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I agree with you on ISPs having control over the content is a bad idea. But I also urge you to consider that the pressure on lower price from customers and gove

by pavs 10y ago

I agree with you on ISPs having control over the content is a bad idea. But I also urge you to consider that the pressure on lower price from customers and government regulators are a real pain. There is a reason why ISP sector doesn't have a lot of competition (some of it has to do with strong-arming by existing market leaders in countries like the US) because it requires an insane amount of investment on infrastructure that constantly needs to be upgraded and maintaining last mile fibre can be a major pain in the ass (and expensive). Most ISPs don't start to see a return on their investment 10-15 years after the fact. There seems to be a lot of misconception about ISPs in general. I am an ISP owner and I wrote a small rant a few days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12691465 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12691465

drieddust 10y ago
Thanks it's good to understand other side of the table. Your experience actually validates my premise that big player are squeezing out smaller players. They can even run on a loss for years just to make it unattractive for smaller/newer player.
__jal 10y ago
> Most ISPs don't start to see a return on their investment 10-15 years after the fact. I think a fair amount of the anger at the huge ISPs is that they don't invest in many areas' infrastructure while raising rates, reducing the value of services by retroactively adding caps, and otherwise being exploitive in noncompetitive areas. AOLT&T (sorry, couldn't resist), in particular, is also well known to use threats of not expanding infrastructure as a political weapon, while Verizon is better known for pocketing billions in concessions while also not building infrastructure. But both do both. Now they want to confuse, and of course raise, your bill further, blurring fees for connectivity with content.

by pavs 10y ago

drieddust 10y ago

Thanks it's good to understand other side of the table. Your experience actually validates my premise that big player are squeezing out smaller players. They can even run on a loss for years just to make it unattractive for smaller/newer player.

__jal 10y ago

> Most ISPs don't start to see a return on their investment 10-15 years after the fact. I think a fair amount of the anger at the huge ISPs is that they don't invest in many areas' infrastructure while raising rates, reducing the value of services by retroactively adding caps, and otherwise being exploitive in noncompetitive areas. AOLT&T (sorry, couldn't resist), in particular, is also well known to use threats of not expanding infrastructure as a political weapon, while Verizon is better known for pocketing billions in concessions while also not building infrastructure. But both do both. Now they want to confuse, and of course raise, your bill further, blurring fees for connectivity with content.