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

nytimes.com

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

#171

Post by chc »

seehafer wrote: post #153
dsr_ wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Each election is won, 75 - 90% of the time, by the candidate who spends the most. Source? Tell that to Meg Whitman. The biggest problem I have with the argument about limiting the amount of money that can be spent in elections is that it essentially implies that the electorate is uneducated and easily swayed. So shouldn't the solution be a more informed (however you want to do accomplish that) electorate?

> The biggest problem I have with the argument about limiting the amount of money that can be spent in elections is that it essentially implies that the electorate is uneducated and easily swayed. So shouldn't the solution be a more informed (however you want to do accomplish that) electorate?

This is true in somewhat the same way that the solution to teenage pregnancy is just to get all the teens to practice abstinence. Where that view falls down is that not all problems are equally tractable. Attacking a tractable problem generally gets better results even if attacking an intractable one seems more noble.

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

#172

Post by betterunix »

lotu wrote: post #28
sroerick wrote: post #10

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…

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.

That is why distributed storage would be so much better. You know, if 10 people download a movie, I should be able to download it from any of those 10 people. Or all of them could send me part of the file, improving throughput.

Oh, wait, we already have that technology. Too bad we have people who have worked for twenty years to kill it.

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

#173

Post by betterunix »

anigbrowl wrote: post #156
kefka wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have a choice. You can always NOT pay the HBO "tax" and pirate it like the rest of us.

Or not pay the HBO tax and either buy the shows on disc or go without watching them. I refuse to sign on to this entitlement mentality that says I have an automatic right to watch popular shows by hook or by crook. This isn't an endorsement of the status quo for consumers, but I do think that publishers such as HBO have the right to sell their content in whatever way makes them the most money - they're running a busi…

Nobody is talking about taking away HBO's right to sell entertainment in ways that make them money. They can and should out-compete BitTorrent.

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

#174

Post by b3b0p »

higherpurpose wrote: post #23
sroerick wrote: post #10

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…

If you had a 100 Mbps connection, like many other countries do, streaming Netflix in HD would not be a problem. So this is first and foremost a lazy monopolist problem, less so a congestion problem.

I have a 100 mbps connection. Speed Test even shows it about 25% faster than that every time I test it out.

I have Cox in Tulsa, OK. It's $99.99 / month.

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

#175

Post by anigbrowl »

betterunix wrote: post #173
anigbrowl wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or not pay the HBO tax and either buy the shows on disc or go without watching them. I refuse to sign on to this entitlement mentality that says I have an automatic right to watch popular shows by hook or by crook. This isn't an endorsement of the status quo for consumers, but I do think that publishers such as HBO have the right to sell their content in whatever way makes them the most money - they're running a busi…

Nobody is talking about taking away HBO's right to sell entertainment in ways that make them money. They can and should out-compete BitTorrent.

Bit Torrent doesn't produce anything, it's just a distribution channel. I fail to see why HBO should spend anything on accommodating people who have no inclination to pay for the product they produce.

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

#176

Post by betterunix »

hemancuso wrote: post #38

To strike a contrarian tone, how much is this going to matter a handful of years from now as the internet at large and bandwidth to the home continues to increase? In a decade is it unreasonable to expect that "really fast" home internet is 1 gigbit? At that point even your pokey 50mbit connection already has 10x-20x the bandwidth Netflix sees for a "good" connection (their metric). Does this make it harder for Netfl…

"To strike a contrarian tone, how much is this going to matter a handful of years from now as the internet at large and bandwidth to the home continues to increase?"

Who will enjoy the benefits of the increase? If you are only getting 9.6kbaud unless you pay millions of dollars in fees to every ISP between you and your peers, then all that bandwidth is useless to you.

"In a decade is it unreasonable to expect that "really fast" home internet is 1 gigbit?"

One gigabit to Youtube, unless you are on a Comcast connection in which case it is 1 megabit for Youtube and a gigabit to NBC's streaming service, and 256 kilobits for anything else.

"Does this make it harder for Netflix"

Oh you wanted to have access to Netflix? Well that will be $300/per gigabyte for a business line that has real Internet access. For a mere $20/month, you can have unlimited access to the best of Comcast, now partnered with Microsoft!!!

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

#177

Post by betterunix »

anigbrowl wrote: post #175
betterunix wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody is talking about taking away HBO's right to sell entertainment in ways that make them money. They can and should out-compete BitTorrent.

Bit Torrent doesn't produce anything, it's just a distribution channel. I fail to see why HBO should spend anything on accommodating people who have no inclination to pay for the product they produce.

Maybe HBO should embrace an innovative distribution model, instead of clinging to the obsolete premium-cable-channel model. HBO itself would have been impossible if the media establishment had been success at killing cable; why should I feel an iota of sympathy for HBO's unwillingness to embrace newer, better technologies? Why shouldn't I use better technology to access entertainment, regardless of whether or not HBO has bothered to try monetizing those technologies?

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

#179

Post by saraid216 »

unclebucknasty wrote: post #158
eli wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, c'mon, that's just an excuse. In fact, it's the same excuse people use to avoid entrepreneurship. Money helps you run a campaign, just like it helps you run a business. But sometimes the scrappy, bootstrapped startup still beats the big entrenched enterprise. That's why we're on HN, right?

Kind of ironic that you're making this statement on this thread. The Net was indeed supposed to democratize the world, including, presumably, politics. A candidate would then be able to run a bootstrapped, grassroots campaign. But, that didn't happen, and for reasons very similar to the subject: entrenched interests use their money to continue advancing their own agenda through the media, other corporate gatekeepers,…

> So, you might just have it backwards

Not really. It's a chicken-and-egg problem, not causality. This is a problem that predates the concept of America. Monarchies addressed it by having a three-way tug-of-war between the monarch, the entrenched interests, and the masses, and American politics have tried very hard to ape that with a very powerful central executive.

With, you know. Predictable results.

Changing the rules won't actually make a difference, much respect as I have for Lessig's Rootstrikers' efforts. That is, as Colbert put it, rearranging the deck chairs on the Hindenberg. The fundamental problem isn't that no one gets elected without spending oodles of cash; the fundamental problem is that oodles of cash have to be spent at all.

We live in an age where democracy requires marketing. That's the rule you need to change.

Not coincidentally, that's also the rule that makes free markets impossible.

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

#180

Post by [deleted] »

LandoCalrissian wrote: post #168
seehafer wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Each election is won, 75 - 90% of the time, by the candidate who spends the most. Source? Tell that to Meg Whitman. The biggest problem I have with the argument about limiting the amount of money that can be spent in elections is that it essentially implies that the electorate is uneducated and easily swayed. So shouldn't the solution be a more informed (however you want to do accomplish that) electorate?

https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2008/11/money-wins-white-ho... Here are quite a few numbers that back his claim. There are of course exceptions, but for the most part the candidate with the most money wins.

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