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Ajit Pai is right

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Re: Ajit Pai is right

#231

Post by dragonwriter »

pbreit wrote: post #123
zbruhnke wrote: post #6

This person misses the entire point of the argument for Net Neutrality - Yes it can be convenient if you know ALL of the apps and or services you'd like to use, however the entire internet being visible means putting small companies you have not yet heard of on nearly equal footing - giving them the chance to compete against the giants of commerce and sometimes (yes, sometimes it happens) WIN! The beauty of the inter…

Isn't Pai just advocating going back to the pre-2015 regulatory structure? Was the internet really so bad prior to 2015?

Once Ajit Pai gets Congress or the Supreme Court to undo the legal effect of the decisions which struck down the 2005-2010 and 2010-2014 regulatory structures, then he can talk about returning to them. Otherwise, he's just saying let's not enforce neutrality, and hope people will believe the results will be just like when we were enforcing neutrality using tools that the courts have since taken away from the FCC, specifically pointing to Title II as the viable alternative.

Re: Ajit Pai is right

#232

Post by smhenderson »

thehardsphere wrote: post #87
zbruhnke wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing you missed is that internet providers started to realize they may be able to squeeze more money out of both consumers and large corporates a few years back and that began to change their thoughts about how to make more money with a largely unregulated industry and Net Neutrality was put in place to preserve the internet's ability to innovate. Let's not forget Ajit Pai was just a few years ago a corporate at…

How did they "realize" that, suddenly a couple years ago? I am not doubting you, I am genuinely confused. I mean, human greed is a constant, and the rules didn’t change from 1996-2015, yet during the same period you said that Wal-Mart would have paid to destroyed Amazon, Amazon became one of the most wealthy and powerful companies in the world. So... it must be something more than the rules, right? Greedy companies w…

and the rules didn’t change from 1996-2015

They did change, read through this thread again. Many comments detail how the regulations changed in 2005 and then why they did again in 2015 (hint: Verizon, the same ISP Pai worked for at that time).

Re: Ajit Pai is right

#233

Post by m0ther »

m0ther wrote: post #190
awj wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> prior to the rule change in 2014 did we have such a problem? No, we didn't, mostly because ISPs didn't have the technical capability or demonstrate the intent to violate net neutrality. We didn't need rules to stop people from doing something they were simply incapable of doing. Once they got that ability, and showed signs they would use it, we needed the rules. The better question here is why are ISPs lobbying so…

Consider also that the major ISPs are more desperate for new income now than they have ever been. Especially the cable TV providers. I would have a hard time believing that they are NOT looking to compete directly with us (actual information services); considering the massive advantages they are technically capable of providing their own hypothetical services while they own the pipes. I imagine they won't do a very g…

Come to think of it, will there be anything stopping ISPs from literally injecting their own ads into our applications as they move along the pipe? I can see SSL offering some protection, unless they get to pick and choose who can use SSL (which they will be able to). That's a troubling thought.

Re: Ajit Pai is right

#234

Post by Grue3 »

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC wrote: post #156
Grue3 wrote: post #128

Just a single look at the governments who actually do regulate their Internet will lead you to the same conclusion. You don't want your Internet to be like Portugal? Is China or Russia more of your taste? As someone who lives in Russia, I would never trust the government to regulate the Internet. It's obvious what this control will end up being used for. You should be thankful that Trump of all people doesn't want to…

So your argument is essentially that, given the way Russia enforces laws, you rather wouldn't want governments enforcing laws?

Do you think Russia enforces its laws in any special way or what? No, there are just more laws to enforce. First make everything illegal, then put anyone you don't like behind bars.

Don't give your government more tools to oppress you, is what would be my advice.

Re: Ajit Pai is right

#235

Post by takeda »

jyrkesh wrote: post #211
takeda wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason FCC made change in 2015, because in 2014 court ruled that with prior classification, FCC had no authority to enforce anything unless they reclassify the Internet. Before the ruling, the companies were still respecting what FCC said (here are some cases that happened between 2002 (when FCC reclassified Internet as a telecommunication service) and 2015[1]), now the cat is out of the bag. Also note that 2015…

So in all of the cases listed in your citation, was it the FCC that censured them in order to get the corrective behavior? I'm cherrypicking here, but as an avid Bittorrent user, I remember there being significant debate with the community about the extent and methods that Comcast was using to "throttle" Bittorrent. (And I can honestly say that I was never impacted by them.) And I say this as someone who despises Com…

Net neutrality doesn't prevent data caps, all it does is stating that ISP has no business prioritizing/blocking one site over the other.

Essentially makes ISP just provide access to the Internet, and how you going to use it is all up to you.

From the examples you gave, how do you feel about blocking VoIP, tethering (even though they already had data caps, why do they care how I'm going to use the data allocated to me?) how do you feel about telus blocking access to site that was about labor strike by their employees, what if that would be used for political gains (blocking sites company doesn't agree with?)

As for bittorrent, question. If a company is offering internet connection with specific parameters and they then fail to deliver on that promise that's in my opinion a false advertising.

If they have so many consumers that they can't guarantee the speeds they provided it means they oversold, and they should be advertising it as a lower speed than they actually did.

As for MetroPCS I'm not sure what the zero rating thing is, I guess you're talking about them blocking all streaming except youtube. That's once again a false advertising. They do that so they could say they offer "unlimited" plans, even though they didn't.

As a consumer I want companies to be honest with me, what they are providing so I can know ahead when I make decision. Saying something is "Unlimited*" is misleading, because it's not really. The FCC also introduced "food labels" for ISPs which reduced their ability to lie to customers.

Re: Ajit Pai is right

#236

Post by dragonwriter »

thehardsphere wrote: post #165
cptskippy wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fundamental flaw in your argument is that you're failing to ask one very important question. Why was the rule put in place in 2015? Most regulations, like laws, are reactive in nature. If our existing laws and regulations were good enough then why would we need to elect new law makers? Why would we even need them at all? The fact is that people are constantly finding new and creative ways to exploit others and or…

Actually, I am asking that. Several other commentors have asserted that "the world changed" a few years before the rule passed, yet nobody has really explained in detail how. So far I've gotten a hypothetical about Wal-Mart paying ISPs to destroy Amazon, which didn't actually happen. (Though I haven't read other responses yet, so maybe there's something more here I just have missed.) But, let's take a closer look at…

The world changed because the courts struck down the ability of the FCC to enforce net neutrality principles through case-by-case actions in 2010, and struck down the Title I net neutrality regulations that were adopted in 2010 in 2014. The US has had the FCC pursuing net neutrality enforcement for most of the time since 2004, but the tools have changed because of court rulings, which have left Title II the only tool left.

Re: Ajit Pai is right

#237

Post by nickpp »

zaksoup wrote: post #173
nickpp wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bar has some stairs where you could fall and break your neck. Do you need a government regulation outlawing stairs in bars? Bar furniture could break and impale you. Should the bar have a furniture-owning license where they need to learn how to maintain their chairs? And absurd made up examples can go on...

https://www.osha.gov/pls/oshaweb/owadisp.show_document?p_tab... Well... Also, let’s be clear that regulations about the bar for food quality you will commercially sell to others and what you do in your own home (the furniture example) is obviously a false comparison. Besides the OSHA case for handrails there is, in fact, rules and regulations around the quality of, for instance, mattresses and their potential for cat…

Yeah I remember California’s fire-retardant regulation, which turned out to be a carcinogen. More regulations solved that too.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/cancer-linked-fla...

Re: Ajit Pai is right

#238

Post by ABCLAW »

jack9 wrote: post #193
ABCLAW wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the argument is worse than that because it is intentionally inaccurate. The re-framing it aims to perform is misleading and distracts from the issue.

> No, the argument is worse than that because it is intentionally inaccurate. Seems on the nose to me shrug

Likely because you haven't read any of the links to cases or explanations in the thread about the history of the issue. See the following summary or check any of the synopses in the thread about the historical background:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verizon_Communications_Inc._v....

You aren't going back in time. The FCC will not have the tools it did prior to Title II enactment to enforce NN. This is WHY Title II classification is in place.

Re: Ajit Pai is right

#239

Post by bo1024 »

I'm surprised this is getting so many upvotes, there are a lot of problems with the statements and arguments in the article.

It almost entirely rests on a bogeyman of high "costs of regulation", with no argument or evidence that these costs under NN are actually high. NN is trivial to comply with and we've had two years under it but no evidence presented that it is burdensome.

Then, many of the arguments boil down to "Net neutrality is good, but regulation is too costly so let's hope the free market enforces net neutrality on its own without regulations." This is backed up by a claim that there have not been systematic violations of net neutrality, but this does not match the facts and has been addressed multiple times in this thread.

Also, the author several times incorrectly claims that zero-rating does not violate net neutrality, but actually, it is one of the primary examples of a violation. Perhaps they are confused with the fact that cellular companies like T-Mobile are not classified as common carriers? But this refutes one of the main points: For companies like T-Mobile not subject to NN rules, we do see systematic violations of NN, for example, zero-rating.

Re: Ajit Pai is right

#240

Post by steveax »

hammock wrote: post #104
jakelarkin wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

only if walmart and ISPs are a monopoly, which by very technical legal arguments, they're not. having to pay off ISPs to the tune of millions for network access to e-commerce customers, prevents Amazon from ever getting started selling books in the 90s

>only if walmart and ISPs are a monopoly This is false. Under US antitrust law, /monopolistic behavior/ (that is, behavior that tends to create monopolies), e.g. predatory pricing and very large mergers, is what's generally regulated. It's not actually illegal to be a monopoly per se, and you don't have to be a monopoly to fall afoul of antitrust law.

WRT antitrust, what’s generally regulated these days is nothing, nada, zilch.
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