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I am strongly in favor of network neutrality, but this seems to me different in substance from the net neutrality issue. The ISP is not inhibiting or degradin

I am strongly in favor of network neutrality, but this seems to me different in substance from the net neutrality issue. The ISP is not inhibiting or degrading packets from non-favored services. The ISP is not trying to surreptitiously steer the customer to the ISP's preferred content by inhibiting or degrading non-preferred packets. The only thing changing is who is paying for the delivery, and the consumer can still make a conscious choice about whether to avail themselves of that offering. One might compare this to a new company "SeeAlltheFilms.com" sending out an offer such as, "We'll pay for your next month of internet service if you sign up for a one year contract". Same result: Customer still gets all packets delivered with the same priority; the only change is who pays for it.

dibujante 10y ago
Not really. Your example is a relationship between a content business and its customer. The conflict of interest that Net Neutrality is concerned with exists within the ISP. It's like SeeAlltheFilms.com getting a special deal with your ISP. Sure, it's still your choice to see it or not, but they'll probably get seen more now that they have that deal, and should making a deal with an ISP be the marketplace in which content providers compete, instead of creating great customer experiences?
- tzs 10y ago
  > Sure, it's still your choice to see it or not, but they'll probably get seen more now that they have that deal, and should making a deal with an ISP be the marketplace in which content providers compete, instead of creating great customer experiences? What if SeeAlltheFilms.com doesn't make a deal directly with the ISP, but still pays for some of the customer's data? They offer customers as a sign-up bonus for buying a one year membership to send them a prepaid data card from that mobile customer's wireless ISP that is loaded with enough to cover a typical month of the average customer's video viewing.
  - dibujante 10y ago
    They could pay for a month of your internet, or give you a gift card, or send you a physical gift, etc., and it wouldn't violate net neutrality, as long as there is no direct co-operation between the content provider and the ISP. So that month of internet would have to actually come out of SeeAllTheFilms.com's pocket, not be part of a deal with Rogers where Rogers swallows the loss when you subscribe to SeeAllTheFilms.com
- Treblemaker 10y ago
  > should making a deal with an ISP be the marketplace in which content providers compete That's a business issue, not a packet delivery issue. I guess I don't see how this threatens net neutrality as long as the business deal does not degrade the experience of ISP customers who choose not to participate, and does not give preferential treatment to that content provider's packets. > The conflict of interest that Net Neutrality is concerned with... And that conflict is specifically one in which connectivity with non-preferred providers is degraded and/or connectivity with preferred providers is given preferential treatment. That becoming such a "preferred" content provider also involves a business deal does not necessarily mean any business deal between an ISP and a content provider impinges upon net neutrality.
  - kpcyrd 10y ago
    But they are. You're using $randomStartup until you reach your data cap of (let's say) 2GB/month, after that your bandwidth gets (actively) throttled to 64kb/s and becomes virtually unusable. Usually this is normal because this happens for every website (ie "my internet is reduced"), but now imagine there's an elite of the major sites and services and users get used to that. How are you going to compete in a market where everybody else has zero rated traffic to their customers but you don't? For them everything else appears to be of low quality and broken. (ie "this service doesn't work right").
sigmar 10y ago
>The only thing changing is who is paying for the delivery, and the consumer can still make a conscious choice about whether to avail themselves of that offering. The customer is still paying for the delivery, even when it is zero-rated. It comes down to the fact that the ISP is incentivizing users to use the zero-rated service over its competitors.
- Treblemaker 10y ago
  > The customer is still paying for the delivery, even when it is zero-rated. I don't think I understand what you mean. If it doesn't count against their data limit, they're effectively not paying for it. > It comes down to the fact that the ISP is incentivizing users to use the zero-rated service over its competitors. Which is no different from any other company providing financial incentives for their customers to continue using their products. Net neutrality is about addressing secretive and coercive disincentives to use competing products. Conflating the Zero-Rating issue with NN dilutes the argument for NN.
  - sigmar 10y ago
    >If it doesn't count against their data limit, they're effectively not paying for it. Not true. If I stop paying for my ISP bills, I will no longer have access to those zero-rated services. >Conflating the Zero-Rating issue with NN dilutes the argument for NN. Every single Net Neutrality organization agrees that zero-rated data violates the principles of NN. You can think everyone else is wrong to be against zero-rated data, but you cannot argue that zero-rated is not a violation of NN when the people that created the concept of NN say it is. http://www.savetheinternet.com/blog/2016/03/01/how-wireless-carriers-are-messing-your-mobile-service http://www.savetheinternet.com/blog/2016/03/01/how-wireless-... https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/02/zero-rating-what-it-is-why-you-should-care https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/02/zero-rating-what-it-is...
  - fastball 10y ago
    Right, but you are assuming a world where everyone has the choice to pick any ISP. However, that's not the world we live in. Many people can only choose between one or two ISPs, which is partly what Net Neutrality is supposed to counter: it helps prevents this lack of competition from being exacerbated further.

dibujante 10y ago

Not really. Your example is a relationship between a content business and its customer. The conflict of interest that Net Neutrality is concerned with exists within the ISP. It's like SeeAlltheFilms.com getting a special deal with your ISP. Sure, it's still your choice to see it or not, but they'll probably get seen more now that they have that deal, and should making a deal with an ISP be the marketplace in which content providers compete, instead of creating great customer experiences?

tzs 10y ago
> Sure, it's still your choice to see it or not, but they'll probably get seen more now that they have that deal, and should making a deal with an ISP be the marketplace in which content providers compete, instead of creating great customer experiences? What if SeeAlltheFilms.com doesn't make a deal directly with the ISP, but still pays for some of the customer's data? They offer customers as a sign-up bonus for buying a one year membership to send them a prepaid data card from that mobile customer's wireless ISP that is loaded with enough to cover a typical month of the average customer's video viewing.
- dibujante 10y ago
  They could pay for a month of your internet, or give you a gift card, or send you a physical gift, etc., and it wouldn't violate net neutrality, as long as there is no direct co-operation between the content provider and the ISP. So that month of internet would have to actually come out of SeeAllTheFilms.com's pocket, not be part of a deal with Rogers where Rogers swallows the loss when you subscribe to SeeAllTheFilms.com
Treblemaker 10y ago
> should making a deal with an ISP be the marketplace in which content providers compete That's a business issue, not a packet delivery issue. I guess I don't see how this threatens net neutrality as long as the business deal does not degrade the experience of ISP customers who choose not to participate, and does not give preferential treatment to that content provider's packets. > The conflict of interest that Net Neutrality is concerned with... And that conflict is specifically one in which connectivity with non-preferred providers is degraded and/or connectivity with preferred providers is given preferential treatment. That becoming such a "preferred" content provider also involves a business deal does not necessarily mean any business deal between an ISP and a content provider impinges upon net neutrality.
- kpcyrd 10y ago
  But they are. You're using $randomStartup until you reach your data cap of (let's say) 2GB/month, after that your bandwidth gets (actively) throttled to 64kb/s and becomes virtually unusable. Usually this is normal because this happens for every website (ie "my internet is reduced"), but now imagine there's an elite of the major sites and services and users get used to that. How are you going to compete in a market where everybody else has zero rated traffic to their customers but you don't? For them everything else appears to be of low quality and broken. (ie "this service doesn't work right").

sigmar 10y ago

>The only thing changing is who is paying for the delivery, and the consumer can still make a conscious choice about whether to avail themselves of that offering. The customer is still paying for the delivery, even when it is zero-rated. It comes down to the fact that the ISP is incentivizing users to use the zero-rated service over its competitors.

Treblemaker 10y ago
> The customer is still paying for the delivery, even when it is zero-rated. I don't think I understand what you mean. If it doesn't count against their data limit, they're effectively not paying for it. > It comes down to the fact that the ISP is incentivizing users to use the zero-rated service over its competitors. Which is no different from any other company providing financial incentives for their customers to continue using their products. Net neutrality is about addressing secretive and coercive disincentives to use competing products. Conflating the Zero-Rating issue with NN dilutes the argument for NN.
- sigmar 10y ago
  >If it doesn't count against their data limit, they're effectively not paying for it. Not true. If I stop paying for my ISP bills, I will no longer have access to those zero-rated services. >Conflating the Zero-Rating issue with NN dilutes the argument for NN. Every single Net Neutrality organization agrees that zero-rated data violates the principles of NN. You can think everyone else is wrong to be against zero-rated data, but you cannot argue that zero-rated is not a violation of NN when the people that created the concept of NN say it is. http://www.savetheinternet.com/blog/2016/03/01/how-wireless-carriers-are-messing-your-mobile-service http://www.savetheinternet.com/blog/2016/03/01/how-wireless-... https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/02/zero-rating-what-it-is-why-you-should-care https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/02/zero-rating-what-it-is...
- fastball 10y ago
  Right, but you are assuming a world where everyone has the choice to pick any ISP. However, that's not the world we live in. Many people can only choose between one or two ISPs, which is partly what Net Neutrality is supposed to counter: it helps prevents this lack of competition from being exacerbated further.