> The FCC allows companies to throttle whatever they want, but requires all the data to be provided publicly, and they make press releases every so often specifying which companies throttle and which don't. That would solve your not knowing problem.
Ok, so we're back to regulating again? Do you want a free market or not? I don't understand how forcing companies to provide transparency data is not regulation. How is this any better in your eyes than forcing them to treat all data the same?
> In addition, in any location where a company is the sole provider, net neutrality applies, which would solve the problem of choices.
So regulation in some instances, but not in others. A known, well-established regulation is now much more complicated to a) understand and b) enforce.
> You also rule out the obvious loophole of having multiple related companies operating under different brands to get around this.
Much harder than it sounds, I believe.
Your solutions are band-aid fixes for the fact the the free market is not equipped to handle this problem. Not only that, but you are attempting to work around regulation by creating even more complicated regulations on top of the original.
When you have to jump through a tangled mess of hoops to get to a solution that has an obvious, simple answer then you are doing something wrong.
I just don't see what the big deal with regulation is. The only ones who get hurt by this are telecoms.
>Do you want a free market or not? I don't understand how forcing companies to provide transparency data is not regulation. How is this any better in your eyes than forcing them to treat all data the same?
I explained this in my other comment so I'll just paste it here:
>I did say I'm not opposed to all regulation. Free markets only work perfectly with perfect information, so I support almost any regulation that's about making information public. I've got no problem with forcing companies to put nutrition information on all their products, for example.
I'm not the one who's deciding on things solely based on whether they are regulation or not.
The reason this is better is because you're only forcing them to provide information, not change business practices.
>Not only that, but you are attempting to work around regulation by creating even more complicated regulations on top of the original.
I'm supporting making the info public, which is needed for markets to be truly free.
>When you have to jump through a tangled mess of hoops to get to a solution that has an obvious, simple answer then you are doing something wrong.
I went through some of the problems with the obvious answer above.
>The only ones who get hurt by this are telecoms.
I gave use-cases and reasons why a consumer might want it. Why are you ignoring those?
Allowing corporations to throttle traffic, while forcing them to be public about what they throttle, seems like an idea that would work in theory but at the same time quite taxing on the consumer. Click-through EULAs are all public, but how many people read them? It just seems like a business practice that ISPs will exploit and obfuscate, and most customers will sign on to them not knowing exactly how or why their data gets throttled.
If customers don't care enough, that's also a choice. Apparently enough people care about this to make all this media and petition noise; those people could care enough to look up the info. Probably the EFF or such would come out with a helpful infographic showing the Good ISPs vs the Bad ones.
I think that framing this around "consumers" is not the main point here. If you think that those that benefit are only in a buy-and-sell negotiation, a free market is very appealing.
What we are doing here in Brazil regarding the upcoming regulations on the Internet and data protection [0] is to frame it around human rights issues -- freedom of expression and press freedom are the main ones.
The existence and action of governments is only justifiable for me to keep people from hurting each other too much, and preventing abusive power relationships. I believe current net neutrality issues are one of those situations.
Ok, so we're back to regulating again? Do you want a free market or not? I don't understand how forcing companies to provide transparency data is not regulation. How is this any better in your eyes than forcing them to treat all data the same?
> In addition, in any location where a company is the sole provider, net neutrality applies, which would solve the problem of choices.
So regulation in some instances, but not in others. A known, well-established regulation is now much more complicated to a) understand and b) enforce.
> You also rule out the obvious loophole of having multiple related companies operating under different brands to get around this.
Much harder than it sounds, I believe.
Your solutions are band-aid fixes for the fact the the free market is not equipped to handle this problem. Not only that, but you are attempting to work around regulation by creating even more complicated regulations on top of the original.
When you have to jump through a tangled mess of hoops to get to a solution that has an obvious, simple answer then you are doing something wrong.
I just don't see what the big deal with regulation is. The only ones who get hurt by this are telecoms.