F.C.C. Is Expected to Propose Regulating the Internet as a Utility • Hacker News Board

Re: F.C.C. Is Expected to Propose Regulating the Internet as a Utility

#411

Post by warfangle » Tue, Feb 03, 2015, 5:09 PM UTC

nine_k wrote: post #343

rayiner wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Every cable company in every city I've lived in the USA has been a locally granted monopoly with the city extracting massive amounts of money from the monthly cable bill in "Franchise" fees. In no city is the cable company actually a "locally granted monopoly." Every franchise agreement I've seen points out that it's non-exclusive. Technologists have a fundamental misconception that leads to a lot of cognitive diss…

In urban areas running cables and getting customers is indeed lucrative, because by running a cable into a building you reach all its numerous tenants, and there are more on the same block. Unfortunately, USA have a lot of semi-country low-density areas where there are few takers, or even would be none if it were not for regulations requiring a cable company to cover their entire area.

Compare to other similarly low density countries with faster internet ... like Estonia

Re: F.C.C. Is Expected to Propose Regulating the Internet as a Utility

#412

Post by warfangle » Tue, Feb 03, 2015, 5:11 PM UTC

dmfdmf wrote: post #408

I am concerned about the implications for free speech. And I don't mean the freedom to say whatever I want as long as the FCC approves or that I don't piss off a large enough political constituency. If I start a blog to post pictures of Alah am I going to be shut down? What about forums that discuss illegal drug use? How long till the FBI, DEA, etc. petition the FCC to shut these sites down? What about sites like red…

Huh? Which part of the telecommunications act gives the FCC that power, that has not been struck down by the courts?

Re: F.C.C. Is Expected to Propose Regulating the Internet as a Utility

#413

Post by shmerl » Tue, Feb 03, 2015, 5:17 PM UTC

thoughtpolice wrote: post #398

fpgeek wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People who recognize that the internet has been a free market for most of its existence Really? ARPANET and NSFNET were big free market bastions, were they?

LOL, it's even better than that, AFAIK. ARPANET was a (D)ARPA project that to my knowledge was started to have computers start interoperating with each other so researchers at universities could easily and generally transfer data and information with each other, e.g. research papers. You may have noticed the 'start' bit. The reason it was 'starting' is because prior to that, corporations did NOT want you to have comp…

> Of course, good luck explaining this shit to a libertarian-infested hellhole like HN: they all believe they're on the cusp of Gettin' Big Bucks, so they don't want a market that allows competition,

I'm not sure where you get this idea. Libertarians are pro competition, not anti. So they are actually quite negative towards monopolies and support their prevention.

Re: F.C.C. Is Expected to Propose Regulating the Internet as a Utility

#414

Post by gglitch » Tue, Feb 03, 2015, 5:19 PM UTC

baddox wrote: post #377

gglitch wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see this argument a lot but it seems specious to me - though anyone can voluntarily overpay their taxes, the lack of a guarantee that other taxpayers will similarly be contributing more means that my personal overcontribution will be meaningless to everyone but me.

At least you're admitting that you want more taxes so that everyone else is forced to pay for stuff you want. It's the nature of taxation, obviously, but it's so often hidden being euphemisms.

It's also theoretically the nature of democracy - people pool their assets and collectively decide what to do with them. Not every individual member is going to feel like they're paying in what they want or getting out of it what they want, and everyone's a critic. But where you say, "everyone else is forced to pay for stuff you want," I think the less belligerent statement of principle would be, "everyone collectively pays for what the majority decide on."

Re: F.C.C. Is Expected to Propose Regulating the Internet as a Utility

#415

Post by quadrangle » Tue, Feb 03, 2015, 5:38 PM UTC

IanDrake wrote: post #23

That will be a sad day. Internet technology still has a lot of room to improve before the government steps in and kills all market forces that encourage those improvements. If you don't like your current service levels now, just wait until the government gets involved.

Governments create and sustain markets in many cases. And in this case, the government created the entire foundation of the internet itself. The government involvement is the thing that made the internet exist.

Re: F.C.C. Is Expected to Propose Regulating the Internet as a Utility

#416

Post by pekk » Tue, Feb 03, 2015, 5:39 PM UTC

shmerl wrote: post #410

pekk wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the two major political parties has a stronger interest in reducing government regulation across the board to give corporations greater scope, even if that means stronger monopolies. You don't have to assume paid shills to get this outcome.

I don't get it. Why would any party prefer monopoly to free market? Formally neither Republicans nor Democrats are against free market (and preferring monopoly is being against free market). Unless of course it's all about corruption and bribery. I.e. monopolists paying those parties to do their bidding which is a common problem these days. But that again brings us back to paid shills or bought bureaucrats in this ca…

OK. I'm being downvoted presumably because I sound partisan or something, butyou don't have to assume that the people posting here are paid shills because their view is politically mainstream, lots of normal people have these views without being paid. That's all I'm saying. You don't have to assume that one view is astroturfed when there are plenty of people who will line up to defend it for free.

Re: F.C.C. Is Expected to Propose Regulating the Internet as a Utility

#417

Post by quadrangle » Tue, Feb 03, 2015, 5:41 PM UTC

IanDrake wrote: post #402

wvenable wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not like the government created the Internet in the first place...

The Internet as you know it? No it wasn't. Darpa created TCP/IP with the help of private contractors. Private companies like AOL made the Internet what it is today in the US. Sorry, I know the Al Gore created the Internet for some people, but the it's just not how it went down.

HAHAHAHA AOL made the internet‽ AOL is the quintessential example of the closed, proprietary network that is not the internet until other forces made that change and then AOL disappeared.

Re: F.C.C. Is Expected to Propose Regulating the Internet as a Utility

#418

Post by aninhumer » Tue, Feb 03, 2015, 5:50 PM UTC

ancap wrote: post #406

cbd1984 wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Do you think there is any such thing as a natural monopoly? > I am not aware of any. I think, judging by your username (ancap), you are philosophically opposed to the concept, because the existence of natural monopolies would represent a failure of the pure free market capitalism you promote. I doubt I will convince you, and I doubt anyone else here needs to be convinced that natural monopolies exist. >> Do you th…

>I doubt I will convince you, and I doubt anyone else here needs to be convinced that natural monopolies exist. You won't even try to provide an example? Perhaps it is not I who is "philosophically opposed to the concept". >This simply does not make sense, which is further evidence that you're opposed to the concept. The high fixed costs of the laying of the cables relative to the small marginal cost of adding a new…

>You won't even try to provide an example?

Well since we don't actually live in an anarcho-capitalist "utopia", governments tend to intervene sooner or later in dysfunctional markets. And I find that regardless of how bad things were beforehand, or how light the resulting regulation, the response from AnCaps is always "You touched it, you bought it!"

Nonetheless, the history of Standard Oil is a pretty compelling example of a natural monopoly.

>If the cost of laying cables is an inhibiting factor for the first company, then it is also the inhibiting factor for any companies which follow.

The difference is the potential ROI for each market entrant.

For the first company, the entry cost may be high, but since there'll be no competition, there's potential for decent profits.

The second company faces the same entry cost, but they also have to compete with the first company, so their potential profits are much lower.

As a result, those who might disrupt the market are much more likely to invest elsewhere.

Re: F.C.C. Is Expected to Propose Regulating the Internet as a Utility

#419

Post by wvenable » Tue, Feb 03, 2015, 5:51 PM UTC

IanDrake wrote: post #402

wvenable wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not like the government created the Internet in the first place...

The Internet as you know it? No it wasn't. Darpa created TCP/IP with the help of private contractors. Private companies like AOL made the Internet what it is today in the US. Sorry, I know the Al Gore created the Internet for some people, but the it's just not how it went down.

Robert Kahn and Vint Cerf can recognize Al Gore's contribution to the creation of the Internet but you cannot? Without government involvement and investment, the global communications network might have started and ended at AOL.

It's easy now to forget what the internet was like even 20 years ago when things were just ramping up. There were huge government initiatives all around the world that made it viable for commercial ventures to use it.

Re: F.C.C. Is Expected to Propose Regulating the Internet as a Utility

#420

Post by sparklepoof » Tue, Feb 03, 2015, 6:00 PM UTC

Contrarians... gotta love em. They keep the running Looney Tunes reverse-psychology joke going. Counter-cultures are no different than the trend-following cultures they try to polarize themselves from. I guess I shouldn't have been shocked into commenting on this one for the oddly negative responses from some, but I do believe that the formulation of that negativity demands some more research. Has the internet created a society full of contrarian trolls bent on using sheer will to overcomplicate simple subjects?