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AMA: NY AG Schneiderman on net neutrality and protecting our voice in government

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Re: AMA: NY AG Schneiderman on net neutrality and protecting our voice in government

#231

Post by thomastjeffery »

rsync wrote: post #226
thomastjeffery wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Internet is a utility, and it is controlled predominantly by 6 companies. There is simply not enough competition to rely on the free market to keep net neutrality as a fiscal priority. Until the oligopoly is broken up, and everyone has competitive access to the internet, we need some way to ensure that net neutrality happens. Without net neutrality, businesses using the internet itself , and even free nonprofit servi…

"There is simply not enough competition to rely on the free market to keep net neutrality as a fiscal priority." You're answering a question I didn't pose. I wasn't even specifically speaking about net neutrality - something I am sympathetic to. I was lamenting the fact that the level of discourse is lower than I'd hope it to be. Knee jerk "that guys not on my team" responses aren't helping to encourage me.

> You're answering a question I didn't pose.

I am clearing up some points you seem to have misunderstood or glossed over.

> > > "In short, the regulation is needed to protect against ISPs prioritizing their profits over their consumers"

> > It's not encouraging to see that your broad, summary statement is nonsensical.

> > A for-profit business firm prioritizes their profits over their consumers by definition.

Since, as you pointed out, a business prioritizes profits over customers, there needs to be an incentive for these businesses to prioritize their customers. That incentive is either competition or regulation.

The first choice is not currently workable, since competition between ISPs is impractical.

This is the same problem that net neutrality exists to prevent, just in a different problem space: Without a free market, competition is unfeasible.

> Knee jerk "that guys not on my team" responses aren't helping to encourage me.

Could you elaborate on what you see as a "knee jerk response"? I am not seeing any here.

Re: AMA: NY AG Schneiderman on net neutrality and protecting our voice in government

#232

Post by thomastjeffery »

fvdessen wrote: post #195
vinylkey wrote: post #157

Do know of any resources that explain Net Neutrality in a non-partisan, clear, concise manner? My dad is under the impression that Net Neutrality is bad because "the government has no business with the Internet." I'd like to provide him with some good information to try to sway his mind, but most simple explanations I can find are comedic in nature (John Oliver, The Oatmeal webcomic), or are from a "liberal source."…

Net Neutrality is like preventing the US Post office from providing express delivery as the extra speed comes at the expense of regular delivery and there is a risk that only big companies would be able to pay for the service.

Net Neutrality is like preventing the Post Office from limiting the amount of packages a business can deliver, or limiting the priority of that business's deliveries unless that business pays the Post Office a premium.

The problem with that behavior is that there are some very large, wealthy businesses like Amazon who need to deliver a high volume of packages on time, so those businesses would be willing to pay a very high premium.

Since the Post Office would be making such deals with everyone, so that they don't look like they are being unfair, the big deals they make with Amazon would set the bar for every business who wants their packages delivered by the Post Office.

That bar would naturally be too high for small businesses and nonprofits, who would quickly go out of business, or be unable to start in the first place.

Re: AMA: NY AG Schneiderman on net neutrality and protecting our voice in government

#233

Post by colordrops »

thomastjeffery wrote: post #212
_d8fd wrote: post #102

If net neutrality fails, would it makes sense aggressively pursue a legal effort to break up "big cable"? Back in the long distance/DSL days, the local telcos were forced into allowing alternate vendors to sell long distance & Internet service over the copper wire running to one's house. Can we bust up Comcast's strangehold on the Internet service available to my apartment by forcing them to allow any vendor to sell…

> If net neutrality fails, would it makes sense aggressively pursue a legal effort to break up "big cable"? It already makes sense. If there were a competitive free market, then there would be a rational argument against net neutrality rules, but that simply isn't the case unless you live in North Dakota. It's ironic that Ajit Pai acts like he can back up his argument against net neutrality with nothing but a short-s…

Ajit Pai knows exactly what he's doing.

Re: AMA: NY AG Schneiderman on net neutrality and protecting our voice in government

#234

Post by waterhouse »

thomastjeffery wrote: post #231
rsync wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"There is simply not enough competition to rely on the free market to keep net neutrality as a fiscal priority." You're answering a question I didn't pose. I wasn't even specifically speaking about net neutrality - something I am sympathetic to. I was lamenting the fact that the level of discourse is lower than I'd hope it to be. Knee jerk "that guys not on my team" responses aren't helping to encourage me.

> You're answering a question I didn't pose. I am clearing up some points you seem to have misunderstood or glossed over. > > > "In short, the regulation is needed to protect against ISPs prioritizing their profits over their consumers" > > It's not encouraging to see that your broad, summary statement is nonsensical. > > A for-profit business firm prioritizes their profits over their consumers by definition. Since,…

> The first choice is not currently workable, since competition between ISPs is impractical.

Could you explain why that is?

Re: AMA: NY AG Schneiderman on net neutrality and protecting our voice in government

#235

Post by keenerd »

cr0sh wrote: post #171
swapsmagic wrote: post #154

It's so easy to identify those fake comments by just looking at few. I figure this is one of the comments that seems fake. Why is it taking long to identify there are lot of fake comments in it? 'The unprecedented regulatory power the Obama Administration imposed on the internet is smothering innovation, damaging the American economy and obstructing job creation. I urge the Federal Communications Commission to end th…

I would say that this comment is "real" - in the sense that it was actually wordsmithed for the position it supports, but that it is likely that the purported person's name and address are fake/misattributed to the comment. This wordsmithed position likely came from some partisan political action web site gathering automated signatories; you go to it, fill out your info, and it posts to the FCC input form/api or what…

> All comments though were fake - I never sent any of them in to the FCC.

Or your name isn't that uncommon. Have you ever tried being the first google result for your name, as an SEO experiment? It is hard!

I say this as someone who shares a name with a minor league baseball player, numerous facebook/linkedin/etc profiles and a baby whose life/death was covered by the BBC.

I don't go around accusing all of these people of being fake.

Re: AMA: NY AG Schneiderman on net neutrality and protecting our voice in government

#236

Post by thomasfortes »

waterhouse wrote: post #234
thomastjeffery wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You're answering a question I didn't pose. I am clearing up some points you seem to have misunderstood or glossed over. > > > "In short, the regulation is needed to protect against ISPs prioritizing their profits over their consumers" > > It's not encouraging to see that your broad, summary statement is nonsensical. > > A for-profit business firm prioritizes their profits over their consumers by definition. Since,…

> The first choice is not currently workable, since competition between ISPs is impractical. Could you explain why that is?

Would you like to have 30 different companies digging your street to lay cables?

Or 10 energy cables over your street because energy competition would be great?

Even in a perfect world, infrastructure is a natural monopoly.

The government could handle all the big scale infrastructure and let small players handle the last mile, but that's not the case and even if it was, people would still complain.

Re: AMA: NY AG Schneiderman on net neutrality and protecting our voice in government

#237

Post by GeneralMayhem »

mc32 wrote: post #10

Would you mind commenting on these findings? They seem to have found that both sides have been stuffing the ballot box: http://www.emprata.com/reports/fcc-restoring-internet-freedo... Also, can you work on net neutrality for all bits? That is Google, Facebook, Twitter, as the main gateways to public discourse treat all comments equally without promoting one viewpoint over another that does not enjoy elite sanction? W…

>They seem to have found that both sides have been stuffing the ballot box

That's not entirely clear from that source. And even if it were, that's reason to try something different to solicit public feedback, not to go ahead with whatever the telcos say to do.

> That is Google, Facebook, Twitter, as the main gateways to public discourse treat all comments equally without promoting one viewpoint over another that does not enjoy elite sanction?

This has nothing to do with net neutrality. NN is about your right to transmit information over the internet, not your right to have someone else transmit it for you. If you want to talk about regulations on big content providers, fine, but it's totally irrelevant to the discussion at hand.

>What good is NN as it stands if edge providers can treat bits differently?

NN is not about edge providers. It's about not allowing middlemen to use their natural-monopoly power to censor edge providers.

Re: AMA: NY AG Schneiderman on net neutrality and protecting our voice in government

#238

Post by Hasz »

dingo_bat wrote: post #217
Hasz wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't be so quick to conflate market share with a monopoly. We're one a message board other than reddit, and I could name hundreds with 10K+ users. Is reddit popular? No doubt. But it's far from a monopoly. A monopoly is generally defined as having a high barrier to entry, combined with price discrimination. You can certainly argue that the userbase/content of reddit/facebook/youtube constitutes a high barrier t…

> It's simply not possible for every New Yorker to dig up the sidewalk to lay fiber. That is what constitutes a natural monopoly. It's simply not possible for every reddit user to code up their own reddit. Why is this not a natural monopoly?

It’s very possible — the full source to an older version is on github.

That aside, it might be a poor example and explanation on my part. Other than technical competency, there is nothing inherently stopping everyone from having a shitty one man version of reddit, independent of everyone else’s shitty one man reddit.

For the New Yorker example, everyone must work together — if I cut my neighbors line putting mine in, there’s crosstalk etc, the whole thing falls apart.

The point I am trying to make is that the ISP does one thing only and that thing requires cooperation. Reddit does lots of things, but cooperation is not integral to those things. Granted, it wouldn’t be worth a whole lot, but that’s not the issue.

This is an amendment to the first clause of the original comment. My point about pricing pressure still stands.

Re: AMA: NY AG Schneiderman on net neutrality and protecting our voice in government

#239

Post by waterhouse »

thomasfortes wrote: post #236
waterhouse wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The first choice is not currently workable, since competition between ISPs is impractical. Could you explain why that is?

Would you like to have 30 different companies digging your street to lay cables? Or 10 energy cables over your street because energy competition would be great? Even in a perfect world, infrastructure is a natural monopoly. The government could handle all the big scale infrastructure and let small players handle the last mile, but that's not the case and even if it was, people would still complain.

If people accept 1 company doing it, would 2, or even 3 or 4, be so bad? Whatever rules limit it currently could be relaxed instead of eliminated completely; competition-wise, going from 1 to 2 is a much larger step than going from 5 to 10. Regarding power—as a matter of fact, I've had some power outages recently. I think 2 would provide some nice redundancy.

Re: AMA: NY AG Schneiderman on net neutrality and protecting our voice in government

#240

Post by thomastjeffery »

bifrost wrote: post #93

In an era of increased government surveilance and personal intrusion, why should Americans be ok with more oversight from a broken organization like the FCC?

The FCC is only broken in the sense that its leaders are dismantling it.

The most recent successful dismantling was getting rid of ISP customer privacy protections. ISPs are now allowed to collect data from customers without even notifying them, and sell that data.

Without a strong FCC, ISPs are quickly becoming a new "Big Brother", with similar abilities to diminish individual privacy and trust by collecting and profiting from their customer's data, and stifling competition between internet services.

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