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FCC won’t delay vote, says net neutrality supporters are “desperate”

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Re: FCC won’t delay vote, says net neutrality supporters are “desperate”

#111

Post by bo1024 »

c3534l wrote: post #36
imgabe wrote: post #31

If ISPs are going to gut net neutrality, we need a way to introduce real competition into the market. I wouldn't care if Comcast wanted to sell me access to 5 websites for $99 or whatever crap they're trying to pull if I had the option to switch to a better deal somewhere else. Strong state and local laws protecting the right to form municipal ISPs would be a good start. Those seem to scare Comcast & friends the most…

Telecommunications tend to form a natural monopoly. It's a bit like roads and railroads, only you're transporting information rather than people. I looked online and it's got all the common characteristics: there are few close substitutes, the product is non-storable (although, maybe if it gets bad enough in the US we'll start seeing services that mail us USBs full of last week's Hacker News posts), supply is all abo…

Agreed. There is an additional simple point of view which I believe clarifies the situation, which is to look at the total costs and total "value created" ("social welfare") under different systems. In other words, you ask what is the "first best" and what system can achieve it.

Consider selling wheat. If one company owns all the wheat fields, or the wheat fields are evenly split among two companies, the total amount invested in growing wheat is the same. And since multiple companies means competition, lower prices, and more consumers served, having multiple companies is more efficient in the econ sense (higher social welfare = total value - total cost).

But with fiber infrastructure, having two copies of the infrastructure is a huge waste of total resources. It is far more efficient to only have one set of wires. The problem is if they are controlled by a monopolist, they will keep high prices and serve fewer people. So a single copy of infrastructure with a monopolist is sub-optimal, but so is multiple copies of infrastructure with competition. Optimal is a single copy of infrastructure along with regulation or some other means of keeping prices lower than monopoly.

Of course, you can still try to implement market competition over those wires via regulations that force companies to share the wires, etc.

Re: FCC won’t delay vote, says net neutrality supporters are “desperate”

#112

Post by fmihaila »

Osiris wrote: post #101
sandworm101 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>> With lack of regulation new players came in with higher bandwidth and made it available to me increasing competition. Funny. In the UK, with it's massively regulated marketplaces, one has far greater choice in home broadband providers. The concept that all regulation by government hampers innovation and investment is a highschool-level understanding of economics, an Ayn Rand approach. In cases of monopolies, whic…

I was told that in Japan there is a strict separation between infrastructure and ISP services, which has allowed for a lot of competition between ISPs despite the fact that they all share the same infrastructure. In capitalism, any market with a sufficiently high barrier to entry will always end in a monopoly in the absence of regulation.

> despite

Because.

Re: FCC won’t delay vote, says net neutrality supporters are “desperate”

#113

Post by doubt_me »

colordrops wrote: post #97
doubt_me wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about the future? Sound like someone who doesn't want to be apart of the future. Or anything really. Good luck to you fellow HNer.

I don't really understand your comment.

you don't seem to be interested in or for the open internet with your comment.

Literally a non comment.

Of course they will try and make it illegal. Of course its privatised, do you have a few spare hundred millions to buy some up and use it?

If you put some thought into the future of this country for just 1 second. You wouldn't have made that sort of non comment. Your not interested in the future. Which makes you a liability for all of us who are interested in it.

Good luck.

Re: FCC won’t delay vote, says net neutrality supporters are “desperate”

#114

Post by superdug »

colordrops wrote: post #97
doubt_me wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about the future? Sound like someone who doesn't want to be apart of the future. Or anything really. Good luck to you fellow HNer.

I don't really understand your comment.

probably because it's troll bait

Re: FCC won’t delay vote, says net neutrality supporters are “desperate”

#115

Post by skrause »

c3534l wrote: post #36
imgabe wrote: post #31

If ISPs are going to gut net neutrality, we need a way to introduce real competition into the market. I wouldn't care if Comcast wanted to sell me access to 5 websites for $99 or whatever crap they're trying to pull if I had the option to switch to a better deal somewhere else. Strong state and local laws protecting the right to form municipal ISPs would be a good start. Those seem to scare Comcast & friends the most…

Telecommunications tend to form a natural monopoly. It's a bit like roads and railroads, only you're transporting information rather than people. I looked online and it's got all the common characteristics: there are few close substitutes, the product is non-storable (although, maybe if it gets bad enough in the US we'll start seeing services that mail us USBs full of last week's Hacker News posts), supply is all abo…

That's why you need something municipal dark fibers that every ISP can cheaply rent. The last mile is the expensive part or a network which should be open-access and never belong to a single ISP.

Re: FCC won’t delay vote, says net neutrality supporters are “desperate”

#116

Post by elsurudo »

jordigh wrote: post #92

"Chairman Pai's plan to restore Internet freedom" This phrase bugs me so much. I can't believe they're calling the end of net neutrality "internet freedom".

There is an argument to be made that hijacking the word "freedom" for this was already half the battle for repealing net neutrality. Good luck battling "freedom" in America... If only the other side could have gotten there first.

Re: FCC won’t delay vote, says net neutrality supporters are “desperate”

#117

Post by YouAreGreat »

Well. Maybe it's really just about allowing ISPs to run the same exploitative business models as Google's intimate personal information empire, Google/Apple's 30% tax app stores with far from neutral content policy, etc.

But how about giving them some credit? Maybe the plan is to temporarily allow ISPs to suck on some of Google/Youtube monopoly rents (weakening their defenses) while regulators look into regulating the whole pile of internet monopoly garbage?

It's possible. And it would be so good.

Re: FCC won’t delay vote, says net neutrality supporters are “desperate”

#118

Post by logfromblammo »

castis wrote: post #35
Clubber wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure why this is downvoted. It's an uncomfortable thought but very little change has been brought forth in the US (and the world, historically) with peaceful protest. Too easy to ignore when politicians get paid millions to ignore it. Think the abolitionist movement (pre-Civil War) was peaceful? Nope. Think women's suffrage was peaceful? Nope. Think Vietnam protests were peaceful? Nope. Think civil rights movemen…

It probably got downvoted because people think violence is the absolute wrong way to go about things and assume getting to that level means you've lost a moral battle. I understand why, asking nicely and blocking some streets for a few hours has been so clearly effective throughout history /s.

I happen to subscribe to a rather uncommon school of conflict. Once you have identified an existential threat to you, annihilate it utterly, and don't look back. But be absolutely certain before you start, because that's not a transaction you can easily roll back. And if you can't win, try not to lose for as long as possible.

I'm about 98% of the way to certainty that the current crop of ruling elites present an existential threat to (mostly) peaceful human civilization. Thinking about Putin, Kim, and Trump--all with their fingers on their launch buttons--inspired me to think about possible strategies and tactics for 5th generation warfare, and I'm sorry to say that I believe a shockingly large number of innocents are going to die in this century.

Your choice isn't going to be a matter of some people getting hurt and no one getting hurt. Your choice will be whether seven billion people die, or just a few hundred million, possibly including you and your whole family.

All those "preppers" out there are very likely planning for the wrong kinds of disasters. This is not going to be a conflict whose outcome hinges on the number or quality of the guns, or the number of years of stored provisions. It will instead depend upon one's ability to discriminate friend from foe. It doesn't manner how many guns you have if the one in your hand is pointed at your own foot, particularly if you have psyops-induced agnosia.

I'm not certain if I have the fortitude for war. And I'm not sure if I have the moxie for covert ops. I'm not even sure who would be in the smallest possible set of people that have to die in order for the least-bleak future to come about. My heart wants there to be a solution where no one has to die, but my head has already run too many thought experiments where passive acquiescence leads directly to ruin. There's no doubt in my mind that killing people and destroying property hurts one's own moral center, and that those who grow skilled at war become less suited to serve non-destructive roles in a world at peace. I think maybe I'm just too selfish to make a choice based on the proposition that a future might not exist unless I actively disqualify myself from being a part of it.

I'm certainly not going to be the one that moves first. But I am thinking about the second and third moves.

Re: FCC won’t delay vote, says net neutrality supporters are “desperate”

#119

Post by ConceptJunkie »

craftyguy wrote: post #89
rocketpastsix wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Make sure you are registered to vote if you are in the United States. And vote in every election. Even something that seems small like school board has more implications then we know.

Give me candidates worth voting for first.

This is the most important issue. The system is rigged in favor of the incumbents in many, many ways.

Re: FCC won’t delay vote, says net neutrality supporters are “desperate”

#120

Post by nightsd01 »

syshum wrote: post #56
slouch wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've only had the rules for two years, and this only shows that the next administration can also pull and about-face. The lawsuits might not even be settled by then.

>>We've only had the rules for two years, False. A form of NN was in place from 2010 to 2014. Then the courts rules the FCC exceeded its authority under Title I so the FCC moved the ISP to Title II and reapplied the NN Rules in 2015. Also one should note that from the internet inception until 2005 Internet Services were Telecommunications Services regulated under Title II. It is more accurate to state we were only wi…

And even from 2005-2010 the FCC was suing ISP's that violated the principles of net neutrality.
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