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

nytimes.com

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

#421

Post by IanDrake »

quadrangle wrote: post #417
IanDrake wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 inter net until other forces made that change and then AOL disappeared.

While I understand what you are saying, please try to understand what I'm saying...which might be difficult because you probably didn't live through this era.

AOL was responsible for getting more Americans online than any other company. There wasn't a mailbox in the US that didn't get an AOL installation CD at least 2 times a year.

These weren't people "switching" providers, these were people thinking "what is this crap and why do I need it?". There was a day when no one knew why they should even go online and AOL sold them on the idea. So, while what you say is true, you don't seem to understand the context of the time.

Maybe you can think of it as the iphone of smart phones or the facebook of social networks. Closed systems typically make things easier for the masses to adopt.

God do I feel old now.

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

#422

Post by d23 »

marcosdumay wrote: post #240
jkn wrote: post #221

Pretty impressed with the negativity here. Just a year ago, I remember all the stories on HN with people lamenting that the FCC doesn't have the guts to regulate broadband as a utility under title II [1,2,3] (admittedly with a minority speaking against title II, most prominently rayiner, whose comments I generally look forward to for an interesting contrarian view). Y Combinator even published an open letter[4]. Quot…

Look at it this way: People that want FCC to classify ISPs as a utility got what they want, and are pretty secure that things won't change, so they stopped making noise. People that don't want it didn't got what they want, and are at the last moments they can do something before it's definitive, so they are making a LOT of noise.

Hmm, that's an interesting way of looking at it. What I fear is more accurate though is there's a certain subset of people who equate complaining and criticizing with critical thinking. These people are less concerned with what ultimately happens, so much as they are concerned with how they can signal their discontent. They are the pedants at the party, picking apart conversations until everyone around them slowly moves to other parts of the room.

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

#423

Post by baddox »

gglitch wrote: post #414
baddox wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 collective…

"Everyone collectively pays for what the majority decide on" is technically correct (assuming for the moment that budgetary issues actually correlate with the population's desires, and omitting for the moment people who pay no taxes), but it is phrased in a way that seems intended to obscure the fact that you as an individual are forced to pay regardless of both your acceptance of your government's policies and the institution of democracy itself.

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

#424

Post by wvenable »

IanDrake wrote: post #421
quadrangle wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

While I understand what you are saying, please try to understand what I'm saying...which might be difficult because you probably didn't live through this era. AOL was responsible for getting more Americans online than any other company. There wasn't a mailbox in the US that didn't get an AOL installation CD at least 2 times a year. These weren't people "switching" providers, these were people thinking "what is this c…

The "Internet" as we know it was just a tiny corner of what AOL offered. And wasn't even originally part of the package. The Internet itself developed separately from AOL and eventually people wanted it more than they wanted anything AOL was offering. I'm not saying you don't have a valid point, about AOL bringing lots people online, but AOL had very little to do with the development of Internet.

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

#425

Post by IanDrake »

wmeredith wrote: post #268
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.

This is hand wavey bullshit. I'm happy with my water and power companies. I hope my ISP dies in a fire. They're product is subpar, overpriced, and their customer service is predatory and combative.

Has it ever crossed you mind that I'm happy with my broadband choices? And I'm not particularly happy with my water and power company?

The difference is that your ISP may get better, but my water and power won't.

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

#426

Post by shmerl »

pekk wrote: post #416
shmerl wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> you don't have to assume that the people posting here are paid shills because their view is politically mainstream

That's exactly my point. No mainstream (even partisan) view is supporting monopoly. Such views are normally expressed by corrupted politicians and paid shills. Or you are suggesting that supporting corruption is now mainstream or that some party now is officially against free market even without being corrupted?

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

#427

Post by obsurveyor »

greggyb wrote: post #283
TheHypnotist wrote: post #179

One part of me hates this because the idea of our government dipping their hands into what has become the major source of information, entertainment, conducting business, etc. is quite scary. We all know their tendency to fuck things up because of politics, money, stupidity, or a combination of any and all of these. On the other hand, I look at my other utilities and realize I have absolutely no complaints. Yeah, the…

> Edit: Oh, and as long as censorship never becomes a thing. It is literally illegal to say certain words on television....

It is literally NOT illegal. There are no laws censoring certain words on television in the United States, free air or otherwise. It is against FCC regulations and you can be fined though. All of the laws and rulings have to do with the FCC being able to enforce these regulations and levy fines for breaking them.

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

#428

Post by bsder »

gadders wrote: post #403
bsder wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need to point out that it was Enron causing the problem, not everybody has the context anymore of how badly they screwed California. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enron

Not wholly. Poor government intervention caused the problem as well.

Poor government intervention meaning "not doing a damn thing" then, yeah, you're right.

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

#429

Post by ancap »

aninhumer wrote: post #418
ancap wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 exa…

>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!"

I'm not even sure what that means.

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

I'd wager that what you think you know about Standard Oil is probably mythical and not based on historical fact.

>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.

And yet I know of cities which have half a dozen ISPs (none of them publicly owned). As I said previously if the existing company/ies are not satisfying customers, then there is room for competition. The second [or third, or fourth...] need not even compete on the same scale as the existing ISP[s]. A local entrepreneur seeing the need, could just wire up his neighborhood. I know of cases where this has happened.

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

#430

Post by kazagistar »

greggyb wrote: post #313
comex wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A closer analogy in the road-crew case would be a crew introducing obstructions to or closing lanes in roads that exit toward particular destinations, based on how much money the owners of businesses located at those destinations paid them. If the crew wanted to do their job and maintain the roads as the road conditions required, keeping their sights on the piece of infrastructure under their purview rather than butt…

Thanks for at least engaging with this instead of downvoting with no response. I would argue that you are putting a negative spin on the analogy, so I'll put the corresponding positive spin on it to balance out. For the road crew, we expect them to give us ready access to the places we most want to go. Imagine a highway - we would judge it a poor highway indeed if there were no exits within 10 miles of a large city.…

The reason his analogy is more accurate then yours is because adding exits has a meaningful additional cost. Providing preferable service to certain sites is not building better networking infrastructure to those places, it is just worsening the existing service to everywhere else.
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