4 ms·

I hope you like paid priority lanes for big companies, less oversight of telecommunication company fees, data caps on home internet connections, huge telecom me

by coldpie 10y ago

I hope you like paid priority lanes for big companies, less oversight of telecommunication company fees, data caps on home internet connections, huge telecom mergers, and no regulation of the growing mobile industry, because that's what you're getting with Pai's FCC. You voted for fewer regulations, Americans, so you get fewer regulations. I hope you like the results. We've got another election this coming November. And another one next November. If you want consumer protection and some amount of oversight on big companies, turn out to vote every single year and kick the Republicans out of office.

emodendroket 10y ago
I think you're taking an awfully optimistic view of how much people understand or care about this issue.
- conistonwater 10y ago
  I don't understand your point. I think it's a general principle that the government is supposed to do a good job regardless of whether the issue at hand is well-understood by the public. It's a valid observation if somebody points out that the public was sold a bill of goods by the government.
  - emodendroket 10y ago
    My point is nobody is going to connect the dots and say "I can only access certain Web sites at certain speeds now... this is because of Trump's FCC guy gutting net neutrality" unless they already are keyed into and concerned with the issue in the first place.
  - ssharp 10y ago
    The point is getting the public to care about this stuff. I don't think the average person spends much time thinking about politics. I think most may see some stuff online or on TV but are largely locked into their beliefs. You probably have +1 std. dev. who "pays attention" to politics as a bit of a hobby and +2 std. dev who make it one of their top priorities. That still leaves a lot of people who care far less than the average person does. If you want to effect change in Washington, you either have to make people care more or find a candidate who people who don't care will still rally behind. I think both Trump and Obama fit that bill well but for much different reasons. edit: I wonder how it would play if during a debate, a candidate really drilled down into how the incumbent's policies negatively affected people in small ways they may not realize. This net neutrality thing may be one of them. "Your cable provider won't let you stream Netflix at full quality? That's Trump's fault".
- coldpie 10y ago
  Maybe in a general audience, but I'm speaking on HN, here. We all know what's at stake. Go Vote. Every Year. (Also, I actually heard a newspiece about this on my local public radio indie rock station last night, of all places. I think concern about it may be more widespread than you think.)
throwaway420 10y ago
To be fair these are very complex issues involving not only understanding technology and the complex industry rules and practices, complex government legislation at federal and local levels, but also economic incentive. But I believe that this common interpretation is completely backwards. In my view, most of the technology industry is unfortunately wrong about net neutrality and think it's something that totally benefits the little guy. It's not. Like most regulations, it's ostensibly built to help the little guy, but what it really does is screw them over and prevents them from competing. The biggest players like Google, Netflix, Facebook, etc either already have their own nationwide fiber networks or strongarmed ISPs into giving them free access or even hosting and get priority access for fastest service to end users. It's the startups and littlest guys that don't have this that need the ability to purchase/rent the equivalent to compete. What these regulations actually do in many cases is prevent these little guys from having even the opportunity to compete. Companies that already have lobbyists don't want this because they're already set. To be fair, I don't think the FCC can really improve the entire internet on their own because of local problems where various rules and regulations put in place have historically shut down ISP competition and you have limited providers in most areas. Until this is addressed, there's a distortion in the market that I don't think can completely be solved at the federal level.
- ajmurmann 10y ago
  I don't think this is a problem that is appropriate to solve via the market. At least not in its entirety. It's similar to why the freeway system or drinking water works well as a government run utility. There is little sense in having multiple companies build the same infrastructure, but if they don't they can't compete and we end up with monopolies. I really don't see any good reason why we treat Internet differently from electricity, water or roads.
  - throwaway420 10y ago
    a) You're sort of sidetracking here by making a statement about public goods theory and simply declaring that the internet is one. I respect your right to your belief, but you haven't really made a case why the internet is one here. b) I don't want to sidetrack too much from your own sidetrack, but there's a great deal of literature on the theory of public goods, why they don't actually exist, and why government isn't needed to create or manage them. Even if you want to argue that this isn't the case, I'm not sure how the internet would definitely be one. c) You're free to make an argument that you like things like the roads and water system. But do you really love them? Yeah, the freeway system kind of works, sure. The water system kind of works, sure. But it's not really flourishing, there's no market pricing on these things that truly eliminates waste (how many roads actually need to be built? Is overproduction of roads crowding more efficient means of travel like rail out of the market?), and innovation in these fields moves at a snails pace.
jfaucett 10y ago
> I hope you like the results. They probably will. If the economic study of the history of regulations has taught me anything its that deregulation coupled with stable governmental institutions has over the longterm, always led to better products, increased production, increased competition, more rapid innovation and more satisfied consumers. For a good study you need look no further than the histories of the FDA or even the FCC itself. As an example, assuming some deregulation occurs like the article says, I would expect to see a lot of different pricing models and products pop up. Do you want access to particular websites say, wikipedia, youtube and yahoo, well just pay $5 a month. Now you also don't need google anymore, so your service provider can partner with other search startups to offer you built in search functionality. Or perhaps you want the "no video plan" well that would be much cheaper than $20 a month, etc. It would actually be very interesting to see what new industries would crop up and which major players could be disrupted. 1. http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.159.6340&rep=rep1&type=pdf http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.159... 2. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2646905?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents http://www.jstor.org/stable/2646905?seq=1#page_scan_tab_cont... 3. http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/tpe.12.20061854 http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/tpe.12.2006...
- fn42 10y ago
  The crux of it is that competition is necessary though. Do cable companies in the US have any competition? I'd argue they do not
  - jfaucett 10y ago
    > Do cable companies in the US have any competition? No they do not. Yet, this is due to government regulation. If you'd like to read about the historical development of cable regulation this article provides a decent summary: http://www.uclalawreview.org/cracking-the-cable-conundrum-government-regulation-of-a-la-carte-models-in-the-cable-industry-2/ http://www.uclalawreview.org/cracking-the-cable-conundrum-go...
    - Jach 10y ago
jcoffland 10y ago
That's right blame the voters for the corruption of government. The idea that democracy would work if only it's citizens weren't so lazy is flawed. History has shown that the only action that reverts the inevitable march of governments, of any kind, towards corruption is revolution. Technology has made armed revolution impractical so we need a revolution of another kind.
rhino369 10y ago
>I hope you like paid priority lanes for big companies That already happens. What else would you call a CDN? Hell netflix gets a free fast lane at many ISPs via the open connect program. The same type of service a small start up would have to pay the ISP to get. Netflix gets it because it's a big company.
mistermann 10y ago
> I hope you like paid priority lanes for big companies, less oversight of telecommunication company fees, data caps on home internet connections, huge telecom mergers, and no regulation of the growing mobile industry, because that's what you're getting with Pai's FCC Do you have a link where Pai explicitly states that as his end goal, or plans to indiscriminately remove all regulations?

by coldpie 10y ago

emodendroket 10y ago

I think you're taking an awfully optimistic view of how much people understand or care about this issue.

conistonwater 10y ago
I don't understand your point. I think it's a general principle that the government is supposed to do a good job regardless of whether the issue at hand is well-understood by the public. It's a valid observation if somebody points out that the public was sold a bill of goods by the government.
- emodendroket 10y ago
  My point is nobody is going to connect the dots and say "I can only access certain Web sites at certain speeds now... this is because of Trump's FCC guy gutting net neutrality" unless they already are keyed into and concerned with the issue in the first place.
- ssharp 10y ago
  The point is getting the public to care about this stuff. I don't think the average person spends much time thinking about politics. I think most may see some stuff online or on TV but are largely locked into their beliefs. You probably have +1 std. dev. who "pays attention" to politics as a bit of a hobby and +2 std. dev who make it one of their top priorities. That still leaves a lot of people who care far less than the average person does. If you want to effect change in Washington, you either have to make people care more or find a candidate who people who don't care will still rally behind. I think both Trump and Obama fit that bill well but for much different reasons. edit: I wonder how it would play if during a debate, a candidate really drilled down into how the incumbent's policies negatively affected people in small ways they may not realize. This net neutrality thing may be one of them. "Your cable provider won't let you stream Netflix at full quality? That's Trump's fault".
coldpie 10y ago
Maybe in a general audience, but I'm speaking on HN, here. We all know what's at stake. Go Vote. Every Year. (Also, I actually heard a newspiece about this on my local public radio indie rock station last night, of all places. I think concern about it may be more widespread than you think.)

throwaway420 10y ago

To be fair these are very complex issues involving not only understanding technology and the complex industry rules and practices, complex government legislation at federal and local levels, but also economic incentive. But I believe that this common interpretation is completely backwards. In my view, most of the technology industry is unfortunately wrong about net neutrality and think it's something that totally benefits the little guy. It's not. Like most regulations, it's ostensibly built to help the little guy, but what it really does is screw them over and prevents them from competing. The biggest players like Google, Netflix, Facebook, etc either already have their own nationwide fiber networks or strongarmed ISPs into giving them free access or even hosting and get priority access for fastest service to end users. It's the startups and littlest guys that don't have this that need the ability to purchase/rent the equivalent to compete. What these regulations actually do in many cases is prevent these little guys from having even the opportunity to compete. Companies that already have lobbyists don't want this because they're already set. To be fair, I don't think the FCC can really improve the entire internet on their own because of local problems where various rules and regulations put in place have historically shut down ISP competition and you have limited providers in most areas. Until this is addressed, there's a distortion in the market that I don't think can completely be solved at the federal level.

ajmurmann 10y ago
I don't think this is a problem that is appropriate to solve via the market. At least not in its entirety. It's similar to why the freeway system or drinking water works well as a government run utility. There is little sense in having multiple companies build the same infrastructure, but if they don't they can't compete and we end up with monopolies. I really don't see any good reason why we treat Internet differently from electricity, water or roads.
- throwaway420 10y ago
  a) You're sort of sidetracking here by making a statement about public goods theory and simply declaring that the internet is one. I respect your right to your belief, but you haven't really made a case why the internet is one here. b) I don't want to sidetrack too much from your own sidetrack, but there's a great deal of literature on the theory of public goods, why they don't actually exist, and why government isn't needed to create or manage them. Even if you want to argue that this isn't the case, I'm not sure how the internet would definitely be one. c) You're free to make an argument that you like things like the roads and water system. But do you really love them? Yeah, the freeway system kind of works, sure. The water system kind of works, sure. But it's not really flourishing, there's no market pricing on these things that truly eliminates waste (how many roads actually need to be built? Is overproduction of roads crowding more efficient means of travel like rail out of the market?), and innovation in these fields moves at a snails pace.

jfaucett 10y ago

> I hope you like the results. They probably will. If the economic study of the history of regulations has taught me anything its that deregulation coupled with stable governmental institutions has over the longterm, always led to better products, increased production, increased competition, more rapid innovation and more satisfied consumers. For a good study you need look no further than the histories of the FDA or even the FCC itself. As an example, assuming some deregulation occurs like the article says, I would expect to see a lot of different pricing models and products pop up. Do you want access to particular websites say, wikipedia, youtube and yahoo, well just pay $5 a month. Now you also don't need google anymore, so your service provider can partner with other search startups to offer you built in search functionality. Or perhaps you want the "no video plan" well that would be much cheaper than $20 a month, etc. It would actually be very interesting to see what new industries would crop up and which major players could be disrupted. 1. http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.159.6340&rep=rep1&type=pdf http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.159... 2. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2646905?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents http://www.jstor.org/stable/2646905?seq=1#page_scan_tab_cont... 3. http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/tpe.12.20061854 http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/tpe.12.2006...

fn42 10y ago
The crux of it is that competition is necessary though. Do cable companies in the US have any competition? I'd argue they do not
- jfaucett 10y ago
  > Do cable companies in the US have any competition? No they do not. Yet, this is due to government regulation. If you'd like to read about the historical development of cable regulation this article provides a decent summary: http://www.uclalawreview.org/cracking-the-cable-conundrum-government-regulation-of-a-la-carte-models-in-the-cable-industry-2/ http://www.uclalawreview.org/cracking-the-cable-conundrum-go...
  - Jach 10y ago

jcoffland 10y ago

That's right blame the voters for the corruption of government. The idea that democracy would work if only it's citizens weren't so lazy is flawed. History has shown that the only action that reverts the inevitable march of governments, of any kind, towards corruption is revolution. Technology has made armed revolution impractical so we need a revolution of another kind.

rhino369 10y ago

>I hope you like paid priority lanes for big companies That already happens. What else would you call a CDN? Hell netflix gets a free fast lane at many ISPs via the open connect program. The same type of service a small start up would have to pay the ISP to get. Netflix gets it because it's a big company.

mistermann 10y ago

> I hope you like paid priority lanes for big companies, less oversight of telecommunication company fees, data caps on home internet connections, huge telecom mergers, and no regulation of the growing mobile industry, because that's what you're getting with Pai's FCC Do you have a link where Pai explicitly states that as his end goal, or plans to indiscriminately remove all regulations?