Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

FCC plan would give Internet providers power to choose the sites customers see

washingtonpost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 674 posts

Re: FCC plan would give Internet providers power to choose the sites customers see

#171

Post by rhino369 »

ChicagoDave wrote: post #69

It's unlikely popular and profitable services will be hindered by the lack of net neutrality. But any new services that threaten existing ones will be hard-pressed to compete. Imagine I start a new streaming service. In order for my service to reach people, ISP's will charge me a higher price than Netflix, probably a _significantly_ higher rate. This will make it extremely difficult for my new service to reach enough…

It doesn't really make sense to go after small fry start ups. They don't have money and it would be an administrative nightmare.

But Netflix is already getting a better deal than start ups at many ISPs. Netflix gets free rackspace for their CDN servers. No start up gets that.

There is already a "fast lane" in many ISPs and Netflix gets it for free.

Re: FCC plan would give Internet providers power to choose the sites customers see

#172

Post by _justinfunk »

so33 wrote: post #143
pneill wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would you propose that packets be prioritized? I don't like the idea of the government telling me what packets should be prioritized. And saying that they all need to be treated the same is equally as bad. But the real issue here is that the need for net neutrality is a symptom and not the root disease. The disease that needs to be solved is a complete lack of competition in the ISP market. Service providers coul…

>You wouldn't need a net neutrality law if you had competition I don’t buy this argument because you not only need competition, you need a market with perfect information. Net neutrality buzzes on in the sidelines. I would wager that the majority of customers would not care if their ISP limited certain types of packets and would not attempt to switch ISPs (that is, if they even can switch).

If a majority of customers wouldn't even care if this happened, then why is it the internet doomsday? Seems like you can't have both sides of the argument. Unless I'm missing your point.

Re: FCC plan would give Internet providers power to choose the sites customers see

#173

Post by ericflo »

bluetidepro wrote: post #159

What I don't fully understand is why isn't larger tech companies like Facebook, Netflix, Google, Twitter, Amazon, etc. making a big fuss about this on their sites to warn their users and help fight against it? Are they not as worried about this? Does it actual benefit them in some ways cause they can box out smaller competition since they can afford to pay ISP's or something? For example, if Facebook saw this as a re…

Those companies got big enough that net neutrality now works against their interests.

Re: FCC plan would give Internet providers power to choose the sites customers see

#174

Post by creaghpatr »

api wrote: post #117
michaelbuckbee wrote: post #102

I feel like the making the examples about Netflix/Google misses the point. This is way more dangerous than that - without Net Neutrality rules there's nothing to legally stop an ISP from "prioritizing" and "deprioritizing" any number of political and social sites. Digital fundraising for politicians is a very real and active thing. Would they be upset with if their side was suddenly hit with a 30s / page load penalty…

A good way to get the right wingers might be to ask them what happens when their ISP blocks "hate speech" (as they or someone else defines it) or political speech that falls far outside well established political views. This is actually pretty likely to happen. Of course I suppose it'll be kind of funny to see God Emperor Trump usher in policies that make things like Gab and Voat unreachable. Top Kek!

Or the ISPs will pressure companies like FB and Youtube and Twitter into changing their speech policies to unblock hate speech or face throttling. Those tech companies already 'throttle' users who do not meet their orwellian standards.

Re: FCC plan would give Internet providers power to choose the sites customers see

#175

Post by bluetwo »

ghewgill wrote: post #89

For those who don't understand why net neutrality is important, it is worthwhile to read about the history of communications (telephone, radio, TV). There is an excellent book by Tim Wu called The Master Switch [0] which investigates the history of communications (with an American focus), describes how each industry start out open to all (farmers using fences for telephone, independent radio broadcasters), and each o…

And our mistake here is not finding a way to explain it that doesn't require reading a book.

Re: FCC plan would give Internet providers power to choose the sites customers see

#176

Post by couchand »

jfaucett wrote: post #152

As someone who is not in the US and will not suffer any negative consequences of this, I'm interested to see what will happen. We know the catastrophe hypothesis - ISPs will throttle content, customers will lose badly, innovation will plummet, etc. We also know people outside the tech field disagree with that and some seem to think the opposite could happen [1]. Honestly, I wish our societies would do way more experi…

You are fooling yourself if you think that this won't affect you just because you don't live in the US.

Re: FCC plan would give Internet providers power to choose the sites customers see

#177

Post by ComradeTaco »

ng-user wrote: post #77
obmelvin wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd like to have a quick shout out to Tom Wheeler. I was very worried when he was first appointed, but it was great to see someone who used their experience lobbying to stand up for consumers instead of continuing to act in corporate interests.

It'd be nice if Pai came around all of a sudden too..

Pai is fulfilling exactly what he was appointed to do, which is make the wealthy even wealthier.

Trump's administration is built to enrich 3 groups. 1. Himself 2. His family 3. Other Very Wealthy People

Re: FCC plan would give Internet providers power to choose the sites customers see

#178

Post by bunderbunder »

ams6110 wrote: post #110
dragonwriter wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People are dropping cable due to the heavy-handed control and lack of choice. Why would ISPs want emulate that failing model? Because the cable companies are the ISPs, and without ISPs acting differently, there's less impetus for people to ditch their cable companies as cable companies. Especially when the phone/cable/ISP firms can block or tax into submission services that compete with their phone and video offeri…

I don't know anyone who has a land-line phone anymore. I know many people who have dropped cable. It won't be that easy to force people back to those things now that they have experienced the alternative.

But it sure will be a heck of a lot easier if the FCC's got your back with regulation that supports anticompetitive behavior.

Re: FCC plan would give Internet providers power to choose the sites customers see

#180

Post by swozey »

dinoleif wrote: post #88
ajmurmann wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, I take the bait: Netflix and it's customers were harmed by traffic being throttled and customers being held hostage.

In what way are customers "held hostage"? If you sign up for an internet plan that promises not to throttle certain sites and then that provider throttles those sites, you can sue them. If you sign up for an internet plan that makes no such promises, why would one expect anything different? This may sound like a harsh reality, but it's called "taking personal responsibility" and "voting with your feet". Switch to ano…

Let me guess, you live in some mecca of ISP options like the Valley? Because the rest of us don't. I live in a major tech city of 1mil+ pop, to the point that a quarter of the city has Google Fiber, and the only ISP options my neighborhood has (12 miles from downtown and in a vastly tech area) is 1 Cable provider, 1 DSL provider, and Directv.

That means my speed options are 300mbps, 3, or 1.5 with 400ms latency.

Such great "options" if my cable provider decides to upcharge me now.

Post reply on HN