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ISPs can’t find any judges who will block California net neutrality law

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Re: ISPs can’t find any judges who will block California net neutrality law

#131

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

vmception wrote: post #113
edflsafoiewq wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IME politics is based around clusters of concrete conclusions like "abortion should be legal". All arguments and abstract principles (like "states rights") are deployed and discarded opportunistically in the service of the fixed conclusions.

Bingo, the land of opportunity concept means do things opportunistically A/B test competing stances across a couple jurisdictions if you feel like it or if/when it benefits you You dont really need to hold a strong stance on anything, leave that to people who affect nothing

Opportunity and freedom, to exploit others.

Re: ISPs can’t find any judges who will block California net neutrality law

#132

Post by [deleted] »

everybodyknows wrote: post #130
gameman144 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that while this is definitely true of opportunistic politicians who will take any advantage they can, I don't this is actually true of most people who actually believe in states' rights as a real principle (as opposed to a politically malleable one). For instance, I have close family members who are strong free-market conservatives (to a pragmatic extent, not anarcho-capitalists or anything) who I consider to…

> people who actually believe in states' rights as a real principle ... OP's implication was that such principled individuals exercise not much power in the real-world politics of our time.

[deleted]

Re: ISPs can’t find any judges who will block California net neutrality law

#133

Post by seoaeu »

edflsafoiewq wrote: post #102
walrus01 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

IME politics is based around clusters of concrete conclusions like "abortion should be legal". All arguments and abstract principles (like "states rights") are deployed and discarded opportunistically in the service of the fixed conclusions.

I wish people were more honest about it, but is it even bad to care more about political outcomes than arbitrary details about the structure of the government? Like is there any reason that normal people should have a first principles opinion on the exact distribution of responsibilities between two levels of government?

Re: ISPs can’t find any judges who will block California net neutrality law

#134

Post by kodah »

jmyeet wrote: post #46

The whole net neutrality saga just exposed the deep regulatory capture between ISPs and the FCC (the Republican Commissioners at least). Pai's argument for repealing net neutrality was that it wasn't a Federal government concern. That was originally what prompted California to institute these rules. But suddenly it wasn't a state issue either. Weird . The US has some of the most expensive Internet access in the world…

> The US has some of the most expensive Internet access in the world. In most places it's pretty crap too. Many places have no competition. Some providers are in clear breach of contract in not providing customers service as they promised to do.

People say this, but we had net neutrality for years and it never improved the reach of broadband into rural areas. It mostly benefited cities.

I would like to see a version of net neutrality that doesn't just do the bare minimum in terms of encouraging broadband development in rural areas, starting with the FCC redefining broadband so their little map is more accurate to how slow the speed and dismal the access really is.

Re: ISPs can’t find any judges who will block California net neutrality law

#135

Post by kodah »

seoaeu wrote: post #133
edflsafoiewq wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IME politics is based around clusters of concrete conclusions like "abortion should be legal". All arguments and abstract principles (like "states rights") are deployed and discarded opportunistically in the service of the fixed conclusions.

I wish people were more honest about it, but is it even bad to care more about political outcomes than arbitrary details about the structure of the government? Like is there any reason that normal people should have a first principles opinion on the exact distribution of responsibilities between two levels of government?

I would say caring about direct outcomes is okay, but probably myopic, as a citizen. The government is supposed to build a framework that seeks to put us on equal footing. People invisionong outcomes is short term thinking, and that seems to be often what gets us in trouble.

Re: ISPs can’t find any judges who will block California net neutrality law

#136

Post by dalbasal »

Net neutrality really highlights the ratchet effect that arises wherever a conflict of interest between the general public and special interests exists.

They never stop. Legislative lobbying. Massive Legal efforts. Attempts at influencing the executive/government activities.

Once they've made a gain, they rarely lose it.

Re: ISPs can’t find any judges who will block California net neutrality law

#137

Post by whatshisface »

seoaeu wrote: post #133
edflsafoiewq wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IME politics is based around clusters of concrete conclusions like "abortion should be legal". All arguments and abstract principles (like "states rights") are deployed and discarded opportunistically in the service of the fixed conclusions.

I wish people were more honest about it, but is it even bad to care more about political outcomes than arbitrary details about the structure of the government? Like is there any reason that normal people should have a first principles opinion on the exact distribution of responsibilities between two levels of government?

Your state legislature may be more or less accessible to you than the federal government depending on how your state legislature is structured, the number of people in your state, and the relative concentration of people who share your special interest in your state vs. in the whole country.

Re: ISPs can’t find any judges who will block California net neutrality law

#138

Post by kelnos »

jcranmer wrote: post #127
kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That mostly because we've become accustomed to the federal government meddling in internal affairs more than it is supposed to. The union is supposed to be akin to the EU but without international sovereignty for states.

> The union is supposed to be akin to the EU but without international sovereignty for states. Actually, not really. The EU is, in political science terms, a confederation (to the degree that it's a state and not a supranational organization in the first place). The constitution envisioned the US as a federal state (the first one ever), in explicit contradistinction to the confederation that preceded it, as well as o…

> Arguments that center on what the Founding Fathers actually intended for the country fall flat for me because a) how do you know what they actually intended

I think it's further than that: regardless what they intended, it's very easy to see the opposing views of the Federalists and Anti-Federalists via their respective Papers. It's pretty clear that some of the founders wanted a strong central government, and some wanted a weaker central government with stronger states. Big surprise, politicians disagree on fundamental issues.

But it's also pretty clear that the Federalists "won", and quickly. Very early in the 1800s we see the federal government asserting itself much more strongly than the Anti-Federalists wanted.

So I think it's just flat-out wrong for someone to say something like "the founding fathers wanted a small, relatively weak central government". Sure, some of them did, but many did not, and, well... the small-central-government faction lost.

Re: ISPs can’t find any judges who will block California net neutrality law

#139

Post by d110af5ccf »

Karrot_Kream wrote: post #41
unityByFreedom wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't agree with what the ISP is doing, but I can rationalize how they think it makes sense. It only makes sense if they perceive no backlash for overreaching. We need to look closely at what they are currently doing. They're expanding zero rating on mobile, and also on broadband in some areas by claiming that their network is "proprietary technology" and not subject to such net neutrality laws. Meanwhile, munici…

I agree with your general point (a lack of competition is why they can get away with double-charging for traffic), though this feels like a theoretical concern as of yet. But you're conflating different ISPs with different types of anti-competitive behavior. Prioritizing non-streaming-service (e.g. throttling Netflix at prime time) packets could, for example, help a regional ISP stay competitive. That's different tha…

> Prioritizing non-streaming-service (e.g. throttling Netflix at prime time) packets could, for example, help a regional ISP stay competitive.

No. There are lots of things companies could theoretically do to be more competitive. That doesn't mean those things are good or should be legal.

> That's different than the anti-competitive behavior the big ISPs engage in when ...

Actually I think the two are tightly coupled. There's a Hetzner article linked to elsewhere in this comment section that does a good job of articulating it. https://web.archive.org/web/20170607120440/https://wiki.hetz...

> With a cost-neutral peering, each network operator pays for the expansion of its own network itself. Likewise, every network operator shall bear the costs of its own router interfaces at the connections between the networks (peering points).

> Large content providers have a strong interest to reach the DSL customers of DPCs with the best possible performance, and therefore are looking for alternatives to congested interfaces between the carriers. These are found usually through direct connections of the major content suppliers to the respective DPCs. At this point, the DPC can use their market position, since as a result of congested interfaces no other carrier can reach the DSL customers of the respective DPCs with sufficient speed. Therefore, the DPC can set prices, free of competition, which interested content providers have to pay to achieve performant connctions to "its" DSL customers.

So effectively ISPs are incentivized to neglect peerings that they aren't currently double dipping on in order to use their customers to coerce payment. Note that (unfortunately) DTAG was eventually successful in coercing Hetzner to pay for peering with them. They did this by abusing their customers. It's textbook monopolistic behavior.

Re: ISPs can’t find any judges who will block California net neutrality law

#140

Post by etchalon »

jcranmer wrote: post #127
kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That mostly because we've become accustomed to the federal government meddling in internal affairs more than it is supposed to. The union is supposed to be akin to the EU but without international sovereignty for states.

> The union is supposed to be akin to the EU but without international sovereignty for states. Actually, not really. The EU is, in political science terms, a confederation (to the degree that it's a state and not a supranational organization in the first place). The constitution envisioned the US as a federal state (the first one ever), in explicit contradistinction to the confederation that preceded it, as well as o…

I tend to throw away any concern for what the Founding Fathers intended once I remember who the Founding Fathers intended to be able to vote.

The greatest thing the Founding Fathers did was create a process within their document for fixing said document.

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