At this point the problem isn't Net Neutrality, it's the internet is privately owned by for profit companies.
Imagine what'd be if every single road and water pipe was ran by private company for profit without oversight.
Internet needs to be treated like infrastructure, because that's what is, both to service consumers and providers.
There are many ways to have private company to profit over infrastructure if they so chose it, but having a guaranteed baseline would resolve most issue about having to regulate private companies or stifling innovation. I.e. there could be private pipes with state subsidized access having guaranteed QOS. There could be public pipes with state renting access to private companies.
There are plenty solution, but the issue is that public can't lobby for what benefits them and deep pocket can and will buy legislation.
> Imagine what'd be if every single road and water pipe was ran by private company
My wife used to take the bus to work in Wilmington, DE. Government-owned and operated bus service. Busses would regularly be 20 minutes off schedule, in a city with little traffic. Drivers would regularly decide to just quit their shift 15 minutes early, passing by stops full of people waiting.
My wife and I rode every day between D.C./Wilmington and Baltimore for two years. $1,700 per month train fare, but a good day was five to ten minutes late. A bad day was sitting in a broken down train for hours while waiting for another train to come rescue. (That happened once a month).
I tried to ride the D.C. Metro to work last summer. One of the best subways in the US (and also one of the most expensive). Last year tracks were literally catching fire. Regularly runs 15-20 minutes late for a 30-40 minute trip.
Our au pair is German. Her mom, sister, and several friends have visited us from Germany. She couldn't drink the tap water in Baltimore, neither could her mom drink the tap water in DC. Every single German to visit my house has remarked how bad the roads are here.
I'm a big believer in publicly run services, at an intellectual level. But out of the various cities I've lived in, I'd trust maybe two (New York and Chicago) to run my internet service. Certainly not Baltimore, Wilmington, DC, or Atlanta.
I think that says more about the the US-based public services than it does about public services in general.
From a european perspective, public services in the US seem really terrible. Whereas in the UK and Europe, the default mode of transport in large cities is public transit, in every US city I've been to (accepting maybe NY) your only real options are Uber or your own car.
You don't need services to be fully publicly run. It'd be sufficient for just the required natural monopoly infrastructure to be publicly run, with companies buying access to that infrastructure to actually sell service to consumers.
This doesn't fully address your point. The government might still do that part badly. But it isn't quite as bad as entirely state-owned public services. We don't have any better solution for natural monopoly situations, such as pipes and roads.
You have to look at this from the standpoint of Rail Roads back and the resulting mess that came from the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887. It took decades if not a century to realize how regulating transport versus producers did not help anyone, resulted in sub standard services and little advancement. Why? Because once codified it is damn hard to move. Net Neutrality is going to require detailed pricing regulations, routing, bandwidth, and more. You can guarantee once those exist they companies will see no need to expand on it.
So why should we not be overly concerned. Because in a system some perceive as unfair others perceive an opportunity. We are going to trap ourselves into a realm of where any attempt to offer more services will be met with legal shenanigans locking out competition and preventing even the established groups from expanding. It will become yet another industry wholly under the control of groups paid to solicit politicians endlessly. (more K street). We won't have the equivalent of AirBnB, Lyft, and Uber, companies trying to offer a better internet experience because regulation will stifle it and protect a status quo
> At this point the problem isn't Net Neutrality, it's the internet is privately owned by for profit companies
Eh, I don't think that's so bad. We needed some privatization to foster competition and raise quality.
What we don't need to grant is increased monopolies.
There is a balance to strike. Removing net neutrality policies would shift it too far away from increasing competition and quality, and buying back ISPs would be both expensive and also reduce competition and then quality.
Where do you live where there's significant ISP competition? Where I live, there's Comcast and....that's it. This is a pretty common case around the country. I can choose to pay Comcast for internet, or I can choose to not have internet.
I don't know anyone who has more than one or two land-line options.
I think the reason for that is businesses invested in infrastructure, and they expected to earn some profits for that. That was necessary to get the internet to where it is today.
Going forward, the question is how to continue increasing quality.
Buying out ISP's doesn't seem like the right solution to me. That's a worst-case scenario for the American public, when something needs to become totally government-owned, like banks or mortgage backers.
I think killing net neutrality would build more silos, enabling people to further insulate themselves from each other, which leads to more miscommunication, and would be detrimental.
We don't need to do that. We can make this issue known, and even if it passes, monitor its effects afterwards.
Sorry I just don't think there's an overnight solution for increasing ISP competition, unless you're willing to switch to mobile.
If you feel Comcast is somehow breaking their contracts, take them to court. That's how we address bad businesses.
Perhaps there's some argument for breaking some up -- I don't know. That doesn't seem to be on the table at the moment and I think it's better to stay focused on net neutrality for now.
The problem is that ISPs already operate like monopolies. They don't operate in the same areas as their competition. It is not the free market serving consumers.
Also, leaving regular people to take massive corporations is not really a solution. Most people don't have the time or money to go to court with anyone, let alone a team of corporate lawyers. ISPs know this, so we all just deal with their mistreatment because there is no other option around.
> The problem is that ISPs already operate like monopolies. They don't operate in the same areas as their competition. It is not the free market serving consumers.
I agree with that, I just don't think it's a problem that a market or politics are going to solve, and breaking up monopolies with regulation certainly isn't on the table in this administration.
> Also, leaving regular people to take [on] massive corporations is not really a solution
It is in the sense of voting. Your vote is more powerful than corporate spending.
I agree going to court isn't an ideal backup option. It is nice that we have such a system that allows it, and a supply of pro-bono lawyers who will take class-action cases.
No it is not. Mobile is either Verizon or AT&T. All the other mobile companies use infrastructure from one of those two monopolies, and follow the same business model.
I haven't ever seen a mobile company that does not have some sort of data cap.
I've had my Sprint plan for a few years and I'm grandfathered in to unlimited data. Before I had Internet set up in my apartment, I used 400 GB in one month with it tethered to two laptops, a desktop, and a PS3. No complaints and no slowdowns.
I've lived in 500 person towns, and currently live in a county with less than 60K, but I have always had DSL available. It is not great for bandwidth, but it is sufficient. I've read that ~80% of the US has access to DOCSIS and DSL, so usually it's a duopoly.
Edit: I guess I'm a bit surprised you have cable lines running into your place but not phone lines.
DSL is kind of a wide range, I know people that cap out at 256kbps which is not broadband. Sure, if you can get 6-12MB/s download that's not bad, but most people are lucky to hit 1.5Mps/ download and 1/3 of that upload which is not really competitive.
My experience with DSL is that providers use a "burst" to give you ~15-20mbit (whatever you pay for) for a few seconds, and then quickly slow down to ~1mbit.
Cable companies tend to act the same way, but much less consistently.
> We needed some privatization to foster competition and raise quality.
Or alternatively, public (and by public I don't necessarily mean state) owned infrastructure, in which the public can vote directly for what they wish to be improved about it. The argument against the quality of infrastructure isn't very strong when it's the public that decides how the infrastructure is operated and which parts are improved. As for competition, I can't see why that's necessarily a good thing. It's a waste of finite resources.
Uninformed decisions by masses who can't be expected to have the general knowledge to solve every issue. In a republic, we trust that our representatives will find and tap such experts to inform them. We don't always agree with the end decision, but, at least we are not on the chopping block. If some portion of the voting public became directly responsible for a poorly engineered bridge failure, or Flint water, I can only imagine the backlash. With a republic we can hold a small few responsible without upending everyone for their votes all the time.
> Imagine what'd be if every single road and water pipe was ran by private company for profit without oversight.
FWIW this is the current administration's plan for "unleashing" "trillions of dollars" for physical infrastructure spending (bridge and road repair etc). So the NN plan is consistent in its approach.
So government should buy the infrastructure from different ISP and nationalize it. Then ISPs can rent the it from the government. However if I want to start a ISP which only delivers Netflix, I should be allowed to.
Should the only ISP covering a territory be allowed to only deliver Netflix? Should one of the ISPs that serves your area be allowed to buy all the others and then block Youtube and Netflix to your house and only allow Vimeo?
In a perfect world competing infrastructure companies should spring up out of thin air due to infinite availability of capital and an endless supply of engineers to implement all of this. But real markets have to operate within the confines of a finite world and limited resources. Results and outcomes matter.
> In a perfect world competing infrastructure companies should spring up out of thin air due to infinite availability of capital...
You wouldn't need an infrastructure company, nor would you need a big capital expenditure. The point is that the infrastructure would be state-owned and available on a non-discriminatory basis already. If demand exists, a competitor could bootstrap by buying fractional bandwidth from the last mile infrastructure, fractional bandwidth from a peering provider, and connecting the two.
The problem at the moment is that huge capital expenditure is required because I need the majority of a street to be interested before digging it up becomes economically viable. This problem would go away.
I would love this, but can you imagine the gnashing of teeth from the 63 million people who voted for Trump? Not gonna happen. We're stuck with the for-profit Internet thanks to the scary, shouty man on TV.
You think the internet would be just as efficiently run if the government controlled it without a profit incentive?
I think the left are naive to how lazy people are without the right incentives, and how without a monetary incentive office politics can be ridiculously crippling.
Maybe the HN perspective is driven by the fact that open-source in software engineering has flourished - leading many to think that great things can be built without monetary incentive.
Or perhaps its because they are surrounded by very smart people and start believing that the rest of society operates at the same calibre.
There is enough politics involved inside companies where huge monetary incentives are up for grabs, when you take away this monetary incentive, it becomes insanely political.
"voting for trump" != voting for ISP monopolies and anti-net neutrality. Don't blame everything in the world on people who voted for Trump. Look at how difficult it was to get any sort of good regulation for net neutrality under Obama. You need to go after ISPs, Comcast, etc... and the people both R and D who get money from them.
Like those millions of people who believed the fake news fed to them, these people don't even know what it means, much less make an informed decision, so the Republicans aren't going to lose many votes over this compared to informed voters who are typically in the cities and vote D anyway.
> Like those millions of people who believed the fake news fed to them, these people don't even know what it means, much less make an informed decision, so the Republicans aren't going to lose many votes over this compared to informed voters who are typically in the cities and vote D anyway.
Totally, I mean, Obama's FCC and internet policy was completely on point, the unceasing vigilance to protect encryption and the snowden and wikileaks affairs really showed us that under his administration internet freedom and protection from dragnet surveillance was absolutely a top priority. The massive focus on these issues both in his campaign after bush as well as the continuation of making these issues a top priority in the Sanders and Hillary camps during the last cycle only proves this point even more, and I can only credit the well informed and highly vocal supporters of each candidate for making this the case.
Glad you made this point, I was thinking the same thing but too intimidated by the sheer number of the overwhelming majority of pro-trump neo-facists on this site!
> the sheer number of the overwhelming majority of pro-trump neo-facists on this site!
Do you have any data to back this up? Please don't make sweeping generalizations of the HN membership. There's a wide variety of views held across the people who participate here, and due to each of our own very natural human psychological biases, we tend to view these in a very biased way. In my experience here, and as evidenced by the vigorous debate on any number of topics, it's decidedly unfair to characterize the membership in any sweeping way like this, and it also prevents people from being able to engage in meaningful, constructive conversation.
Given that you've written so much sarcastically, what are you actual thoughts on the political demographics on HN? Often sarcasm is used to express the opposite of the actual belief, so is your belief that there is a wide variety of views, or is it that it's a majority of the opposite of "pro-Trump neo-fascist"? If the latter, my first comment still applies.
"Like those millions of people who believed the fake news fed to them,"
So people using Facebook which includes both Democrats and Republicans? You do realize a lot of Democrats are not technologists right? And that they won't have a better understanding of technology than their conservative brethren?
I know it's popular among my circle to just outright shit on all Republicans no matter what, but it's really not helping our cause.
Don't try to "both sides are the same" this. Look at the accomplishments of the previous administration's FCC and the current one. There is a stark difference.
I didn't say "both sides are the same" even though they largely are. But you're naive if you think that Comcast isn't lobbying their democratize representatives in Philly to vote against net neutrality regulations.
Furthermore, look at how much work it took to get net neutrality passed even under Obama. If the democrats are so much on our side, why was it so difficult?
Under the Democrats, the FCC passed net neutrality, twice, after a court order struck down the first attempt. Under the Republicans, the FCC isn't just doing nothing, it's actively going out of its way to repeal it. The difference could not be more stark. If a neutral Internet is important to you, the sides are not even remotely the same.
Yeah I miss Obama. Remember last year when the Internet wasn't run by private companies? And when the people who voted for Trump weren't Republicans yet? Suddenly on January 20th all these things that happened before were suddenly his fault.
Uhhh Obama's FCC didn't push to remove net neutrality after pushback from the public.
With a new administration, content providers are looking amp up lobbying and give it another go.
We need to forget politics red vs. blue and consider that this may be a bad idea. If we make it an unpopular position for politicians to support, they won't pass it.
Votes beat dollars because at the end of the day, without your vote, politicians supporting a given position don't have the job.
>> We need to forget politics red vs. blue and consider that this may be a bad idea. If we make it an unpopular position for politicians to support, they won't pass it.
Then let's stop blaming the shouting man for stuff other than being the idiot he is. There's plenty of other folks to blame, and plenty of them were in power before now. There was plenty of scary and stupid Internet regulation discussed under Obama that he didn't react to the way I would have liked AT ALL. There's plenty of stuff Democrats suddenly decided they didn't like and Republicans suddenly decided they like when in reality it's hardly that different at all. There's a bunch of shitty people in Congress and in many other sectors of government, and let's not forget that they're not going to go away once anyone's President-of-choice wins the next election, or that they're not partly responsible for a whole bunch of conservatives feeling disenfranchised and going with a lunatic as an overreaction.
> Then let's stop blaming the shouting man for stuff other than being the idiot he is
I can't control what other people say =)
> There was plenty of scary and stupid Internet regulation discussed under Obama that he didn't react to the way I would have liked AT ALL
I agree. For example, he was totally wrong about how to deal with everyone having access to E2E encryption in their pockets.
All I can do is advocate for focusing on this one issue. I believe in net neutrality and I think if more people understand how it contributed to today's internet, then more would be on board.
One thing to note is that net neutrality was always built into ISPs until content providers started focusing on subscriptions to data via the internet rather than TV.
At that point, content companies started to see how they could corner markets by using dollars to persuade ISPs to give them better throughput than smaller competition.
So, while the neutrality regulation only came into place in 2015, it was really standard practice up until then.
> There's a bunch of shitty people in Congress and in many other sectors of government, and let's not forget that they're not going to go away once anyone's President-of-choice wins the next election, or that they're not partly responsible for a whole bunch of conservatives feeling disenfranchised and going with a lunatic as an overreaction.
Yes, well, I think in this case we can set aside how inept many in government seem to be. On this issue, I think we can come together and agree that net neutrality is a good thing, and that Netflix or Comcast shouldn't be able to give you faster speeds to certain websites, because that means you'll be paying more to visit sites that they don't own, thus limiting your choices.
> Imagine what'd be if every single road and water pipe was ran by private company for profit without oversight.
Around here the highways are owned by the government and maintenance is contracted out. But there is one toll highway that the government "sold" (99 year lease) to a private company. And the costs to use it have been increasing constantly.
>Imagine what'd be if every single road and water pipe was ran by private company for profit without oversight.
We'd have higher quality, lower cost water and roads.
"Government agencies less likely than private to comply with environmental regulations, study finds"
Here are key points from the article linked below:
For power plants and hospitals, public facilities were on average 9 percent more likely to be out of compliance with
Clean Air Act regulations and 20 percent more likely to have committed high-priority violations.
For water utilities, public facilities had on average 14 percent more Safe Drinking Water Act health violations and were 29 percent more likely to commit monitoring violations.
Public power plants and hospitals that violated the Clean Air Act were 1 percent less likely than private-sector violators to receive a punitive sanction and 20 percent less likely to be fined.
Public water utilities that violated Safe Drinking Water Act standards were 3 percent less likely than investor-owned utilities to receive formal enforcement actions.
That's a goalpost on wheels. Anyway, it doesn't change the fact that the GP offered than even under the same regulations, public facilities perform significantly worse than private ones.
When privatization works it is good but it doesn't always work. The current cable industry seems to be just exploiting a monopoly so I think "privatization" has already failed here
I only have 1 possible cable provider and it's pretty expensive and their service is terrible. It's gotten better in they last 10 years but that doesn't mean that it is a competitive market.
EDIT: Maybe it's changed but when I checked last they had low customer satisfaction but really high profits, which is bad for consumers and (I'm not an expert here so take with a grain of salt) would be really unlikely if the market was competitive at all
How about the air you are breathing? Would that be better quality if you paid per breath? What about the people who can't afford to pay to use the roads?
Dear Brian, you're currently living in France and you're spewing that crap? Have you not noticed the ever decreasing quality of our highways which were sold to private entities, our hospitals getting worse and worse as the governement incentivizes the creation of private clinics which offer worse service, the privatization of France Télécom into what is currently Orange, the privatization of the SNCF, of EDF, GDF Suez, and every single public service?
If you haven't been here long enough to notice that, since it's been a process done over the last thirty to fourty years, let me spell it out:
Privatized public services offer a worse service and are a danger to society.
To me the problem is not net neutrality, it is monopolistic behavior in broadband providers. If there was a true competition, providers trying to control the access of their subscribers would meet the same fate that AOL (with their custom email, browser, etc), they would become irrelevant.
Ah, but try to take away the monopolies and they throw money at it until you lose.
First they'll lobby. If that fails, they'll sue. They'll have all kinds of bullshit reasons why this is necessary for growth, investment and infrastructure.
They have better access to legislators and regulators, as well as more sympathetic ears in the government due to having, for lack of a better term, monopoly money to throw around.
It might be the result of some local regulatory deal they have made to become a monopoly, but it isn't the result of FCC's net neutrality regulation.
Have you ever looked around the world and found a nation that has no regulations at all, or nearly so, that you want to live in? There are still places that are wild west like. Aren't really teeming with VC or good internet though.
You are the one living in fantasy. Where you think, there are people in this world who want to live in a lawless society. Less regulation is dosent mean no regulation. Many laws are designed to stifle class mobility. Why, because rich are closer to the politicians.
> To me the problem is not net neutrality, it is monopolistic behavior in broadband providers
How do you solve that problem? It seems expensive.
Companies probably invested in building out their networks, paying government to have guaranteed access to subscribers.
If the government took all this back at once, it'd be costly, either in immediate money or just the reputation that the government holds with businesses. You want investors to be comfortable investing in future American development projects.
I agree that working towards a more competitive environment in the long term is the right thing to do, though it doesn't seem practical to do overnight, as evil as some ISPs appear to be.
What we don't need is to kill net neutrality, which would further line content providers' pockets with money they don't need. They're not a failing industry.
They're also not being so abusive as to require government takeover, in my opinion. They're not currently "poisoning" our internet, like Flint water.
There's no perfect solution for anything, public or private. We need to assess the conditions of today and decide what's the next best thing to do to increase our quality of life.
They are both problems. They are related, but still lie in a different problem space. Net neutrality is a realist solution to one of these problems; a solution necessary because the original problem fosters the other.
In the current landscape of monopolized ISPs, net neutrality is necessary to prevent ISP monopolies from funding service monopolies (like Netflix, Amazon, etc.).
Why don't these 800 startups, their thousands of brilliant employees, and the hackers on hacker news start a push to build a part-wireless and part-cable mesh network?
The only reason why the loons in the government or these companies have any clout is because they have the only working network that spans the US/Globe. If citizens just got together, on their time, and built a free and open network we'd have something better. It's not like it's never been done before [1].
It's hard to privatize a system of radio links. When everyone's network is owned by themselves no one can really take that away from them.
The only reason most networks are privately owned right now is the extremely high cost of laying down physical infrastructure. We saw that severely slow the progress of Google(!) Fiber. If a giant like Google has troubles with the cost of laying down cable on ciy-land then imagine what you or I have to deal with?
This goes away with radios and building interconnects.
Aren't radio frequencies regulated by the government, which can be lobbied by private interests?
I still think focusing on net neutrality is best. If someone out there would rather work on a radio system, that's great!
Personally, I feel the government could take that away by punishing people who operate using rogue waves, so, why not work together and get it right in our existing society and infrastructure.
Yes. The underlying systemic issues do not get addressed or solved by "well let's just get to the next tech revolution first", that is simply a lazy idyllic 'solution' for those who don't think through their proposals.
In this case, meshnets would likely be lobbied into only being operable by licensed entities as radio waves are now.
- Lobby to quickly fabricate and sell appropriate talking points (ensure some anti-terrorism or anti-CP laws in there to gain mass support) to congress and the media
- catch a few mesh operators and bring the hammer down on them, quickly making an example that kills off support for the niche community
- provide the alternative; enumerable 'licensed' operators to exist that sap demand for unregulated comms ('not worth the effort' or consequences of point 2) and maintain the same (or likely evolved - there'd probably be a smarter way to profiteer off meshnets than trying to meter mesh devices for 'fastlanes' but maybe they'd start there) regulations that maintain your profit margin
And there goes your 'fix'.
The reality is that whatever technology you develop, the monkeys with big sticks will always be able to skewer you, so it's up to you and everyone to collectively agree what we decide are skewerable offenses, not merely to say 'well let's just get to the iron age first so we don't have to worry about it'.
Unfortunately that would require people's money and time. We'd also have to put our differences aside about each other and work for the greater good. A person is reasonable, people are dumb.
I often see a lot of people signing silly things like petitions.
I've got two towers that I can get to and put systems up on. One in Newark, NJ and the other in Montclair, NJ. I've been emailing different mesh networks attempting to get someone to tell me what to put up to be part of their network and no one is interested.
I'm working on altheamesh.com. The idea is to allow routers in mesh networks to collect payments in a decentralized, ownerless way. I'm hoping to start doing some testing of it in the next couple of years. Email me at jehan@altheamesh.com.
> Why don't these 800 startups...start a...network?
It just isn't that simple.
Your solution is for a minority to create an infrastructure that covers the entire continental US. Essentially what you are asking is for a "hacker"-founded Verizon.
Basically, unintended consequences. That there's a risk that it accidentally outlaws something that will be truly beneficial to the internet. The internet is still young - it's arrogant to presume that we know enough about what the next 20 years will bring.
It's perfectly plausible that 50 (? whenever) years ago when cable providers were awarded geographical monopolies in exchange for providing coverage that it made sense in the context of the day and wasn't quite the crony backroom deal it's made out to be today.
Generalized "unintended consequences" is, inasmuch as it can be used as an argument, always an argument against changing status quo policy, even when the change is superficially a reversion to status quo ante policy (because path-dependent signalling effects are one important source of unintended consequences.)
Evidence of specific consequences of the status quo policy (unintended or not) may be an argument for policy change, but unintended consequences potentially are in play with every policy change.
Yes, unintended consequences are in play with every policy change (not just 'potentially') and they are never considered nearly enough, which is the reason there are so many bad laws (and regulations and whatnot) on the books. People are way too eager to accept that a given change merely brings the benefits that the proponents promise with no downsides.
Interestingly in the case of net neutrality, it is relevant to keep in mind that the status quo is pretty good, having provided home markets for a very large number of the world's most successful internet companies. ISPs by and large are not doing the things that net neutrality prohibits. Netflix is exactly the kind of service that cable companies should want to shut down, but it's alive, well and extremely successful (Verizons peering shenanigans aren't to my best understanding covered by net neutrality). Early YouTube famously thrived on pirated content, which would even give cable companies a semi-legal cover for filtering them, but that didn't happen. The things that are wrong with the status quo are things that aren't addressed by net neutrality: connections are crappy and expensive. But crappy, expensive connections are fine under net neutrality, as long as they are neutrally crappy.
So, basically, none of the intended consequences of net neutrality does much more than perpetuate the status quo. But it adds a large body of new rules that nobody knows what could be used for, and God knows the US has its fair share of creative lawyers. I'm thinking about stuff like getting DMCA safe haven overturned on the back of some ambiguous phrasing written in the 1970s with phone lines in mind.
But hey, nobody says anything will happen. Nothing remarkable did for the past two years. Phonelines are regulated under the same regulations, and it's not obvious that anyone are missing out because of it.
Not 'made out to be', is today. A baseless argument for 'plausibility' about something you weren't around to experience 50 ("(? whenever)") years ago is one thing, but doesn't support taking a similar complacent head-in-the-sand approach in the modern day.
The progenitor of a given practice doesn't actually matter when its implications w.r.t. your actual system begin with some person learning about it deciding to use it to better their position. Modern day barons don't actually have to care about or hail the world of yesteryear that created the mechanisms by which they grow or maintain their wealth; getting hung up on them is as pointless as hanging onto precedent for its own sake.
I don't believe we've arrived at some kind of maximum level of understanding that means that we're better suited for making decisions with impact decades into the future. Sure, we've learned something things, but there are plenty of things to be wrong about still. When everybody agrees, somebody's not paying attention, as they say.
I used the cable monopoly decisions as an analogy, not because it's important as the progenitor of a practice. Back then, I'm sure reasonable people were convinced that it was a good deal, but the deal didn't foresee the internet, yet we're still stuck with it.
I think the argument is that certain services warrant a faster internet pipeline. Doctors performing remote surgeries, scientific collaborations, emergency services...etc. But the problem ultimately comes down how to make the distinction between essential vs non-essential.
> Is there a single good argument for removing net neutrality?
I think it's relatively unknown among the public. Techies are trying to raise awareness among public and politicians while content lobbyists are angling from the other side.
If the public agrees with lobbyists, then they won't factor this issue into their votes. However, if they make a stink, politicians will take note and make sure they end up on the right side of their constituents.
You can thank our democracy for the flood of propaganda on both sides of this issue.
I don't think there's much argument for privatization, but I don't doubt that content lobbyists are trying to make one a la "free market" and "I should be able to do what I want".
That's not an argument, it's a statement of ideology. You might believe it, but it's not going to convince anyone who doesn't share your premise that less regulation is always better.
Many people believe that regulations can create something far closer to the economic ideal of a Free Market than property rights alone. For example, food labelling regulation arguably moves the market closer to perfect information, which is a necessary feature of an idealised Free Market.
But is that an inherent problem with regulation? Or with the way they're created in (e.g.) the US?
Also, regulatory capture can lead to regulation that causes market inefficiency, but (if you accept my previous argument) lack of regulation may also cause market inefficiency (e.g. due to obfuscated product information) so it's not necessarily better.
If nutrition facts regulations went away tomorrow, I suspect the market would enforce their existence anyway.
I think consumers want to know what is in the food they're eating, so you would get many startups who study what makes something healthy, or finding cheaper ways to list calories and ingredients, instead of listening to the government telling you about the food pyramid etc.
Even if customers deem it too expensive to pay for the nutrition facts, then how do you or others gain the right to intervene in a voluntary act between two people?
This is demonstrably false as we've already seen companies fight against regulations that force them to provide information about products (like country of origin or GMO labeling). The companies actually argue that giving the consumer more information puts them at a disadvantage because consumers might be misinformed about the implications of this new information, e.g. "GMOs are bad, so I won't buy them".
For the record, I think the argument is correct, I just don't think it justifies concealing the information, people should be able to use whatever arbitrary or incorrect criteria they please when it comes to how they spend their money.
>If nutrition facts regulations went away tomorrow, I suspect the market would enforce their existence anyway.
Yes, because people are used to it now, so they'd be suspicious of products omitting them. Nonetheless, I suspect even that would slowly be eroded over time.
>you would get many startups who study what makes something healthy
You have plenty of diet purveyors telling you what to eat now. Most of them are not particularly evidence-based, and many of them are straight up wrong, but people listen to them and they make money regardless. People have little way to judge their accuracy.
The problem is that large infrastructure based industries like the internet are very vulnerable to monopolies or oligopolies. That is clearly the case with the internet and it is getting worse with the infrastructure owners are buying the content companies.
When oligopolies own the infrastructure needed for other companies to innovate then that is exactly where the government needs to step in to prevent them from abusing their position to stifle innovation. That move actually protects the free market.
> Do you know how they become oligopolies, by using regulation
Perhaps. Without any regulation, what we might consider criminal activity increases.
> Government should just help by removing barriers. Let there be innovation in ISP space
Not sure I would call content silos "innovation"
It isn't true that any and all regulation is bad, nor is it true that it's all good. We've chosen to make some laws as a society over which we will punish law-breakers for thousands of years. We just need to decide how to approach net neutrality in 2017 and make the best choice for increasing quality of life.
Yup, but that's not what this net nuetrality removal will do - it keeps the regulations that give monopoly positions possible, while removing regulations that prevented certain abuses.
I'm in favor of removing some regulations here. I'm not in favor of calling all regulation removals good.
As a libertarian, I am disappointed in the appeal to ideology here.
We aren't talking about regulations in general. We are talking about one specific regulation.
To bring up an ideology as an argument against something specific is to disregard any productive conversation about the topic.
I am a libertarian, and therefore, in general, abhor regulation. I am also a realist. This regulation is necessary in the reality in which you and I preside.
I have yet to hear any actual argument (not an appeal to ideology) - for me to agree or disagree with - stated in opposition to net neutrality.
Adam Smith thought that the free market was termed as such because it is free from the control of its participants. The 'free' market isn't very free for those certain labourers, especially in those developing countries. It isn't 'free' for those most people who cannot accumulate sufficient capital without putting their life on the line. It isn't 'free' for the people who have no way to get clean water without paying exorbitant amounts for it.
The 'free market' being good is a myth. It's only free for the owners of private property.
In my opinion this statement is false when it comes to regulations that limit the ability of monopolies to form.
Monopolies have been a well-proven failure point of capitalism, in that monopolies have the ability to also stifle competition in itself. A large point of net neutrality, as I understand it, is to hinder monopolistic-style traffic shaping that might potentially stifle upstarts.
Already the situation with high speed Internet is pretty bad in this nation -- with few choices in many locations (sometimes only one!), America has one of the highest cost high speed Internet networks among developed nations; high speed Internet providers often are ranked very poorly when it comes to customer service.
There is an argument for metered usage, which is non-neutrality of resource usage by quantity, not kind. I think the activists should cede this point if they want to strengthen their case.
As far as I'm aware, few people talking about Network Neutrality were ever talking about metered usage? The concern has always been about traffic discrimination based on destination.
Indeed, even QoS optimisations need not violate Network Neutrality if done in a destination neutral way, e.g. using the IP QoS flags. You could offer someone 1Mbit of dedicated low latency bandwidth out of their normal higher bandwidth connection, and let them use it however they want.
People signing letters should donate money to politicians' campaign with letters to those politicians advocating specific legislation. That legislation might also have compromises that consider all parties or at least concretely show benefit to them. Alternatively, convince rich people and profitable businesses to donate as well.
1. Should a school or workplace be allowed to block specific websites? Why shouldn't ISPs be allowed to?
2. Should cable providers be forced to distribute 100% of channels? Why should we apply a different standard to a different protocol?
3. Should toll-free telephone number be banned?
4. Should ISPs charge for data used to check your balance or account statement? Should phone companies bill the minutes used to call their customer services?
5. Should ISPs be allowed to cache arbitrary content on their servers to reduce their loads (e.g., Netflix movies), and distribute the savings to their users?
6. Should a taxi driver be allowed not to serve specific neighborhoods, or should they be forced to serve 100% of neighborhoods?
7. Should posting a letter to someone in the same city cost the same as posting a letter to someone in a different country?
8. Should ISPs that implement their own proprietary protocol as an alternative to the Internet be forced to be neutral as well?
9. Should restaurants be forced to serve both Pepsi and Coca-Cola?
10. Should Netflix be able to reduce your subscription price when used through a specific ISP?
11. Should toll roads be allowed?
12. Should a workplace be able to reimburse bandwidth fees associated with the use of their VPN?
13. Should web hosts (e.g., Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, Heroku, etc) be neutral as well? Should Amazon charge the same fees to all of their customers (including themselves)?
14. What should be done about small startups that can't handle all the incoming traffic? Should some other regulation subsidize their hosting cost so that they can compete with larger competitors?
15. How many new laws and regulations will be required (if they don't already exist) just to address the above examples? Wouldn't these laws and regulations only make it more difficult for startups to emerge and compete with the so-called monopolies?
1. Yes (to the first question). Because they operate at different layers of the internet stack. ISPs operate at lower layers of the stack than the school. If you fail to see how these are incompatible, please consider the following: Should you be able to choose where your electricity goes to (phone charger, tv, fridge, etc...) ? Why shouldn't your electricity provider be allowed this freedom ?
2. No (to the first question). Cable television works (conceptually) in a fundamentally different way from the internet. The provider must define its own set of protocols with each channel/network and price accordingly. The internet is distributed and free by default, there is an agreement on a common set of protocols and content gets served through these mostly in a federated way. This is different from having to establish a contract with each studio/channel and create your own offer (which is not how the internet was designed and intended to work, please read up on the physical layer alternative implementations).
Also taking your argument one notch up: different protocols usually mean that you need to consider a different approach and abstraction/standard. Do not expect good things if you treat all protocols with the same standard.
3. No. Reason: The telephone network works in a different way than the way/purpose of the internet. Public switched circuit networks like the telephone network have a inherent hierarchy that is typically not trivial to pass through hence the costs that used to associated with regional/international calls and the need to create toll free numbers for special use cases. Even though in a given time window the internet used to work on top of the telephone line its intention and design is of a higher-level, all the juicy stuff on the internet happens above the physical layer. Would you complain to your ISP if facebook was down ?
I don't have patience to answer the other points mostly because i feel that you didn't spend much time working/thinking on them and that possibly you don't really want them answered and are just trying to prove some void point while trying to avoid arguments. Please read up on history and technology and then rephrase them.
It's also attempting to argue by rhetorical questioning alone, rather than directly and honestly stating a position. I didn't downvote, but I find arguing in such an indirect way bad form and mildly disrespectful of the reader.
IMHO even a bad argument presented directly and honestly is better than a good argument that cowers behind questions.
But you've been an advocate of deregulation all over this thread. The barrier of entry to becoming an ISP is high. A sort of compromise is to use sensible regulation to protect users from the active players. The keyword here is sensible, because I don't care for government mandated regulations. I do recognize that they are necessary. Profits (among other things) cloud judgement, and there are some ruthless, despicable people running companies.
Unless a company with lots of expendable income is going to enter the market as a competitor, there won't be very many new ISPs that can offer more than aDSL speeds. Most US communities have one or two local ISP outside of the cable company and teleco providers like Time Warner and AT&T. The speeds are only good for people who check email and don't mind watching video at 480p. The other is satellite with similar speeds at even higher prices.
I edited my comment. The key takeaway from the edit was sensible regulation.
To answer your question though, no. It was misused infrastructure that was basically given away to telecos. Instead of sharing it like a utility, they took it and ran with it.
I don't at all agree with GP's point, but "the infrastructure being given away" is, objectively, an instance of regulation. Laws were passed, government bureaucracy was involved, papers were signed in triplicate.
If we're really on the regulation-is-bad-mmkay train, then also on the chopping block needs to be franchise agreements, agreements where high-density housing buildings can only use one provider, and so on.
My guess is because people regard the shotgun questionnaire as a rhetorical tactic that burdens the responder with having to extrapolate the intended position that the questions are written to draw out, while simultaneously leaving a vacuum of supporting arguments to justify the analogies explored by the questions, as if the implied argument is so rock-solid that it requires no bolstering, convincing or exposition. This effect is compounded by the fact that some of the questions are clearly poor comparisons (e.g. the comparison between an organization that chooses to filter content within the confines of its network vs an ISP monopoly restricting a paying customer's access to legal content - no matter which way you come down on the question, they are clearly totally different scenarios)
Because people use the down-vote button to express disagreement.
I wish they didn't, but as far as I can tell it's not explicitly against the guidelines, so what can you do really.
I don't agree with GP (as in, I'm pro-neutrality) but there are interesting points there that stir the free-market-ist in me. On some level I think 'let them' and I'll vote with my money.
However, I don't think that will actually work, it doesn't seem to be working with mobile phones even on price of text/voice/data; never mind data-neutrality.
1. Should a school or workplace be allowed to block specific websites? Why shouldn't ISPs be allowed to?
Citizens aren't children.
2. Should cable providers be forced to distribute 100% of channels? Why should we apply a different standard to a different protocol?
Yes, cable provide a broadcast platform. Internet is a communication platform.
3. Should toll-free telephone number be banned?
No. It's an established practice, and not too many people have a problem with it.
4. Should ISPs charge for data used to check your balance or account statement? Should phone companies bill the minutes used to call their customer services?
I think the reasonable answer is No.
5. Should ISPs be allowed to cache arbitrary content on their servers to reduce their loads (e.g., Netflix movies), and distribute the savings to their users?
Ideally as long as they have the permission of the content holder.
6. Should a taxi driver be allowed not to serve specific neighborhoods, or should they be forced to serve 100% of neighborhoods?
A taxi driver can stay in a certain neighbourhood. The taxi industry should not impose some neighbourhoods.
7. Should posting a letter to someone in the same city cost the same as posting a letter to someone in a different country?
Yes as it's a physical transfer, and requires personnal effort. Bits on the wire don't cost more to transport across the world.
8. Should ISPs that implement their own proprietary protocol as an alternative to the Internet be forced to be neutral as well?
No. This is already seen with something like Skype, which tries to woo customers to it's platform. TCP/IP is what should be neutral.
9. Should restaurants be forced to serve both Pepsi and Coca-Cola?
The reasonable answer is of course they should not be forced. I hope you'll compare this answer to should hospitals be allowed to only recommend one brand of a drug?
10. Should Netflix be able to reduce your subscription price when used through a specific ISP?
I could be convinced either way I think.
11. Should toll roads be allowed?
Yes. And you may also change me for internet. You may not discriminate against or for some car brands.
12. Should a workplace be able to reimburse bandwidth fees associated with the use of their VPN?
I'm afraid I don't understand this.
13. Should web hosts (e.g., Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, Heroku, etc) be neutral as well? Should Amazon charge the same fees to all of their customers (including themselves)?
No. ISPs may also try charging customers farther from the ocean pipes larger fees.
14. What should be done about small startups that can't handle all the incoming traffic? Should some other regulation subsidize their hosting cost so that they can compete with larger competitors?
The startup has to handle scaling issues, and expand their infrastructure. No, they may not be subsidized.
15. How many new laws and regulations will be required (if they don't already exist) just to address the above examples? Wouldn't these laws and regulations only make it more difficult for startups to emerge and compete with the so-called monopolies?
Honestly, a simple one page net-neutrality law will suffice. This will almost definitely allow more startups to flourish as their traffic is not discriminated for or against other vendors.
Thank you for the exhaustive list of scenarios, as this has provided a generous perspective.
These are some really interesting questions. I think a lot of these depend on how you think of the internet. I think of it as a utility that is required for a true equal shot at a good life in america. Let me take a crack at your questions:
1) I assume you are speaking of primary school, in which case yes, because they are serving children that cannot be relied on to make good decisions. That said Libraries primary users are adults and children under adult supervision, in which case no they should not be filtered, but depending on what you do there could be consequences.
2) No, because cable is not a required for success in the same way the internet is.
3) No, see above.
4) Interesting question, but it is really a straw-man because it is so trivial. I would say no, internet providers should be required to treat all bytes the same.
5) This is interesting, but seems more like a content owning question then a net neutrality question. I personally don't think caching has anything to do with how you treat the bytes going across the wire.
6) Yes i do, and that is because there are different costs to serving different neighborhoods, where there are virtually no differential costs between bytes of data.
7) Net neutrality doesn't specify how much you can charge, just that all bytes are treated the same.
8) If it is a private network then i don't think it would be considered a utility. If it becomes a required monopoly (kind of like a foundation patent) then yes.
9) I don't understand this analogy. Coke and Pepsi are luxury goods goods that are physical that are sold in non-monopolistic industries.
10) Sure, but the ISP should charge and treat netflix bytes the same as other similar bytes.
11) Yes, but when they are essential they should treat all similar cars (packets) the same
12) I am not sure how this relates as long as VPN packets are treated the same by the network infrastructure i don't care who pays for the access to that infrastructure.
13) Yes, they should treat all packets the same when they go over the network.
14) I am not sure i understand this one. If they don't have the infrastructure to handle the incoming bytes that is different then the core internet infrastructure. But if you are talking about a small ISP then i think they should still be required to treat all bytes the same, now they could limit the number of bytes a customer purchases, but not they type.
15) i think a simple net neutrality law will prevent lots of special case laws. Just treat all packets the same, period.
As a well-known start-up founder I know likes to say, to paraphrase:
I like regulations because they're guidelines that help us operate in the best interests of ourselves and the public. And they prevent our competitors from acting immorally or dangerously to get a business advantage (which might force us to have to take either make the same immoral/dangerous moves or shut down).
Bad regulations are bad, of course, but regulations empower businesses when applied correctly.
You have more control over your government than you have over Uber or AirBnB -- especially if you're not a customer of either of those businesses. The government is (ideally) merely a voice of all of the people.
Transportation and housing (for example) are parts of the critical infrastructure of a community. Allowing decisions about those things to be made entirely by the (relatively wealthy and mono-cultural) owners and customers of those businesses is unfair to the other people affected by those businesses. Hence regulation.
Which, again: There are bad and stupid regulations. Of course. But regulations are useful tools, overall.
True, however we don't live in an ideal world. We need to take our society into consideration. Where Rich have more say in the government. This can be remedied by government having less say in my life.
> We need to take our society into consideration. Where Rich have more say in the government.
These two ideas are at odds. The rich are doing fine for themselves. The people we need to go out of our way to make sure we're helping is the less wealthy and the less powerful. That's whom the government should be advocating for.
But in balance. Businesses need to be allowed to flourish, as well.
And, by the way, you benefit greatly by having the government have a say in your life.
[Edit: I believe I misinterpreted the bit of text I quoted from you. Apologies on that. But my general comment stands.]
That's certainly not true if the disempowering of government only occurs in those areas of government where the rich are pushing for it because of how it constrains their power.
It might not be true generally, either, say if the advantage wealth provides outside of government is greater than the advantage it provides in government. That rich have disproportionate influence in government doesn't mean they don't have even more disproportionate influence outside of it.
Have you considered the root cause as to why the "people making those regulations" seem to be compromised? What do you know about the influence of big money in government?
How is asking for a free market hypocritical? Most U.S. households have a single broadband option and the large ISPs have already demonstrated that they are willing to abuse their network control to attack services like Netflix when their own services aren't competitive.
Internet service is one of those areas where you can only free up one market by limiting another. You create an even playing ground for internet companies and users by heavily regulating ISPs.
I'm not a fan of either side to be honest - I think efforts should be made to make it easier to enter the ISP market so that competition and consumer choice forces competition between ISPs to provide the best service.
What market is being limited in a natural monopoly? “Market” is commonly used with the implication that multiple sellers exist and the buyer can choose any or none, all of which is unlike the ISP situation for millions of people.
What I think makes the most sense is going back to what we had with DSL: require the owner of the cable to the house to provide access at cost, allowing competition for the higher level services.
ISPs aren't a natural monopoly - trunk cables are. I can see a good case for having those be federally owned and managed if they aren't at the moment - I can't really speak to the US situation at that level because I'm from the UK and most cables are owned by BT who lease access to other ISPs.
Net neutrality isn't free market. I am not saying it's bad -- but I am saying that a private ISP being forced to do something isn't free market at all.
Net neutrality is a solution to the wrong problem. The real problem is lack of real ISP competition in many areas. If there were actually a free market with ISPs, then consumers could pick the service that delivers data in a way that is pleasing to them.
Please read up on the difference between a free person and a free market. A market is free when all participants (both buyers and sellers) have equal power. Large businesses and corporations skew that balance because of their size, so regulation is a necessity to ensure that free market.
I believe ISPs should be able to offer services as they wish. Same as Uber with Taxi regulations, Amazon with sales tax and BnB with hotel regulations. Demand for more government regulation from one of the main proponents of free market is weird.
We should make easier for people to start ISPs. Not add more regulation and increase barriers.
However, let's be clear, some of those calling for more "free market" actually don't want more free market at all -- they want more government regulation and control. A free market, by definition, is a market definite by minimal regulation and the ease of entry and exit.
Imagine what'd be if every single road and water pipe was ran by private company for profit without oversight.
Internet needs to be treated like infrastructure, because that's what is, both to service consumers and providers.
There are many ways to have private company to profit over infrastructure if they so chose it, but having a guaranteed baseline would resolve most issue about having to regulate private companies or stifling innovation. I.e. there could be private pipes with state subsidized access having guaranteed QOS. There could be public pipes with state renting access to private companies.
There are plenty solution, but the issue is that public can't lobby for what benefits them and deep pocket can and will buy legislation.