) I will vote for him if he votes to keep the pre-existing title II net neutrality regulations, and against them if he does not, and 3) Net neutrality is even supported by a majority of Republican voters [1], so if he votes against it's clear he's voting a…

I'm presuming purple (being red + blue) means a district that could either way? Lucky you. Here we don't have elections that matter because thanks to redistricting and gerrymandering, the outcome (along party lines) is well established.

You can still have an impact. Make noise in favor of things like open primaries, proportional representation, and instant-runoff/score/range voting.

Imo one of the biggest problems with our current system (single winner FPTP) is it results in two parties, with various side effects such as extremist candidates in primaries, complete lack of representation for minority voters, and gerrymandered districts. Moving towards better systems would help a great deal.

Re: Senate votes to reinstate net neutrality

#82
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The market conditions are set up for what is called a "natural monopoly". Its inefficient for new companies to build wires to an already wired up neighborhood. Companies therefore become de-facto monopolies on a neighborhood-by-neighborhood basis. The exception are cities where a dense population of people can support additional carriers for sake of competition. But at a basic level, the economic conditions just make…

> as well as a few European countries who have adopted this scheme. Do you have examples of which countries that have implemented something similar? I recall reading about this in the past, and I would like to read more about it, but I can't think off the top of my head which countries I might have read about.

United Kingdom BT Openreach

Re: Senate votes to reinstate net neutrality

#83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like the root problem is lack of competition at the ISP level. If we had that, net neutrality regulation would likely not be necessary. Instead we're trying to fix a bad regulatory environment with even more regulations.

The market conditions are set up for what is called a "natural monopoly". Its inefficient for new companies to build wires to an already wired up neighborhood. Companies therefore become de-facto monopolies on a neighborhood-by-neighborhood basis. The exception are cities where a dense population of people can support additional carriers for sake of competition. But at a basic level, the economic conditions just make…

The term of art is "local loop unbundling"

Re: Senate votes to reinstate net neutrality

#84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody in Congress had a view on net neutrality until they were paid to. Because it's a largely invented issue between those groups of corporations. ISPs want to charge tech companies more for the traffic they generate, and tech companies don't want to pay it. Those companies were already donating to politicians which align with their own views... but primarily because of their views on other topics.

That's not how things work. The different internet providers have peering agreements. If traffic isn't the same between the two peers, they pay the difference. Simplified. If Netflix's service provider is Verizon and they have a peering agreement with Comcast and Netflix traffic is causing peering to become out of balance between Comcast and Verizon. Verizon pays Comcast and Verizon charges Netflix more. No one is ge…

I've heard the rhetoric. It's not relevant to my point:

Group A of companies wants B to pay a bill. Group B doesn't want to pay it. Corporate lobbying ensues, as each tries to make the other's position illegal. Who is "right" or whether or not Group B should pay Group A's bill is not relevant to the accuracy of my statement.

EDIT: Please keep this thread on the topic at hand: Why net neutrality is perceived as a liberal position. There are other subthreads where you can discuss your opinion on net neutrality itself.

Re: Senate votes to reinstate net neutrality

#85
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people's ideas of what's important are stupid. Everyone has the right to an opinion but that doesn't mean we should treat every opinion as equal. If someone was going to vote on the single issue of whether or not we should make it illegal to have more than 17,000,000 butterflies in a room smaller than 100'x100' I would have no problem telling them that their pet issue is stupid and there are other things they sh…

Thank you for keeping the discussion in the realm of the plausible and feasible. I'd hate for extreme situations to be brought up. A number of people have given reasons for why they think net neutrality is as important as it is to them. Thank you for definitively letting me know that Obviously net neutrality is something we should be concerned about but a single issue voter says it's the only thing we should be conce…

[deleted]

Re: Senate votes to reinstate net neutrality

#86
post #3

Time to call your Congressmen. I live in a purple district, and I'm going to make it clear to my Republican representative that: 1) I'm going to vote in November, 2) I will vote for him if he votes to keep the pre-existing title II net neutrality regulations, and against them if he does not, and 3) Net neutrality is even supported by a majority of Republican voters [1], so if he votes against it's clear he's voting a…

For everyone's amusement, can you let us know what he says?

When I lived in Texas, the responses I got from my representatives were comically evil. Straight up bond villain.

Re: Senate votes to reinstate net neutrality

#87
post #86
post #3

Time to call your Congressmen. I live in a purple district, and I'm going to make it clear to my Republican representative that: 1) I'm going to vote in November, 2) I will vote for him if he votes to keep the pre-existing title II net neutrality regulations, and against them if he does not, and 3) Net neutrality is even supported by a majority of Republican voters [1], so if he votes against it's clear he's voting a…

For everyone's amusement, can you let us know what he says? When I lived in Texas, the responses I got from my representatives were comically evil. Straight up bond villain.

That sounds exactly like what I got from Cathy mcmorris Rodgers in eastern Washington as well

Re: Senate votes to reinstate net neutrality

#88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, I see. So this is the local equivalent for voting for a small party in a country with many more parties in the running for a coalition. That makes some sense, but at the same time it would mean that you are also voting for a lot of stuff that is reprehensible and probably against your own interest. Because once the votes are counted your vote will not be counted as a 'single issue' vote but as a total mandate for…

So your solution is what, not vote? Everyone in America faces this dilemma, it's the problem with our two party system.

Yea... we really need to fix that one of these days with instant runoff voting. It's going to be hard to get done since both primary parties won't be in favor of it, maybe if we get public financing of elections it'll be easier.

Re: Senate votes to reinstate net neutrality

#89
I am on the one hand happy to hear about this, but I couldn't help but laugh at the way it was reported on NPR. They said Democrats see this as an issue that can bring voters to the polls. I immediately thought of how few people even know what the heck net neutrality is (about 1 in 4 [0]). Either NPR is making stuff up or the Democrats are seriously in need of some new advice. [0]:https://americanactionnetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02....

Re: Senate votes to reinstate net neutrality

#90
post #3

Time to call your Congressmen. I live in a purple district, and I'm going to make it clear to my Republican representative that: 1) I'm going to vote in November, 2) I will vote for him if he votes to keep the pre-existing title II net neutrality regulations, and against them if he does not, and 3) Net neutrality is even supported by a majority of Republican voters [1], so if he votes against it's clear he's voting a…

I'm presuming purple (being red + blue) means a district that could either way? Lucky you. Here we don't have elections that matter because thanks to redistricting and gerrymandering, the outcome (along party lines) is well established.

> Here we don't have elections that matter because thanks to redistricting and gerrymandering, the outcome (along party lines) is well established.

All that means is that the general election doesn't matter, and so you need to move your vote to whatever comes before the general election in your district to make it matter.

1. Register for the party that the redistricting and gerrymandering favors.

2. Vote in that party's primaries or participate in their caucuses to support candidates who are closer to center.

Some will object that step #1 is dishonest. I might agree in districts where the district boundaries are actually sensible based on economics and other demographics factors other than party. In districts where one party has redrawn the boundaries to give itself a major structural advantage, they have stolen your vote. Joining their party is simply taking it back. If they do not like that, then they can fix the district boundaries.

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