Live data from Hacker News

F.C.C., in ‘Net Neutrality’ Turnaround, Plans to Allow Fast Lane

nytimes.com

71–80 of 286 posts

Re: F.C.C., in ‘Net Neutrality’ Turnaround, Plans to Allow Fast Lane

#71
post #9

In six months FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler will be a VP at NBC Universal/Comcast. Not a bribe; just coincidence.

What would it take to get someone who cares about the greater good (not an industry crony) appointed to these key roles?

Money.

There are 100 senators. 34 or so come up for election every two years. Each election is won, 75 - 90% of the time, by the candidate who spends the most. The most expensive campaigns spend about $20M; the tenth most expensive campaign spends about $5M. The margin between D and R in the Senate is 8. Form a SuperPAC and fund it with about $75M.

Ensure the election of a crop of senators who know what the key issues are for their big contributors... and that if they step out of line, they won't be getting those contributions next year.

Re: F.C.C., in ‘Net Neutrality’ Turnaround, Plans to Allow Fast Lane

#72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would it take to get someone who cares about the greater good (not an industry crony) appointed to these key roles?

Stop electing the politicians who appoint cronies?

Too bad there aren't any.

Re: F.C.C., in ‘Net Neutrality’ Turnaround, Plans to Allow Fast Lane

#73

Decisions like this lend a certain credence to recent studies showing that only the desires of the economic and political elite actually affect policy.

What a fancy way of saying we don't live in a functioning republic.

It's also an evidence backed way of saying it. Which is quite useful.

Re: F.C.C., in ‘Net Neutrality’ Turnaround, Plans to Allow Fast Lane

#75

It's so frustrating to me that this is all based around the stupid legal assumption that we have to stream everything. God forbid your user should download something to watch later, to prevent having to redownload every time you watch it. And then during peak Netflix hours, I just can't use the internet reliably. If anyone knows any source for Libre video works, that I can download and watch with complete freedom, pl…

Streaming is seen, by many content creators, as a way to fight piracy.

Re: F.C.C., in ‘Net Neutrality’ Turnaround, Plans to Allow Fast Lane

#76
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would it take to get someone who cares about the greater good (not an industry crony) appointed to these key roles?

Money. There are 100 senators. 34 or so come up for election every two years. Each election is won, 75 - 90% of the time, by the candidate who spends the most. The most expensive campaigns spend about $20M; the tenth most expensive campaign spends about $5M. The margin between D and R in the Senate is 8. Form a SuperPAC and fund it with about $75M. Ensure the election of a crop of senators who know what the key issue…

[deleted]

Re: F.C.C., in ‘Net Neutrality’ Turnaround, Plans to Allow Fast Lane

#78
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly the assumption that we want to stream everything is a really good assumption. People are lazy and setting up a proper storage is tricky and costs money. This means 99.9% of people don't want to do it. Yes being in the .1% it would be nice if we were catered to but that's life.

In my experience people seem to be able to use TiVos just fine.

The DVR model is really the way to do it. People know what they want to watch, so you present a catalog of all existing and future content and let people check the box next to the ones they want to watch. Everything downloads during off-peak hours as soon as the content is available and then you always have a list of things you can watch instantly, even if the internet is slow or unavailable.

Re: F.C.C., in ‘Net Neutrality’ Turnaround, Plans to Allow Fast Lane

#80
post #19
post #9

In six months FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler will be a VP at NBC Universal/Comcast. Not a bribe; just coincidence.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Wheeler_(FCC) "Tom Wheeler is the current Chairman of the FCC.[1] Prior to working at the FCC, Wheeler worked as a venture capitalist and lobbyist for the cable and wireless industry." Wow. This looks especially bad for consumers.

There should be laws against this sort of stuff. Like you can't work for a company in a related domain for 5 years before and after taking the government job. As it is, it just leads to too much corruption.
Post reply on HN