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FCC won’t delay vote, says net neutrality supporters are “desperate”

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31–40 of 206 posts

Re: FCC won’t delay vote, says net neutrality supporters are “desperate”

#31
If ISPs are going to gut net neutrality, we need a way to introduce real competition into the market. I wouldn't care if Comcast wanted to sell me access to 5 websites for $99 or whatever crap they're trying to pull if I had the option to switch to a better deal somewhere else.

Strong state and local laws protecting the right to form municipal ISPs would be a good start. Those seem to scare Comcast & friends the most. If corporate ISPs become significantly restrictive, I think we'd see a big upsurge in interest for municipal broadband.

Re: FCC won’t delay vote, says net neutrality supporters are “desperate”

#32
post #2

After reading about Pai, it seems like he was hand selected to be the figure head with which the ISPs would finally take down Net Neutrality. This whole situation sucks, and no matter how much noise we make and activism we take part in, if Pai has the legal footing to ruin the internet, he will.

He doesn't. Ignoring the public comment period and making comments like demonstrate he's not acting in the interest of the consumer. There's a good chance a federal judge will strike this down.

Well the consumer (us) cannot seem to define what we want other than "everything" or point to how the 2014 change fixed issues that were common place. Where is the list of events that were fixed with the change that had not been previously identified and corrected as overreach by an ISP?

Take a look at those pushing "net neutrality" and understand why. I am not saying they are not without merit but both sides have merit but one side is funded by very large monied interest for one reason, they know they can use net neutrality to force what they want to relieve costs on their business interest and never have to pass it on because all onus will be on service providers.

Service providers who have since the prior rule changes have reduced roll out of higher speeds including some very big names (google is one). Why should they? Where is the payoff for adding throughput if its going to get regulated.

I remember the last time it was all regulated, my choice was ISDN provided I could get it or T1 provided I could get it or just suck it up and stay on dial up. With lack of regulation new players came in with higher bandwidth and made it available to me increasing competition. With regulation on service people magically expect higher speed broadban but totally ignore the fact there is no incentive to provided it and once regulated it will be mired in delay after delay and only show where powerful politicians want it.

What is also means if with regulation of service providers they will tell you exactly what services you may use the regulated network for. welcome to China

Re: FCC won’t delay vote, says net neutrality supporters are “desperate”

#33
post #2

After reading about Pai, it seems like he was hand selected to be the figure head with which the ISPs would finally take down Net Neutrality. This whole situation sucks, and no matter how much noise we make and activism we take part in, if Pai has the legal footing to ruin the internet, he will.

The problem with anti-Trump protests is that they will never get physical.

Not sure why this is downvoted. It's an uncomfortable thought but very little change has been brought forth in the US (and the world, historically) with peaceful protest. Too easy to ignore when politicians get paid millions to ignore it.

Think the abolitionist movement (pre-Civil War) was peaceful? Nope. Think women's suffrage was peaceful? Nope. Think Vietnam protests were peaceful? Nope. Think civil rights movement was peaceful? Nope. BLM peaceful? Nope.

Was the Occupy Wall Street movement peaceful? Yup.

Was the protests of NSA spying peaceful? Yup.

Was the Iraq war protests peaceful? Yup.

Was the US Patriot Act protests peaceful? Yup.

Are the net neutrality protests peaceful? Yup.

What's the difference between the peaceful and non-peaceful protests I listed?

Re: FCC won’t delay vote, says net neutrality supporters are “desperate”

#34
Honest question, what changes can we expect as ISP consumers if this happens?

A follow up, if all it is is them charging customers more for using more bandwidth, how is that any different from any other fundamental resource like water, electricity, etc? Why should I pay as much money for my SSH and Hacker News as the guy down the street streaming Netflix all day?

Re: FCC won’t delay vote, says net neutrality supporters are “desperate”

#35
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with anti-Trump protests is that they will never get physical.

Not sure why this is downvoted. It's an uncomfortable thought but very little change has been brought forth in the US (and the world, historically) with peaceful protest. Too easy to ignore when politicians get paid millions to ignore it. Think the abolitionist movement (pre-Civil War) was peaceful? Nope. Think women's suffrage was peaceful? Nope. Think Vietnam protests were peaceful? Nope. Think civil rights movemen…

It probably got downvoted because people think violence is the absolute wrong way to go about things and assume getting to that level means you've lost a moral battle.

I understand why, asking nicely and blocking some streets for a few hours has been so clearly effective throughout history /s.

Re: FCC won’t delay vote, says net neutrality supporters are “desperate”

#36
post #31

If ISPs are going to gut net neutrality, we need a way to introduce real competition into the market. I wouldn't care if Comcast wanted to sell me access to 5 websites for $99 or whatever crap they're trying to pull if I had the option to switch to a better deal somewhere else. Strong state and local laws protecting the right to form municipal ISPs would be a good start. Those seem to scare Comcast & friends the most…

Telecommunications tend to form a natural monopoly. It's a bit like roads and railroads, only you're transporting information rather than people. I looked online and it's got all the common characteristics: there are few close substitutes, the product is non-storable (although, maybe if it gets bad enough in the US we'll start seeing services that mail us USBs full of last week's Hacker News posts), supply is all about location, and fixed costs are unusually high relative to variable costs.

Re: FCC won’t delay vote, says net neutrality supporters are “desperate”

#37
post #2

After reading about Pai, it seems like he was hand selected to be the figure head with which the ISPs would finally take down Net Neutrality. This whole situation sucks, and no matter how much noise we make and activism we take part in, if Pai has the legal footing to ruin the internet, he will.

Its now December 2017. Everybody knew about his plan the day he was sworn in as chairman. Between the resources at Google/ Yahoo/ FB/ Ycombinator alone they have the money, lawyers, know how, and have had since November of last year to do something about this, anything. anything at all. Actually, any fortune 500 company. Not a single whisper from wall street. not a single whisper from the private sector. Obviously in…

YC is unique in the list that you give insofar as they're likely to not benefit from a repeal of NN, whereas the consolidation of money and influence in the big four has made the repeal of NN very attractive to them, and they're not inclined to fight it. Wall street, private sector don't care, they can reason about the repeal of NN and migrate to where the lopsided gains will accrete as a result. The money and market share at stake for these big players creates a suicide pact that pits them against the sentiment of their users and the instincts about freedom of the Internet that brought them into tech in the first place.

Direct action is required. Go vote. Route around broken Internet. Hit them where it hurts them.

Re: FCC won’t delay vote, says net neutrality supporters are “desperate”

#39
post #2

After reading about Pai, it seems like he was hand selected to be the figure head with which the ISPs would finally take down Net Neutrality. This whole situation sucks, and no matter how much noise we make and activism we take part in, if Pai has the legal footing to ruin the internet, he will.

Its now December 2017. Everybody knew about his plan the day he was sworn in as chairman. Between the resources at Google/ Yahoo/ FB/ Ycombinator alone they have the money, lawyers, know how, and have had since November of last year to do something about this, anything. anything at all. Actually, any fortune 500 company. Not a single whisper from wall street. not a single whisper from the private sector. Obviously in…

> comments being written by russian bots .

Let's tone down the McCarthyism a bit shall we?

Re: FCC won’t delay vote, says net neutrality supporters are “desperate”

#40
post #31

If ISPs are going to gut net neutrality, we need a way to introduce real competition into the market. I wouldn't care if Comcast wanted to sell me access to 5 websites for $99 or whatever crap they're trying to pull if I had the option to switch to a better deal somewhere else. Strong state and local laws protecting the right to form municipal ISPs would be a good start. Those seem to scare Comcast & friends the most…

The more they tighten their grip, the more star systems will slip through their fingers.

What ever happened to the ~2003 promise of local WISPs and wireless mesh networks?

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