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Net Neutrality II (2014)

igmchicago.org

1–10 of 34 posts

Re: Net Neutrality II (2014)

#3

Economists think that you should let markets set prices. shocking. What is strange is all these free market people in tech who only like free markets that don't apply to them.

Market does not set prices. People and companies do, and they tend to set them as high as possible especially in "markets" with significant barriers to entry. Including regulatory ones. Removing carrier protecting does not help incumbents because the major cost in this "market" is infrastructure. Competition is not a magic bullet when it barely exists.

Re: Net Neutrality II (2014)

#4
From what I can see - it’s because they push market competition away as a separate issue, and also reduce the matter to a question of only American telecom.

Also - Normal people also don’t assume That firms are rational in any way other than bottom line maximization, and accept that there is regulatory capture.

I don’t know if this has been addressed in their supporting papers though.

Within their narrow definition they are not wrong. Recognizing it and engaging it makes for better arguments, and if necessary a change in positon.

Re: Net Neutrality II (2014)

#7

Economists think that you should let markets set prices. shocking. What is strange is all these free market people in tech who only like free markets that don't apply to them.

The problem is the "free but not everywhere" market you'd continue having when removing Net Neutrality. People are still not free to start deploying their lines and routers where they want to: you'd have monopolies and duopolies in most area free to charge whatever they want to whoever they want. The consumers (end users and content uploaders)? No freedom to setup their lines.

This is an infrastructure problem. And lot of free market people would have no problem seeing it managed by the state like roads, electricity and water infrastructure.

Re: Net Neutrality II (2014)

#8

Economists think that you should let markets set prices. shocking. What is strange is all these free market people in tech who only like free markets that don't apply to them.

>Economists think that you should let markets set prices. shocking.

Economists think that their big fat corporate overlords should get trillions in infrastructure subsidies from government money and then "let markets set prices", ie. those who got privileged by said money and monopolized the industry.

Re: Net Neutrality II (2014)

#9
The original submission title ("Majority of economists against net neutrality") is at best a distortion of the cited survey's results. Even without considering the confidence-weighted outcome, 44% of those polled "agree" or "strongly agree" that allowing content companies to pay more to ISPs for prioritized traffic is a good idea, while 56% are either "uncertain," "disagree," or have no opinion. (The confidence-weighted outcome is only 1% different.)

Also, this survey appears to have been done in 2014.

Re: Net Neutrality II (2014)

#10
Old study and bad title.

Article published May 6th, 2014.

The majority actually don't agree with the question of: "Considering both distributional effects and changes in efficiency, it is a good idea to let companies that send video or other content to consumers pay more to Internet service providers for the right to send that traffic using faster or higher quality service."

The majority are found in the combined groups of Uncertain, Disagree, or Strongly Disagree.

Edit: Reading over the economists' comments it is obvious that many who support the question(are against net neutrality) have no idea how the internet works or the monopoly/duopoly position of most ISPs.

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