Net neutrality • Hacker News Board

Re: Net neutrality

#251

Post by exelius » Tue, Jul 15, 2014, 12:09 PM UTC

zanny wrote: post #195

exelius wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because with electricity, everyone gets the same power. You're tied to the same grid; your provider just meters your usage, bills you, then pays wholesale prices for the power you used. But the system as a whole only measures inputs (from power generators) and outputs (consumers). It works for something like electric power where a volt is a volt and a kilowatt is a kilowatt. With Internet access, you're looking for S…

Your ISP does not give a shit where your packets are going to or where packets directed towards you are coming from. That is the backbones problem, and most ISPs do not manage it at all. For an ISP, it is effectively electricity - the cost to route a packet is always constant, assuming they don't have meterage deals with different backbone routers depending on the destination. To them, they just care where the packet…

> assuming they don't have meterage deals with different backbone routers depending on the destination.

That's a big assumption, and an incorrect one at that. Most content delivered to large ISPs is delivered by CDNs over paid interconnects (and it's been that way for a decade or more). They either pay the ISPs directly or for transit at a peering point.

> IE, the modern "pricing schema" for data, where a gigabyte costs multiple dollars, is an insanely unrealistic measure - if you are not paying for the wires in the dirt.

If you're expecting pricing to be tied to cost, you're gonna have a bad time. That's just not how modern product pricing works for ANY product. You pay as much as the service is worth to you; if it wasn't worth it, you wouldn't pay it.

Re: Net neutrality

#252

Post by snitko » Tue, Jul 15, 2014, 12:21 PM UTC

atmosx wrote: post #247

snitko wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People say US or EU are not corrupt or are less corrupt. That is a misrepresentation. They are equally corrupt in the higher levels (though they managed to convince people they are not). What happened there is consolidation. Thus if you want get things done, you have to spend more money lobbying at higher levels, because the lower level is scared of consequences. So a consolidation of corruption happened. In the US w…

> In the US when you want to win a court case, you spend money hiring top lawyers. In Russia you buy a judge. Results are the same. That's an extremely dangerous oversimplification: It's a fact that getting a good lawyer will give you more chances. But buying the judge it's a totally different thing.

Not at all different, if you look at the results. Both in Russia and in the US, if you don't have money, people can threaten and bully you with court, because they know for sure you cannot win.

Your claim is that the process somehow makes a difference. But if the results are the same, then it doesn't. It's like saying that war is NOT murder, because it's being declared by people in Washington wearing suits. Or that taxation is not theft because it's being done by a "legit" three letter agency.

Re: Net neutrality

#253

Post by omgtehlion » Tue, Jul 15, 2014, 1:59 PM UTC

vacri wrote: post #242

snitko wrote: post #74

I wonder. I wonder. I live in Russia and I have 2-3 very good providers on the block constantly competing with each other and offering better connection and prices. They would show up on time and connect you very fast. They fix things quickly (in my government maintained house, the basement once became filled with water after the rain, and the wires were damaged. Even though it wasn't their fault, the ISP came and fi…

Everything I see government touches is of low quality, whereas everything that's good in my country is private enterprise. And yet the countries that are consistently in the top 5 or top 10 of most quality-of-life measures are those countries that are social democracies (generally scandanavia and aust/nz/canada), where the government puts its fingers in a lot of pies. If the things that your government touches is bad…

In rural areas you pay a lot for initial connection, then usual rates. Or just use radio links (WiMAX and fixed 3G stations are kind of popular where my parents live).

Re: Net neutrality

#254

Post by icehawk219 » Tue, Jul 15, 2014, 2:06 PM UTC

geekam wrote: post #221

icehawk219 wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lobbying in its purest form is supposed to be a way for people to have a voice in their government. Anyone in this country can ring up, or write, or email, their representative and push for an issue they feel strongly about. Likewise they can also make campaign contributions to the representatives, or candidates, they like and want to see in office. And the two can very easily be tied together: "I'm donating to your…

I see. So, the only way to have fair "for the people, by the people, of the people" elections is to have people fund the elections? Thanks for a nice explanation.

Well the idea is that anyone can run for election and in order to afford to do so people can pool their resources and help out. So if I want to run for mayor and you really like me a lot better than the other person you can pitch in in different ways. You can help me reach out to voters, you can make calls for me, you can help me with social media, or you can donate money to me so I can pay people to do those things. This by itself really isn't a problem especially when there are caps on how much money people can donate, which there are. But if you donate as much money to my campaign as you are allowed what's to stop you from calling up the local TV station and paying them directly to run an ad for me? I might not even necessarily be involved at any point.

The big problems come when we do things like decide a multinational corporation qualifies as a person and therefor the rules around how much money a company can donate don't apply to them. And we do things like change the rules around what the limits are. And then people do things like fund PACs where they pool their resources and promote a candidate on their own without actually donating to the campaign itself directly. Some of these are just outright stupid decisions that never should have happened in the first place and others are loopholes. Campaign finance reform in the US doesn't have a single silver bullet that's going to fix everything. There's a lot of things that are wrong with it. Citizens United (the corporate personhood ruling) is probably the biggest but it's still just one problem among many.

Re: Net neutrality

#255

Post by specialist » Tue, Jul 15, 2014, 3:19 PM UTC

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #203

snitko wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it that only government can provide some things well? Can you prove it both logically and empirically?

Some goods and services are dominated by up-front costs. That makes usage-based billing economically harmful by discouraging usage of a use-it-or-lose-it resource that has already been paid for. It also makes competition extremely inefficient because each competitor has to duplicate the high up-front cost of e.g. building a last mile network. The result when left to private enterprise is generally a monopoly that cha…

Having the government pay for such resources (as with roads) ... is massively more efficient than private enterprise

Good point that needs repeating, thank you.

I agree with business management guru Peter Drucker when he states that waste is immoral.

I support the most efficient solutions for a context, whether its collectivism, competition, cooperatives, lotteries, various kinds of auctions, whatever.

Whenever a better solution is found, I will support that. Because, you know, things change.

Re: Net neutrality

#256

Post by specialist » Tue, Jul 15, 2014, 3:22 PM UTC

snitko wrote: post #210

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some goods and services are dominated by up-front costs. That makes usage-based billing economically harmful by discouraging usage of a use-it-or-lose-it resource that has already been paid for. It also makes competition extremely inefficient because each competitor has to duplicate the high up-front cost of e.g. building a last mile network. The result when left to private enterprise is generally a monopoly that cha…

> economically harmful usage-based billing and for that matter eliminate all the overhead of billing, marketing, collections, denying access to non-subscribers So are you saying that feeding the whole IRS is LESS expensive than having an automated billing system that could track who is subscribed and who can enter a certain road? Because if it's not more effective, then, by the same token, why don't we also fund air…

Show me the exact mechanism.

What measure of proof do you require?

PS- AnthonyMouse has been exceedingly gracious and patient with you.

Re: Net neutrality

#257

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jul 16, 2014, 1:18 AM UTC

exelius wrote: post #251

zanny wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your ISP does not give a shit where your packets are going to or where packets directed towards you are coming from. That is the backbones problem, and most ISPs do not manage it at all. For an ISP, it is effectively electricity - the cost to route a packet is always constant, assuming they don't have meterage deals with different backbone routers depending on the destination. To them, they just care where the packet…

> assuming they don't have meterage deals with different backbone routers depending on the destination. That's a big assumption, and an incorrect one at that. Most content delivered to large ISPs is delivered by CDNs over paid interconnects (and it's been that way for a decade or more). They either pay the ISPs directly or for transit at a peering point. > IE, the modern "pricing schema" for data, where a gigabyte co…

[deleted]

Re: Net neutrality

#258

Post by vog » Wed, Jul 16, 2014, 8:18 AM UTC

> I would love to see a world where the companies that own last-mile infrastructure are required to lease the lines to any ISP the end consumer wants; this would create a competitive market and mostly eliminate the problem

This is not enough. In Germany we already do have that situation, and the big leader (German Telekom, who own the vast majority of cables) just leases them for bad conditions. For example, their own customers got "real" flatrates while leasing competitors got only traffic-based contracts, so when they sell flatrates they have big trouble with traffic-intensive customers. (In the last year, the situation became more complicated, but that's another topic).

We should go one step further and require a complete separation of infrastructure providers, ISPs and content providers.

That is, a company who owns cables should only lease them to ISPs and should not be allowed to play ISP itself. Also, the ISPs should not be allowed offer content themselves.

(Also, the owner of the infrastructure (cables) should probably not be a company at all, but that's another topic and not important here, as long as the separation works.)

As a bad analogy, a company who sells cars should not own the streets.

Re: Net neutrality

#259

Post by aninhumer » Wed, Jul 16, 2014, 4:36 PM UTC

snitko wrote: post #249

aninhumer wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Then this contract can be enforced by whichever private court and protection agency I hired And how they will enforce this contract? If it involves the threat of violence, how is it better than government? If it doesn't, how does it enforce your contract against the threat of violence? >It's logically impossible, because for a politician the economic incentives are always in the wrong place. Can you elaborate on thi…

>And how they will enforce this contract? If it involves the threat of violence, how is it better than government? If it doesn't, how does it enforce your contract against the threat of violence? I would recommend, again, watching David Friedman's talk on the "Machinery Of Freedom", it's on Youtube. He's got excellent examples and explanations. It's 20 mins and totally worth it. In short. on the difference on it from…

>I would recommend, again, watching David Friedman's talk on the "Machinery Of Freedom"

I will try and watch this when I get chance.

>on the difference on it from government violence: when a contract is signed with by me and some entity, we both agree that out conflicts are going to be solved in such and such manner and in such and such courts. That is, if there is going to be some violence involved, we both know it from the beginning.

So you have some entity with the power to enforce contracts by violence? What incentive do they have to do that instead of simply mugging you? A democratic government has to care about elections. A private company has no such concerns.

>If you can show me an exact mechanism how to reliably elect politicians who would ignore those incentives and do good instead of those incentives offering them a much more profitable thing to do, then I would gladly accept that.

Well first of all, you're assuming that I mean representative democracy, rather than direct democracy. The system I've been thinking of recently tries to combine the best of both: Ostensibly direct democracy, where people can delegate their voting privileges to a representative, and change that delegation at any time.

> On the market, you can decide to buy or stop buying things immediately with your own money.

Indeed, so in a completely capitalist system, your freedom is contingent on the amount of capital you have. Personally, I think some freedoms should be guaranteed regardless of wealth.

Re: Net neutrality

#260

Post by snitko » Wed, Jul 16, 2014, 7:52 PM UTC

aninhumer wrote: post #259

snitko wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>And how they will enforce this contract? If it involves the threat of violence, how is it better than government? If it doesn't, how does it enforce your contract against the threat of violence? I would recommend, again, watching David Friedman's talk on the "Machinery Of Freedom", it's on Youtube. He's got excellent examples and explanations. It's 20 mins and totally worth it. In short. on the difference on it from…

>I would recommend, again, watching David Friedman's talk on the "Machinery Of Freedom" I will try and watch this when I get chance. >on the difference on it from government violence: when a contract is signed with by me and some entity, we both agree that out conflicts are going to be solved in such and such manner and in such and such courts. That is, if there is going to be some violence involved, we both know it…

>So you have some entity with the power to enforce contracts by violence? What incentive do they have to do that instead of simply mugging you? A democratic government has to care about elections. A private company has no such concerns.

Of course, it's the first reaction to say "but your private protection agencies are going to turn into de-facto governments". If you think long enough about it, you understand that they won't. Violence is never profitable unless somebody else pays for it (as with the government). Private protection agencies are in the business to make money long term, just like every other business. And that is only possible if you produce something people truly want.

So, two things as incentives to not rob you. 1. Your future business - if they rob you they, obviously, aren't going to get your business in the future. 2. Competition. Those two things government doesn't have to worry about! You always pay and there's no competition.

>Ostensibly direct democracy, where people can delegate their voting privileges to a representative, and change that delegation at any time

It's better, but it's still worse than the free market with no government, because you still have to pay taxes. You cannot just say "no, no, thank you, but I prefer to keep my money and not use these and these services or fund these wars". You still have to give politicians power first. And you still use government power to make other people pay for what the majority considers a good idea. I think this principle of majority is rather insane. A simple test: if tomorrow the majority decided to shoot all redheads, if you followed your principle, you'd have to agree.

>Indeed, so in a completely capitalist system, your freedom is contingent on the amount of capital you have. Personally, I think some freedoms should be guaranteed regardless of wealth.

When you have a democracy, you're still paying for it. Nothing is free. When you say "some freedoms should be guaranteed" you probably mean "some services", which is different. Freedom is not the product of someone else's labor. It simply is inaction, when you don't tell other people how to live their lives and how to spend their money. I may or may not agree that healthcare should be available to everyone at no cost, but you have no moral right to come and take my money to pay for something you consider to be good. You may, however, convince me to give you money and I may do it.