Net neutrality is half-dead: Court strikes down FCC’s anti-blocking rules

>In some philosophical traditions making everyone better off is the actual definition of ethical.

Everyone except telecoms (and possibly the big guys who could afford the telecom toll).

That's a fairly narrow and presumptious definition of the possible consequences resulting from a lack of Net Neutrality. There is no real limitation on how the ISPs can wield their power AFAIK. For instance, why wouldn't they offer HuffingtonPost (essentially a blog) the opportunity to buy faster access for their readers?

But, even if we were to take your assumptions at face value, I'm not sure how you gloss over other details (such as their ability to price competitors like Netflix out of the market or essentially hold their users for ransom to the highest bidder).

Given that they are quasi-monopolies in most cases, these are certainly issues that deal with consumer choice on one end and access to opportunity on the other (i.e. for content providers, startups, etc.). In other words, these are issues of fairness. How can something be both made willfully unfair, yet be ethical? Would you not agree that fairness as a principle is morally right? That is the definition of ethical.

You made the argument in another comment that it's no more a matter of ethics than is raising taxes. But, certainly you can envision a scenario under which taxes can be raised in a manner and/or at the behest of certain groups which would make it unethical?

If none of this makes sense to you, then therein lies the divergence. It's one regarding the basic definition of ethical.

Arguably the telecoms too. They benefit from an increased requirement for their services, but that only happens as new and compelling services are created and catch on. Under what conditions are these services most likely to come about? Well, we've been able to compare networks where content and carrier have ties, and neutral networks. Think AOL versus the web. We have some idea which one does better.

Introducing extra data fees isn't necessarily the walled garden, I suppose, but depending on the structure, it walks us back some degree on the spectrum between the web and AOL.

Net neutrality never existed to begin with. It is a pipe dream of those who think Americans still live in the 'Land of the free'.

Ever wondered why youtube videos seems to work for shit over some connections that are rated at a high throughput on speed tests? Yep... data discrimination in action. Especially on providers that also provide television? Hmmm... I wonder why a tv provider would want to slow down youtube. Duh.

Also, for those who think net neutrality is a good thing; grow up. It is a good thing. Some thing actually -are- more important than others. I would prefer that I can actually get regular html pages at high speed while some dumbass is streaming a 4k video of some random off joke on the work connection. I realize this is just a local network example, but it ties all the way to the globe if you think about it for a bit.

The end of net neutrality would be the end of spam. Why? Because if you charge a slight amount for email, it removes spammers ability to send 20 billion of them. They've tried this repeatedly though and it never took on. So long as the internet is a wild west of chaos, there can be no real improvement on the quality of the whole system.

Keep smoking weed and believing. If you smoke enough maybe you'll start believing that the world really follows whatever delusional model you are believing in.

All I argued that it isn't an ethical issue. Because it isn't.

>How can something be both made willfully unfair, yet be ethical?

Is it unethical that Yankees spend twice the league average on their ball-club because it is most certainly unfair. After all, not every team gets to be based in New York.

And I'd be careful with words like 'fairness'. A socialist and a libertarian will have vastly different definitions of what is 'fair' and what is 'unfair'. To you it's unfair that Netflix may get priced out by a Telecom, but then again, Netflix didn't spend billions building and maintaining the infrastructure, as well as acquiring all those customers. Telecoms got subsidies to build their infrastructure, but they never agreed to Net Neutrality. Is that fair?

Yes, they are quasi-monopolies, and they are regulated as such. There are things they can do, and there are things they can't do. The things they can't do aren't things that are necessarily unethical. They are just regulations passed by democratically elected representatives.

So why is it so wrong in treating Net Neutrality as just a legislative issue, as opposed to a violation of a non-existent human right?

>But, certainly you can envision a scenario under which taxes can be raised in a manner and/or at the behest of certain groups which would make it unethical

Yes, I can envision such a scenario but low or high tax policy still isn't intrinsically an ethical issue. All you've argued is that it may be unethical to cheat the system in order to pass your pet tax policy. So yes, measures which are used to pass pro or anti net neutrality laws may be unethical.