4 ms·

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 wi

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").

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").