FCC Releases Plan to End Net Neutrality!!

[seedubs1]

Nope. Just nope. All the nope here. If you allow non net neutrality, there will be NO net neutrality. No ISP will be neutral. As pointed out earlier in this thread, there is not a free market in ISPs. You likely have a choice of two right now. If net neutrality ends, you can bet your ass you won’t have a neutral option to purchase.

Contact your representatives and get this turd of a bill thrown the **** out in the garbage where it belongs.

I have no problem with an ISP being either net neutral OR non-net neutral, with the two following provisoes:

1. ISPs must declare to their potential customers whether they are net neutral or not

2. Non-net neutral ISPs by definition control content, content access and speeds... which makes them publishers... which means they shed the current protections of being content neutral and adopt all the legal liabilities of content publishers

 

[BugI02]

With apologies to Janis

So "Freedom's just another word for nothing more to pay"?

 

[SheepDog4Life]

Nope. Just nope. All the nope here. If you allow non net neutrality, there will be NO net neutrality. No ISP will be neutral. As pointed out earlier in this thread, there is not a free market in ISPs. You likely have a choice of two right now. If net neutrality ends, you can bet your ass you won’t have a neutral option to purchase.

Contact your representatives and get this turd of a bill thrown the **** out in the garbage where it belongs.

I think you undervalue the exemption ISPs get on content liability because they currently "only provide the pipe" and are agnostic as to the the content that flows through that pipe. If that exemption was squashed for non-neutral services (which they would spend tons of money to prevent) there would be, IMO, plenty of neutral (i.e. traditional) service providers. In fact, I think the "bigs" would offer both just as you can currently get either data capped or unlimited service... which, btw, is a somewhat parallel proxy.

 

[BugI02]

I would suggest, seedubs, that perhaps you should pay more attention to the threats to freedom of speech and the free flow of ideas that already exist in the here and now, such as the houses that censorship is building at FB and Twitter, rather than the boogie men of might be that will occur if heavy users of streaming services actually have to pay their way in one way or another



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[actaeon277]

I would suggest, seedubs, that perhaps you should pay more attention to the threats to freedom of speech and the free flow of ideas that already exist in the here and now, such as the houses that censorship is building at FB and Twitter, rather than the boogie men of might be that will occur if heavy users of streaming services actually have to pay their way in one way or another



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Yup. Net "neutrality" hasn't stopped conservative or pro-gun voices from being silenced.

 

[Cameramonkey]

There are two big problems with removing net neutrality.

Pre-NN bill, multiple providers were caught blocking competing traffic; e.g. "No you may not use cheap 3rd party VoIP phone service because that company is eating our lunch. IF you want VoIP on our network you'll pay us the ridiculous fees we demand." So its more than just slowing down traffic. Whats next? Maybe "No you may not have Netflix. If you want to watch movies and shows you must subscribe to our TV service to insure that you are only watching what *we* dont/cant deliver. If you are paying for internet AND tier X of TV service (or higher, and you can damn well guarantee it wont be entry level), THEN we will allow you to have Netflix."

If this gets repealed and they are allowed to throttle, negotiate, etc. we will start seeing the same shenanigans we see today with DirecTV; "after ___/___/___ this local OTA TV channel will no longer be available on your provider. We are working to negotiate our contract to continue the service and prevent service interruption."

And to the point above about just making them advertise whether they are neutral or not. So when Comcast declare they are not. What do I do if I disagree and want to use a carrier that is? They have a virtual monopoly in my part of the neighborhood. I have no other providers that can deliver above 10mbit service. (on a good day) Or what if NO carriers (regardless how damn slow they are) are neutral in my area? Sell my house and move?

 

[BugI02]

The netflix thing just seems like a weak argument to me. The railroads maintain tracks and pretty much will carry freight for anyone, providing a service for a fee. That doesn't mean I can found a business that relies on using those same tracks when and as I see fit while paying nothing and expect no pushback from the railroad

Net Neutrality legislation is a recent development rolled out to insulate companies like Netflix from the inevitable free market consequences of their business model. It is textbook crony capitalism

Netflix is free to become an ISP and start laying its own fiber, but the result would be the same - the cost of playing poker would be on the rise

 

[seedubs1]

We should not hold ISPs accountable for illegal activity conducted by their customers (and we currently don’t). I don’t undervalue it. I believe it is crucial to remain in place.

The analogy here would be like holding the .gov responsible for drunk driving accidents because they own the road.

I think you undervalue the exemption ISPs get on content liability because they currently "only provide the pipe" and are agnostic as to the the content that flows through that pipe. If that exemption was squashed for non-neutral services (which they would spend tons of money to prevent) there would be, IMO, plenty of neutral (i.e. traditional) service providers. In fact, I think the "bigs" would offer both just as you can currently get either data capped or unlimited service... which, btw, is a somewhat parallel proxy.

 

[seedubs1]

Thats a whole other can can of worms and irrelevant to the discussion of net neutrality.....but I agree. We should worry about both.

Getting rid of net neutrality is a VERY bad thing for the free flow of information. Probably the biggest and most destructive thing that could be done to free flowing information is to get rid of net neutrality. And you’re right.....the boogie men WILL have their way with the internet and will black out information they don’t want you to see if the removal of net neutrality happens. That’s not a conspiracy theory tin foil hat thought.....it’s real. Make no mistake about it, this will effect the information you can see and read if passed.

I would suggest, seedubs, that perhaps you should pay more attention to the threats to freedom of speech and the free flow of ideas that already exist in the here and now, such as the houses that censorship is building at FB and Twitter, rather than the boogie men of might be that will occur if heavy users of streaming services actually have to pay their way in one way or another



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[Tanfodude]

This is bad. I don't want the service provider choosing what's available for us to visit and charge us for it. The sites that you visit should be the ones that control the traffic to their websites (server capacity), not the service providers. There's hardly any competitors from services providers, it's basically almost a monopoly now. I don't know why this issue is hard to grasp. This is business for them, of course they want less regulations. Having flat fee now works. Each consumer has the free market to choose their own internet speed plans and free to visit any sites without speed control from the service providers. So no, this regulation needs to stay.

 

[npwinder]

The netflix thing just seems like a weak argument to me. The railroads maintain tracks and pretty much will carry freight for anyone, providing a service for a fee. That doesn't mean I can found a business that relies on using those same tracks when and as I see fit while paying nothing and expect no pushback from the railroad

Net Neutrality legislation is a recent development rolled out to insulate companies like Netflix from the inevitable free market consequences of their business model. It is textbook crony capitalism

Netflix is free to become an ISP and start laying its own fiber, but the result would be the same - the cost of playing poker would be on the rise

If i start a company and contract with cn railroad to bring x amount of freight a month to me at x amount price, using cn rails and trains, does cn get to complain to company b about how much it costs to get the freight to me or does they need to come to me to renegotiate terms?

Netflix has no control over which ISPs their subscribers are on. They simply came up with an innovative way to wach movies and dominated the field.

This is a case where someone contract with an isp to deliver the internet to them over the isps own network

If an ISP cant handle the traffic their customers are requesting then the isp needs to take the issue up with their customers not the content providers.

 

[seedubs1]

After re-reading your post, I think we’re in agreement. The ISP customers are paying for whatever package best suits them. The ISP is being paid to provide whatever amount of data at whatever speed. The ISP shouldn’t care what content is delivered using their service since they’re not legally liable for illegal activity performed by their customers. If the ISP can’t keep up with customer demands, that’s between them and their customers.

Your analogy should be:
The railroad company was paid by the receiver to use their tracks for a certain amount of weight at a specified speed. The railroad should not give a flying **** what’s on the train since they’re legally not liable for any illegal activity of their customer.

If i start a company and contract with cn railroad to bring x amount of freight a month to me at x amount price, using cn rails and trains, does cn get to complain to company b about how much it costs to get the freight to me or does they need to come to me to renegotiate terms?

Netflix has no control over which ISPs their subscribers are on. They simply came up with an innovative way to wach movies and dominated the field.

This is a case where someone contract with an isp to deliver the internet to them over the isps own network

If an ISP cant handle the traffic their customers are requesting then the isp needs to take the issue up with their customers not the content providers.

 

[GodFearinGunTotin]

Austen Petersen (the LP candidate I would have voted for for president) apparently isn't a fan of net neutrality. He linked to this article on his FB page today.

Pro?Net Neutrality Graphic Makes Argument Against Net Neutrality - Hit & Run : Reason.com

 

[npwinder]

Austen Petersen (the LP candidate I would have voted for for president) apparently isn't a fan of net neutrality. He linked to this article on his FB page today.

Pro?Net Neutrality Graphic Makes Argument Against Net Neutrality - Hit & Run : Reason.com

I've tried to put some thought into this to see if I believe that setting up a package like this would work for the consumer and help keep content providers innovative. I don't see it helping with either.

We would have to add a couple more categories say one for shopping and one for news and information.

Is Youtube a video or a social media network? Can it be both?

If you do the Facebook only package, and someone posts a video from Youtube, will you be able to watch it? What if they embed the video into the post? Since the link redirect shows its from Facebook, is there a pass? If there's a pass, and you create a post and type in sling.com, do you now get access to slings site as the redirect shows its from Facebook? Facebook makes its money from Advertisers. If a large percentage of Facebook's users can't even access a link from an advertiser due to being on the wrong package, will advertisers continue advertise with Facebook? If it shuts Facebook down, What happens with the Facebook only package?


What affect would this have on innovation? Google started out as a simple search engine. its branched off into video, email, social media, consumer goods, medical research, becoming an ISP (which the tradition ISPs fight against when they say they are entering a new city.) For google's online properties, they are all under a single username and password. If the internet was fragmented through plans, would this have happened?

Look at the way Facebook has changed. It started out as a platform that you had to have a .edu address to even get an account. It was opened up to everyone without the crazy labels that myspace forced. It started to allow games in order to compete with myspace. For awhile Zynga Games was doing extremely well. Then you started to have groups, and pages, then business started started to see value. Several companies have moved their customer service platforms to facebook, especially with facebook messenger. There's a large amount of video on facebook, however, facebook doesn't pay the creators like youtube. Facebook has really opened up a platform for classified ads, where you have an opportunity to know who are you dealing with. Does the expansion and pivots happen with a fragmented internet?

Netflix pioneered online movies. First by mail order dvds, bluerays, and games. They had to fight tooth and nail get deals with the movie studios. Then came streaming they fought tooth and nail to get the rights to stream movies. That fight opened up doorway for Amazon, For comcast, For verizon and ATT. It helped get a system in place that can handle Sling and playstation vue. It created a stronger internet backbone that opened up the studios ability to start Hulu. How many video codecs has Netflix researched in order to deliver HD movies at less bandwidth? Which stakeholders benefited from those advancements?

Some of the biggest winners in the need for speed is actually banks and trading firms. In 2011, they spent 300 million dollars to lay down an underwater cable from NYC to London in order to shave 6 miliseconds in transmission time between trading firms in New York and Firms in London. Combine that with the fact that London is the financial capital of the world, that opens up faster trading in more foreign markets such as Dubai.

Without netflix, amazon, facebook, google, yahoo, myspace, youtube, addictinggames, zynga, without Sling, playstation, steam, without fox news, cnn, drudge,the onion, washington post, mccook gazette, nwi times. Without mlb, nfl, nhl, big 10, epsn. without ebay and ask jeeves, and millions of other websites known and not known, there would not have been a need for the internet. Currently, with net neutrality, any of these sites and can be upended and start losing users. One the internet, number of users counts as most revenue is driven by advertisements. You start fragmenting the internet and making it harder to go from one group of sites to another, the content suffers and the consumer is worst off. That makes paying the ISP for the internet even less desirable. The big 4 ISPs have enough power they could cause damage to people no where near their networks. If they start putting sites into there own bubbles and charging more for just the access to a site, the Site now has another barrier to gain customers. Enough subscribers leave due to a barrier at the major ISP, that service may no longer exist for those on a smaller ISP who doesn't want to get involved in content distribution.

This is a case where the ISP is there to deliver the internet, and the internet is the true free market. Without the content on the internet, theres no need for the ISP. Fragmenting it only hurts the content and adds more barriers to a true free market.

 

[BugI02]

Impressive list. The current FCC overreach version of Net Neutrality (as opposed to the Laissez Faire version previously extant) has only been in effect since mid 2015. Seems like an awful lot that you list actually happened under the old system, though. Shouldn't that have been unpossible?


ETA: Just so I'm clear on this. Are we always against unelected bureaucrats making rules and regulations, or only when we disagree with the outcome?

 

[jamil]

Impressive list. The current FCC overreach version of Net Neutrality (as opposed to the Laissez Faire version previously extant) has only been in effect since mid 2015. Seems like an awful lot that you list actually happened under the old system, though. Shouldn't that have been unpossible?


ETA: Just so I'm clear on this. Are we always against unelected bureaucrats making rules and regulations, or only when we disagree with the outcome?

Sometimes the pragmatic answer is "it depends". Like I've said, I need to look into this and decide if this is something I support or not. I still don't think I know enough about the issue to have a solid position.

 

[npwinder]

Most of that did happen before the Title II rule change. However, the reason for the Title II rule change is because the FCC at the time was having an impossible time keeping Net Neutrality open under Title I rules. They would come up with a rule it would get challenged in court, the courts would knock it down saying Title I didn't allow the rule. There had been several issues with ISPs violating the idea of Net Neutrality prior to that.

Over time, ISPs have been bought out, consolidated, and merged. It costs a lot of money to start and maintain an ISP. To start an ISP to go up against one of the big ISP in their territory is a tough task on its own. Combine that with the lawsuits they can and have brought out over minor technicalities to get a project shut down, takes a lot of time and dedication.

There have been several towns and cities tired of how long it took to get decent internet speeds that they started to create city owned ISPs. Often cheaper and faster than what the local provider could bring easily. Lawsuits came about to tie them up. ISP started lobbing state governments to put laws in place that won't allow cities to start their own service.

I have zero faith that ISPs will keep net neutrality principals if not forced to by law. There's several pricing options available without fragmenting the internet.


As for rules and regulations, I'm anti-dumb laws. The way I see it is that those unelected bureaucrats were put in place by elected bureaucrats. The alphabet agencies can make the government more efficient when ran properly. I don't know that we want congress getting hung up on every single rule and law. And if theres something thats too egregious from an agency, congress is also free to act on it through legislative debate.

 

[GodFearinGunTotin]

Like Leadeye is want to say: follow the money. I'll admit I'm not as knowledgeable as some in these matters and my default response when I am ignorant of the specificities of a matter is to lean towards less government instead of more. Assuming this article is fair, there's a reason large companies might favor keeping NN...follow the money.

Everything You Need To Know About Why Net Neutrality Is A Terrible Idea | Daily Wire

 

[wtburnette]

Like Leadeye is want to say: follow the money. I'll admit I'm not as knowledgeable as some in these matters and my default response when I am ignorant of the specificities of a matter is to lean towards less government instead of more. Assuming this article is fair, there's a reason large companies might favor keeping NN...follow the money.

Everything You Need To Know About Why Net Neutrality Is A Terrible Idea | Daily Wire

That's a great explanation of part of the truth. Conveniently left out is the fact that without net neutrality, ISP's (E level from that article I guess) can prioritize their own services over the services of other companies crossing the connection to you. As the article states, the aim of net neutrality is for all traffic to be treated the same. Where the main concern lies is at the end user ISP level (Comcast, AT&T, Charter, et al), forcing them to treat their service as a gateway to the internet where all traffic is the same. You can access the sites of Google, MSN, (God forbid) CNN, your email from Google, your video from Netflix and your audio from Amazon Music all exactly the same. Without net neutrality, if Comcast partners with CNN, for example, it could prioritize traffic to that site, while throttling traffic to Fox News. Or it could decide that the music service that it owns gets priority over Amazon Music, or any other music provider. Since their service is the only one that works well, you have the choice of either switching to their service, or perhaps paying a premium fee in order to access the service you prefer. If you don't think this can happen, you haven't been paying attention. Comcast and other ISP's already were found to be throttling content from competing services and other issues. We already pay stupidly high bills for internet service and my prediction is that doing away with net neutrality is only going to increase those prices without providing the consumer with any added benefit.

 

[hoosierdoc]

https://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/...r-hazletts-great-book-the-political-spectrum/