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Join the Battle for Net Neutrality

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Re: Join the Battle for Net Neutrality

#291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No one is talking about adding complex new regulation here but you. If you follow a bit about what happened the past 100 years of new government agencies rules is that they have _always_ yes, _always_ grown into thousands and thousands of regulations each year. But yeah, I'm sure this time it won't happen... http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0MCZ3FJXJJs/UA7zeOEIanI/AAAAAAAAFl...

I don't know any more clear way to state that this regulation isn't new . But I don't think it matters, because I get the vibe that you're super into one of those ideologies that provides a handy, concise, internally consistent answer to any question with which you might find yourself confronted, and it's just a shame that reality so often disagrees. Enjoy your ancap or Randianism or whatever you happen to call it. I…

>this regulation isn't new.

Well, according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality#United_States this rule Pai wants to repeal only took effect in 2015:

"On 26 February 2015, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ruled in favor of net neutrality by reclassifying broadband access as a telecommunications service and thus applying Title II (common carrier) of the Communications Act of 1934 as well as section 706 of the Telecommunications act of 1996[92] to Internet service providers.[93][94][95][96][97][98] On 12 March 2015, the FCC released the specific details of its new net neutrality rule.[99][100][101] And on 13 April 2015, the FCC published the final rule on its new regulations.[102][103] The rule took effect on June 12, 2015."

Re: Join the Battle for Net Neutrality

#292
post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are deliberately being deceptive to fool people into agreeing with you. Net Neutrality is a mandate that ISPs cannot prioritize data from one website over another. It's a regulation to ensure that Comcast cannot effectively censor websites it doesn't like by hiding it behind a slow lane of sorts. We know that ISPs have attempted to throttle Netflix's content, which is what prompted the recent regulatory changes i…

net neutrality isn't an essential component, the invocation of Title II is. This is what I think the comment you are replying is trying to say. I don't know what the intent of net neutrality advocates is, but the invocation of Title II puts far too much power in the hands of a historically corrupt & repressive agency. Personally I am ambivalent about net neutrality. I, however, am deeply opposed to the existence of T…

> If advocates want net neutrality to be the governing policy of the internet why don't they advocate for specific legislation that does only that and doesn't give the FCC the ability to become a heavy handed regulator of ISPs?

Do you have evidence that they are not advocating for proper legislation, or are you just saying this to baselessly discredit advocates of net neutrality?

If I recall correctly, the invocation of Title II was a reaction to an unfavorable supreme court case. Perhaps this is not the most ideal solution, but if one believes that net neutrality is important to protect, it appears to be the only solution in the absence of such legislation from a do-nothing Congress.

Also, if you believe that the FCC is historically corrupt and regressive, why do you seem to trust the FCC to make the correct decision right now? Do you have evidence that corruption in the FCC has vanished?

Re: Join the Battle for Net Neutrality

#293
post #99
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't Google's project loon open internet, compared to Facebooks free basics?

Google tried a similar thing to Free Basics with the Google Free Zone [0][1]. It launched in 2012 and disappeared from most places by 2013. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Free_Zone [1] http://web.archive.org/web/20130704133456/http://www.google....

But Fiber doesn't do this now, correct? Neither does Loon?

Re: Join the Battle for Net Neutrality

#294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The big ISPs (in the US) haven't earned the benefit of the doubt.

Okay, so if they do this, then the government should act. Preemptive regulation has all the downsides of regulation (eg lower investment) but potentially none of the benefits. This isn’t the kind of thing that will cause immediate, long-lasting, harm if a few ISPs explore this route before being shut down by the FCC or Congress.

The lower investment argument seems totally backwards to me. If we kill net neutrality, that gives ISPs a path to further monetize their existing infrastructure without any additional investment via paid preferential fast lanes and such. However, with net neutrality in place, the only means by which they have to compete is overall service quality, which means they have to invest in their networks. It seems obvious that ISPs are lobbying for repeal precisely because it allows them to make more money with zero investment.

Re: Join the Battle for Net Neutrality

#295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have had the internet for a long time without net neutrality why do we all of sudden need it?

This is horrible argument. We had cars before seat belt laws why do we all of sudden need it? We had cars before airbags why do we all of sudden need it? We've has guns before gun control so why do we all of sudden need it? Edit: People have been giving birth for a long time without doctors so why do we all of sudden need it?

Well look at the other things you think the government needs their hands in, health and education and both have been slower to change and more expensive since. So the best way to get less access to the internet is by adding a bunch of government regulation. Great Idea!

Net Neutrality will just make it even harder for new players to compete because they will have large regulations to meet. The only way to improve is to make it easier at a local level for more companies to compete.

Re: Join the Battle for Net Neutrality

#296
post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there is a more nuanced libertarian argument that you haven't mentioned, and that is not so much "I am against all regulation" as much as "I think regulation is generally bad for efficiency and/or disagree with it on moral grounds so I want to be convinced why it is necessary." In other words, I want to be convinced that: 1) There is a problem here at all. The regulation that is being repealed was only introd…

You're right, a lot of this is an education problem. Many (including myself) have for years thought that this wasn't a problem. How did we get along before this? But there are dozens of cases before NN was codified, where ISPs were blocking and slowing down traffic. One of the most high profile was how Comcast was slowing down Netflix in the NY Metro Area. After the rules went into place, Netflix speeds just magicall…

> magically increased

there was a technical reason for the performance improvement; netflix started peering with Comcast: http://www.businessinsider.com/paid-peering-explained-2014-2

but let's consider the world where the pipes stayed the same size; suddenly the lawyers say you have to stop shaping Netflix traffic (shaping means randomly dropping TCP traffic in order to signal to both ends that congestion exists in the network and they should slow down sending). Lack of shaping means congestion and slowness for all content traversing the same pipe, not just the heaviest users. So people watching Netflix get a slightly better quality and less buffering, but it takes 10 seconds to load any website traversing that pipe.

Re: Join the Battle for Net Neutrality

#297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There really isn't a sound argument against net neutrality. Many do argue that the FCC shouldn't have the authority to regulate the internet, and often argue that idea to subtly change the subject. If someone argues to abolish something, they should either argue in favor of a replacement, or argue that that thing should not exist at all. Unfortunately, I haven't heard even a flawed version of either argument. Another…

Honestly when I see other libertarians speaking against net neutrality I suffer a lot. Good to see at least there is one other that understands the pro-nn arguments

I'm generally pretty conservative, and I support net neutrality.

I believe much of the opposition to it on my side of the aisle is based on the flawed assumption that any policy instituted during the Obama administration was a bad policy.

My preference would be that Congress passed legislation making net neutrality the law of the land, but in the absence of that, Title 2 classification with FCC forbearance is better than nothing.

Re: Join the Battle for Net Neutrality

#298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The big ISPs (in the US) haven't earned the benefit of the doubt.

Okay, so if they do this, then the government should act. Preemptive regulation has all the downsides of regulation (eg lower investment) but potentially none of the benefits. This isn’t the kind of thing that will cause immediate, long-lasting, harm if a few ISPs explore this route before being shut down by the FCC or Congress.

There have already been a variety of attempts by these corps to undermine net neutrality even while it's been illegal. They lost the benefit of the doubt a long time ago. The telecom giants are as consumer-hostile as it gets

https://www.freepress.net/blog/2017/04/25/net-neutrality-vio...

Re: Join the Battle for Net Neutrality

#299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why would an ISP want to prevent some small, unrelated startup from gaining exposure? Once the startup takes all the risk to demonstrate market demand, the ISP can come in with their own offering and use the ISP monopoly to destroy the competition.

You mean like Google or Facebook?

It sounds like you aren't a fan of how Google and Facebook operate from that comment; I don't think allowing _more_ companies to act like that is a very good remedy to that problem

Re: Join the Battle for Net Neutrality

#300

The battle is all but over, and Net Neutrality lost. Republicans control every branch of the government.

I don't even understand how this became a bi-partisan issue. Everyone I know, republican and democrat, are for NN. The only people that are against NN are convinced it was introduced by Obama in order to "socialize the internet"
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