Isn't this what happens when you do everything through the executive, rather than legislative, branch? If net neutrality were required by law, the FCC chairman would to some degree be compelled to enforce it.
U.S. FCC chairman plans fast-track repeal of net neutrality: sources
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Re: U.S. FCC chairman plans fast-track repeal of net neutrality: sources
#22It's amazing how much money influences these politicians. I would be amazed if any of the people who voted for this bill even fully understand what it is.
It's also amazing how little it costs to buy them. It's on the order of a hundred thousand dollars. Check out campaign contributions and you'll see. It needs to be at least 10-100x more expensive to really make a difference. It'd be hilarious / depressing is politicians started colluding to squeeze companies for orders of magnitude more in bribes (sorry, "campaign contributions").
Re: U.S. FCC chairman plans fast-track repeal of net neutrality: sources
#23thanks jill stein voters. :) tell me again how both parties are the same
Get off your high horse. Obama spied on you first, or is Snowden just a Russian Shillspy!?
Re: U.S. FCC chairman plans fast-track repeal of net neutrality: sources
#24A part of me wonders if net neutrality ending would be unintuitively beneficial. Right now we are depending on policy decisions to protect the internet's privacy and neutrality. This has been a flawed approach for over a decade. At some point we need to solve this with technology in a similar way that E2E encryption is a step toward solving chat privacy. Maybe the selling of browser histories and then end of net neut…
Policy is technology. Technology is not just engineered artifacts but the cognitive models and social practices surrounding them. Policy is a vastly powerful technology that mediates the social and economic resources necessary for technologies like the internet to be created, have utility for society, and thrive.
So, yes, we need to solve this with technology -- policy itself, technology for improving the creation of policy and the selection of those who turn it into legislation, technology for combating disinformation and educating the public on protecting their rights, technology for detecting and disseminating information on relationships between entrenched interests and policy makers. Networking technology of the kind you mention may be part of that, but on its own it can never be a panacea. Policy will always necessarily exist, and it will never be solved -- it's a dynamic system.
Re: U.S. FCC chairman plans fast-track repeal of net neutrality: sources
#25This is a somewhat unpopular opinion on HN, but I think net neutrality is only a mediocre local optimum. We can do much better without it.
Look at Denmark; they top the global ITU ITC ranking for internet service, and how do they do it? By totally deregulating ISPs while setting government policy to allow for competition (instead of trying to force ISPs to follow some arbitrary notion of good behavior in the abject lack of competition). They removed many ISP regulations (nominally antitrust regs) back in 2006 and it worked so well that they completely dissolved their rough FCC equivalent (NITA) in 2011.
We don't need the FCC ham-fist to improve or preserve the quality of our internet services. All we need is to set local and regional line lease policy to encourage actual ISP competition. Every X years, have an open auction to sell shared cable leases to Y different ISPs or something. Now instead of having to force net neutrality, some of the Z different ISPs that now service your house will use privacy guarantees as a cheap competitive advantage.
Re: U.S. FCC chairman plans fast-track repeal of net neutrality: sources
#26It's amazing how much money influences these politicians. I would be amazed if any of the people who voted for this bill even fully understand what it is.
It's also amazing how little it costs to buy them. It's on the order of a hundred thousand dollars. Check out campaign contributions and you'll see. It needs to be at least 10-100x more expensive to really make a difference. It'd be hilarious / depressing is politicians started colluding to squeeze companies for orders of magnitude more in bribes (sorry, "campaign contributions").
I wonder if it would be possible to make some kind of "internet superpack". Like a collection of registered voters who would crowdfund more money than they are getting.
Re: U.S. FCC chairman plans fast-track repeal of net neutrality: sources
#27A part of me wonders if net neutrality ending would be unintuitively beneficial. Right now we are depending on policy decisions to protect the internet's privacy and neutrality. This has been a flawed approach for over a decade. At some point we need to solve this with technology in a similar way that E2E encryption is a step toward solving chat privacy. Maybe the selling of browser histories and then end of net neut…
How does encryption solve the problem of Verizon squeezing Netflix to degrade its service in favor of its own offerings? Net neutrality isn't about consumer surveillance (which is a problem too, just a different one). It's about access to markets and the ability to choose the services you use on the internet.
Why stop at just squeezing them? Why not just cut off access entirely unless customers pay their ransom? It's not like they'll get any pushback from the FCC. Now that's innovation!
Re: U.S. FCC chairman plans fast-track repeal of net neutrality: sources
#28This is a somewhat unpopular opinion on HN, but I think net neutrality is only a mediocre local optimum. We can do much better without it. Look at Denmark; they top the global ITU ITC ranking for internet service, and how do they do it? By totally deregulating ISPs while setting government policy to allow for competition (instead of trying to force ISPs to follow some arbitrary notion of good behavior in the abject l…
Except that most people don't have ISP choice:
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/08/us-br...
Re: U.S. FCC chairman plans fast-track repeal of net neutrality: sources
#29It's amazing how much money influences these politicians. I would be amazed if any of the people who voted for this bill even fully understand what it is.
It had nothing to do with money. Pai is a former Verizon lawyer. He did exactly as he was expected to do.
Re: U.S. FCC chairman plans fast-track repeal of net neutrality: sources
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
How does encryption solve the problem of Verizon squeezing Netflix to degrade its service in favor of its own offerings? Net neutrality isn't about consumer surveillance (which is a problem too, just a different one). It's about access to markets and the ability to choose the services you use on the internet.
I'm not saying encryption is the solution. The solution to internet neutrality and user privacy may be something entirely different. Maybe it is mesh networks of an open source wifi solution. I'm not an expert in networking, but it doesn't take much to understand the policy-first approach is fundamentally flawed.
The alternative to network neutrality is a highly competitive ISP market, i.e. municipal fiber leased wholesale to dozens of competing retail ISPs. The problem is the incumbent ISPs lobby against that too.