11 ms·
Because of the massive amount of consolidation over the last few years, the death of Net Neutrality would be the best competitive moat imaginable for Google, Fa
by confounded 10y ago
Because of the massive amount of consolidation over the last few years, the death of Net Neutrality would be the best competitive moat imaginable for Google, Facebook, Amazon, etc.
While all their CEOs will make faint noises in favor of Net Neutrality, SV outspends Wall Street 2:1 on lobbying[1], the goal of which is to cement monopoly status, not to make the world a better place. Most of it goes to Republicans.
Things have changed fast; Google's lobbying spend has increased by over 50% since the SOPA blackout.
The technology industry serves the interests of capital/share-holders, not technologists.
[1]: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-10-18/outspending-wall-street-2-to-1-silicon-valley-takes-washington https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-10-18/outspendi...
EDIT: "Google hardly even had lobbyists back during the SOPA blackout." > "Google's lobbying spend has increased by over 50% since the SOPA blackout." h/t DannyBee below.
- throwaway399 10y agoDepends on the company. Sometimes most of it goes to democrats: Google for ex - https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/lookup2.php?strID=C00428623 https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/lookup2.php?strID=C00428623 Microsoft also almost 2x to dems - https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.php?id=D000000115&lname=Microsoft+Corp https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.php?id=D000000115&l...
- NotreDev 10y agoAppropriate that I'm responding to "throwaway399": your perspective that monopoly support is partisan lacks an appropriate level of nuance.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- throwaway399 10y agoI was denying that it was partisan, not supporting the notion.
- confounded 10y agoYour links directly contradict you, and support my original point. Note that I'm talking about money from companies (most to Republicans) not the individuals that work for them (most to Democrats).
- throwaway399 10y agoI disagree with the company/individual distinction premise but even if you ignore individual contributions it's fairly even. Doesn't seem like a distinctly partisan issue.
- keebEz 10y agoBecause the best lobbyists play both sides of the aisle.
- throwaway399 10y agoPrecisely my point.
- cma 10y agoWould you also disagree with a company/labor union distinction?
- chimeracoder 10y ago> Would you also disagree with a company/labor union distinction? Labor unions are corporations, and corporations will fight for the corporation's interests. Those interests may align with the interests of their shareholders, but they may not always.
- guelo 10y agoI don't think that's right. It will be a major shift of power from Google/Facebook/Amazon to the ISPs. Comcast could charge Google or Facebook extortionate prices to keep their websites fast. Theoretically there would be nothing stopping Comcast from completely blocking a website. Cable vs TV channel negotiations periodically end up with blackouts for the channels.
- bo1024 10y agoAgreed. I don't think it would be good for consumers, but it wouldn't be very good for Google if every youtube video people watch buffers slowly and flickers, meanwhile $ISP has created a competing website that runs fine. Nor would it be good for Facebook if $ISP replaces all advertisements on their page with $ISP's own ads. (Hmm, I guess HTTPS should be able to prevent this?)
- jodrellblank 10y agomeanwhile $ISP has created a competing website that runs fine. It wouldn't be good for Google, but this seems as likely as an ISP beating SpaceX to the moon. It's hard enough to get an ISP to provide internet service most of the time.
- nol13 10y agoVirgin Galactic ain't out yet.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- bo1024 10y agoNetflix is an easier example. I know that Comcast Xfinity, for example, already offers a bunch of video streaming on demand, and more if you buy their TV subscription in addition to internet. So they already have a partial competitor to Netflix and Hulu, with a big incentive to mess with connections to those companies so people will use theirs instead.
- ComradeTaco 10y agoIt's funny because Google has been trying to break free of ISPs with Google Fiber. Unfortunately huge capital costs and regulatory capture by ISPs effectively torpedoed expansion plans. Now the head of the FCC, a former General Consul for Verizon, is adamentaly opposed to net neutrality.
- ABCLAW 10y agoThe notion that "Google hardly even had lobbyists back during the SOPA blackhout" is incorrect, at least in spirit. Google may have had less 'middle market' lobbying going on, but it is very well known that Eric Schmidt's relentless engagement in politics substantially predated SOPA.
- DannyBee 10y ago"Things have changed fast; Google hardly even had lobbyists back during the SOPA blackout. " Errr, the DC office had 100+ people at that point, so .... (IE i'm not sure why you think that, and given it's completely wrong, i'm going to go with 'you just have no idea what you are talking about')
- nnutter 10y agoIt was the rhetoric at the time and it might even be somewhat true, https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?id=D000022008&year=2011 https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?id=D00002200...
- DannyBee 10y agoDepends on how you define lobbyist, i guess, but that's the set of external folks, not internal ones. In any case, i was second person to start in the DC office (after the policy director), so i can assure you i know precisely how many people it had at working on government affairs/lobbying/etc at a given point in time :)
- confounded 10y agoThanks for pointing this out; fixed.
- mehaveaccount 10y ago> the death of Net Neutrality would be the best competitive moat imaginable for Google, Facebook, Amazon, etc. While all their CEOs will make faint noises in favor of Net Neutrality, SV outspends Wall Street 2:1 on lobbying[1], the goal of which is to cement monopoly status, not to make the world a better place. Most of it goes to Republicans. The leaders of Google, Facebook, Amazon, etc are NOT Republicans. Most of them are pro-immigration, pro-abortion, and pro-gay marriage.
- drewrv 10y agoMost of all, they are pro getting rich(er). They wouldn't be where they are today if that was not their top priority in life.
- jacquesm 10y agoIn fairness to some I believe the occasional stroke of luck does happen and people win fortune even if that was not the top priority in their lives.
- mehaveaccount 10y agoTrue, I always wonder what it must be like to be those billionaires because I would have retired after my first 10 million.
- omegaham 10y agoI think that if you have the drive to get to that point, you have a mindset that's not going to be satisfied with quitting. It's like the folks who work extremely hard at amateur sports. They're not going to be content with placing in the top 100. "Welp, I made the top 100. What a ride. Alright, I'm good. I'll keep cycling, but I'm not going to be training as hard anymore." They're looking at what they need to do to get into the top 50. Why does Paul Graham do what he does? He didn't even need to start Y Combinator. After Y Combinator had a bunch of success, he could have retired then, too. He's still plugging away. I assume he gets fulfillment from winning in a competitive marketplace, because he could, at any point, say, "Wait, why am I bothering with this? I'm rich!" The fact that he's still working is an indicator that for some people, work and business is just as fulfilling as, say, backpacking and weightlifting is for me.
- no_wizard 10y agoIndeed, to keep a monopoly on services, there are large tech companies that could benefit as long as the ISPs don't get overly greedy where large companies will pay their way to better access to consumers. Zero rating is effectively the easiest way to have a company do this. T-Mobile semi-popularized the concept as being a 'pro for consumers' (great marketing spin, John Legere). While, I will admit freely, that T-Mobiles implementation of zero rating is not the most aggressive form, and so far t-mobile's been transparent for how any company can become part of it, at least that is my understanding talking to those in the industry (its just an email: Bingeon@t-mobile.com, and they are willing to work with you on it is my understanding). In the long run, this kind of thing becoming acceptable opens the doors to less than savory practices. Will t-mobile eventually turn this into a screw they can turn to get more money out of content providers? Who knows. Its not regulated, transparent, or an open process. IE. If you argument is using this to manage the network (by only allowing 720p video streams, for instance, when watching videos online), why would fair, transparent, open, and a reasonably determined cost not be part of that? Zero rating as it gets implemented by comcast, for instance, is much more sinister. Either way, they get to take us for a ride. One thing I also find interesting: The new FCC chairman is all about de-regulating. Yet, the one thing he is not advocating is de-regulating open access rules to public utility infrastructure, IE, as this wired article explains: https://www.wired.com/2013/07/we-need-to-stop-focusing-on-just-cable-companies-and-blame-local-government-for-dismal-broadband-competition/ https://www.wired.com/2013/07/we-need-to-stop-focusing-on-ju... "The ‘open access’ term gets thrown around a lot as code for creating artificial competition among resellers of a monopoly service at government-controlled rates. There’s no better way to kill incentives for building out or upgrading new networks. But ‘open access’ really means promoting easy, inexpensive and open access to publicly owned rights-of-way" The FCC has the power to petition congress for the authority (and there are some legal experts who think the FCC already has the power to dictate this see here: https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-11-50A1.pdf https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-11-50A1.pd... also see the Telecommunications Act of 1996). I have seen NO movement toward increasing competition by stripping away unreasonable local regulations on rights of way access by Ajit Pai. He not once ever proposed this, and nor since taking FCC chain, made it an agenda item to do just this. This would increase competition astronomically if the right of way access situation was to be sorted out and streamlined, for open access and implementing firm open access rules (like 30 day auto approvals for projects if the objecting party does not respond before that). Though one might say, upon reading the telecom act of 1996 and say "Hey! it was suppose to give the authority!" well, it had one important caveat However, the 1996 Act permits utilities to deny access where there is insufficient capacity and for reasons of safety, reliability or generally applicable engineering purposes This gets abused, frankly, and the appeals process is rather non-existant and fighting it is very drawn out (companies sue each other over this clause all the time). If he wants real competition, this would go a long way in doing the right thing.
- dkarapetyan 10y agoThe best part is that it was all enabled by people who did not like politics and just enjoyed solving problems. Sometimes I wonder if focusing on technology is the technologist's equivalent of putting one's head in the sand.
- wsinks 10y agoYup. Starting to think it's time for us to learn.
- ori_b 10y ago> While all their CEOs will make faint noises in favor of Net Neutrality, SV outspends Wall Street 2:1 on lobbying[1], the goal of which is to cement monopoly status, not to make the world a better place. Most of it goes to Republicans. Trying to sway people who already agree with you with is a waste of time and money. Of course most of the money and lobbying effort goes towards convincing people on the 'other side'.