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Mozilla Fights for Net Neutrality This May (and Always)

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Re: Mozilla Fights for Net Neutrality This May (and Always)

#81

Post by briandear »

devnonymous wrote: post #63
acheron wrote: post #6

I still find it amazing that everything has degraded from the independent hacker culture of the 90s to continually begging for the government to control and regulate the Internet. If you ever posted “what the Internet could really use is for the US Congress to control it!” to Usenet or 1999 Slashdot you would have gotten flamed to a crisp. I mean, God knows I’m not going to use a Google product, so I’m sticking with…

I don't know if you are intentionally trolling but I'll bite. Independent hacker culture is the exact thing at risk here without government intervention. Else, you'll end up with the fragmented Verizon hacker culture and the Comcast hacker culture and the... Goddess forbid Google / Facebook / Amazon hacker culture, each with its own non-independent thought. As an aside, Why are regulations that prevent bad actors fro…

Because regulations that “prevent” bad actors actually have unintended consequences that the big-government people never seem to grasp. And free markets are far more powerful and adapt far more quickly than regulation — while preserving freedom for people to make their own choices.

Certain European governments in the past century made regulations to “protect” society — and that resulted in millions of people killed or displaced. China’s Firewall is design to protect society against “bad actors,” and it instead suppresses the free speech of an entire nation.

“Bad Actors” to you are innovators, hackers and freedoms fighters to someone else.

Trust in government is the stupidest thing a society can ever do. We need governments for sure, but it should be a government with extensive limits to their power and it should be viewed with an attitude of suspicion. But, it seems like people instead are relying upon government to be replacements for parents instead.

Re: Mozilla Fights for Net Neutrality This May (and Always)

#82

Post by ghba66 »

StavrosK wrote: post #59
dingo_bat wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In comes Trump and Ajit Pia, and suddenly there is another side, the "against government regulation". Yup, how horrible that people actually want less regulation. Everyone should just agree with you and we'll all get along splendidly!

It truly is a terrible thing when people want "less regulation" without pausing to think whether the particular bit of regulation benefits them or not. "Regulation" has become a bogeyman you can invoke to reliably get people rallying against it.

As a customer, NN does not benefit me. The opposite. I will lose access to zero-rated services if it's implemented. I don't want that to happen because then I will have to pay more money for the same service.

Re: Mozilla Fights for Net Neutrality This May (and Always)

#83

Post by AndrewDucker »

ttoinou wrote: post #65
boomboomsubban wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's almost like Mozilla tried the whole "no regulation" thing, only to find themselves crushed under the boot of an ultra rich competitor.

Then they need to find a better business model

Not everything needs to be a business. Some things can be a public good.

Re: Mozilla Fights for Net Neutrality This May (and Always)

#84

Post by StavrosK »

ghba66 wrote: post #82
StavrosK wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It truly is a terrible thing when people want "less regulation" without pausing to think whether the particular bit of regulation benefits them or not. "Regulation" has become a bogeyman you can invoke to reliably get people rallying against it.

As a customer, NN does not benefit me. The opposite. I will lose access to zero-rated services if it's implemented. I don't want that to happen because then I will have to pay more money for the same service.

I don't understand this. Can someone explain to me the argument of "ISPs in the US are monopolies, so more regulation is worse for the customer"?

If your ISP is a monopoly, they can do whatever they want if left unregulated. They can literally charge you whatever they want.

Zero-rated services are zero-rated because you pay for them indirectly. I guess losing access to them would be a downside, and would prevent Facebook from becoming even more entrenched, which they certainly don't want. It doesn't do anything for internet freedom, though. You might as well say "well the internet to me is Facebook, so I don't care if the internet is free, I just want it to run Facebook".

Re: Mozilla Fights for Net Neutrality This May (and Always)

#85

Post by ghba66 »

StavrosK wrote: post #84
ghba66 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a customer, NN does not benefit me. The opposite. I will lose access to zero-rated services if it's implemented. I don't want that to happen because then I will have to pay more money for the same service.

I don't understand this. Can someone explain to me the argument of "ISPs in the US are monopolies, so more regulation is worse for the customer"? If your ISP is a monopoly, they can do whatever they want if left unregulated. They can literally charge you whatever they want. Zero-rated services are zero-rated because you pay for them indirectly. I guess losing access to them would be a downside, and would prevent Face…

I live in the first world so I have many many choices to get a wired or 4G connection. The government forces ISPs to share their infrastructure. I understand that kind of stuff does not apply to countries like the US, but I'm talking about my own case here.

Re: Mozilla Fights for Net Neutrality This May (and Always)

#86

Post by simion314 »

acheron wrote: post #6

I still find it amazing that everything has degraded from the independent hacker culture of the 90s to continually begging for the government to control and regulate the Internet. If you ever posted “what the Internet could really use is for the US Congress to control it!” to Usenet or 1999 Slashdot you would have gotten flamed to a crisp. I mean, God knows I’m not going to use a Google product, so I’m sticking with…

If I pirate your software, or use your patents,trademarks, copyrights then the companies,startups will appeal to government to put me in place instead of appealing to free market.

So maybe some rules,laws are needed, just that the ones you do not agree are bad and the ones you agree with are essential.

Didn't you hear in school a story where some guys went to live in a forest and they agreed to have no rules, then some started to do some bad things and they started added a few rules, then more rules because there were needed to prevent bad things, in the end they got similar rules as in the place where they started.

Re: Mozilla Fights for Net Neutrality This May (and Always)

#87

Post by ttoinou »

AndrewDucker wrote: post #83
ttoinou wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then they need to find a better business model

Not everything needs to be a business. Some things can be a public good.

  Not everything needs to be a business
The Mozilla team is supposed to work without getting anything exchanged from users of their work ?

  Some things can be a public good.
Businesses and providing public goods are not opposed

Re: Mozilla Fights for Net Neutrality This May (and Always)

#88

Post by scarface74 »

ttoinou wrote: post #78
not_kurt_godel wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How specifically are freer markets going to solve the problem? Free markets only work when there's competition. Seeing as nobody can replicate the essential physical infrastructure that ISPs/telecoms own, not even investors with billions upon billions of dollars (see: Google Fiber), I fail to see how your glib answer of "freer markets" is at all credible.

Free markets only work when there's competition. A powerful (oligopolistic) corporation can set low prices / reduce margins in order to prevent other potential companies to enter into the market. And they are also pushed to innovate

Someone can't just "enter" the internet service market. It takes billions of dollars. All the incumbent has to do is temporarily lower prices to keep people from switching and raise prices again once the new player goes bankrupt.

Re: Mozilla Fights for Net Neutrality This May (and Always)

#89

Post by lern_too_spel »

briandear wrote: post #73
shirakawasuna wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When there are basically two ISPs in most municipalities, there is no independent third party. And this is before we get to what happens when people start inserting these ideas into peering a la the money grab on Netflix. The ISPs can filter what you request and host, simple as that. And if you want to start a business, better hope it doesn't compete with any of the ISP parent company's holdings, because they have ev…

Any proof this is happening now? Is there any proof that services aren’t actually getting better now? Or does the NN crowd feel like FUD is warranted? I’m just waiting for all of the dystopian horror we’ve been promised, but still not seeing it. When are the ISPs going to start charging small websites to allow their traffic? When has legitimate traffic been throttled because of the content? Citations and examples nee…

Proof: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/05/level...

I was paying for 100 Mbps from my ISP back when this was going on, but YouTube and Netflix were unusable in prime time. Those were the two high bandwidth services I was paying my ISP for, but my ISP held my video streaming for ransom and got away with it because I had no other choice for high speed Internet.

Re: Mozilla Fights for Net Neutrality This May (and Always)

#90

Post by ttoinou »

KozmoNau7 wrote: post #80
ttoinou wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The current free market situation has created monopolies in many areas Such as ?

Countless cities and towns where there is only one ISP, or a duopoly in cahoots to keep prices high and service low, and freezing competitors such as Google Fiber out of the market. This isn't exactly new information, if you haven't noticed the problem by now, you must have been living under a rock. There are hundreds of credible reports and articles about this problem.

More deregulation would provide the threat of having more competition later, so it would be a factor of development. There are others factors at play too of course, and net neutrality doesn't seem to be going in the right direction.
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