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Because that can't make you more money. The only reason why doing that would make sense if you want to purposely do harm at the cost of making profits. If UPS

Because that can't make you more money. The only reason why doing that would make sense if you want to purposely do harm at the cost of making profits. If UPS slows the packages of Amazon down because they're accepting money from Jet.com then they would be violating their consumer agreement with Amazon. If UPS provides faster delivery for Jet.com for higher fee, then Amazon's products would be delivered slower but cheaper, but Jet.com's products would be more expensive. Remember, speed isn't the only thing people care about on the Internet. Features and costs matter too. In a non-net neutrality world, faster == expensive, and there is no business model for ISPs where they can provide cheaper services AND provide faster delivery.

kevin_b_er 9y ago
You are looking at it the wrong direction. This is a model where average residential person is paying UPS to deliver all packages they ask for. But UPS has decided that jet.com must pay extra or their packages will be arbitrarily delayed vs amazon because UPS has invested in amazon. Then the customer cries foul because they thought they were paying for arbitrary package delivery. The government tried to say packages should be treated equally by treating the package delivery as the USPS, but UPS has paid off the party members to ensure they can continue to double dip. Also remember it isn't that a given company isn't paying for "priority" it is that they're going to be actively underprioritized unless they pay.
astrocat 9y ago
>In a non-net neutrality world, faster == expensive, and there is no business model for ISPs where they can provide cheaper services AND provide faster delivery. Wait... but ISPs CAN charge consumers for faster speeds. There are most definitely price/speed tiers of service. Net neutrality was about not allowing an ISP to artificially throttle the speed of individual services going over their pipes, not about throttling total connection speed for an end user based on price. The complexity seems to be that ISPs have 2 customers - end consumers, and content owners (to keep it simple). Comparisons to UPS aren't accurate because UPS contracts with ONE party - the shipper - for service. ISPs are contracting with both ends, and unless one side is neutral, they will be allowed to sell one thing but not provide it arbitrarily because some other party didn't also pay up. I can pay Comcast for gigabit access, but it isn't required to provide it to me at all because it can throttle any service it wishes. It's contract with me is purely to the curb. Imagine this scenario: I pay for access to a toll road that runs for a few miles through Houston, TX. However, because my final destination on my trip is Florida, and Florida doesn't pay the toll road operator a special fee, my car is magically restricted to 15 miles per hour. The toll road provider provider sold me a pass to access the road at full speed 75 mph, but can arbitrarily (and magically) limit my speed without notice or consent based on information that is really arbitrary to the toll road's existence: my final destination.
outsidetheparty 9y ago
> Because that can't make you more money. The only reason why doing that would make sense if you want to purposely do harm at the cost of making profits. Of course it can make you more money! You can charge your competitors rent to stay out of the slow lane, and you can make your own subsidiary services artificially preferable to consumers (and therefore more profitable) by throttling the competition's bandwidth. Your UPS analogy doesn't fit at all. UPS would have to own Jet, and Amazon would have to have no choice but to use UPS delivery for a large subset of its customers (remember that broadband service is an effective monopoly in large portions of the US). UPS would absolutely be able to slow down Amazon's packages, because that's what eliminating net neutrality literally means: ISPs are no longer required to treat all packets equally, they can pick and choose which traffic gets priority, and naturally they're going to prioritize their own, or those that have paid an extra tariff to get in the fast lane. Amazon's products would either be more expensive, because they're paying that tariff; or they'd have inferior delivery time. Either way, UPS profits, not because of the quality or speed of their service, but because they have the ability to degrade the quality of their competitors. In a non-net neutrality world, faster != expensive (at least not any more than is already the case). Consumer choice == expensive. "Faster" would remain under the control of the ISPs, exactly as it is right now.

kevin_b_er 9y ago

You are looking at it the wrong direction. This is a model where average residential person is paying UPS to deliver all packages they ask for. But UPS has decided that jet.com must pay extra or their packages will be arbitrarily delayed vs amazon because UPS has invested in amazon. Then the customer cries foul because they thought they were paying for arbitrary package delivery. The government tried to say packages should be treated equally by treating the package delivery as the USPS, but UPS has paid off the party members to ensure they can continue to double dip. Also remember it isn't that a given company isn't paying for "priority" it is that they're going to be actively underprioritized unless they pay.

astrocat 9y ago

>In a non-net neutrality world, faster == expensive, and there is no business model for ISPs where they can provide cheaper services AND provide faster delivery. Wait... but ISPs CAN charge consumers for faster speeds. There are most definitely price/speed tiers of service. Net neutrality was about not allowing an ISP to artificially throttle the speed of individual services going over their pipes, not about throttling total connection speed for an end user based on price. The complexity seems to be that ISPs have 2 customers - end consumers, and content owners (to keep it simple). Comparisons to UPS aren't accurate because UPS contracts with ONE party - the shipper - for service. ISPs are contracting with both ends, and unless one side is neutral, they will be allowed to sell one thing but not provide it arbitrarily because some other party didn't also pay up. I can pay Comcast for gigabit access, but it isn't required to provide it to me at all because it can throttle any service it wishes. It's contract with me is purely to the curb. Imagine this scenario: I pay for access to a toll road that runs for a few miles through Houston, TX. However, because my final destination on my trip is Florida, and Florida doesn't pay the toll road operator a special fee, my car is magically restricted to 15 miles per hour. The toll road provider provider sold me a pass to access the road at full speed 75 mph, but can arbitrarily (and magically) limit my speed without notice or consent based on information that is really arbitrary to the toll road's existence: my final destination.

outsidetheparty 9y ago

> Because that can't make you more money. The only reason why doing that would make sense if you want to purposely do harm at the cost of making profits. Of course it can make you more money! You can charge your competitors rent to stay out of the slow lane, and you can make your own subsidiary services artificially preferable to consumers (and therefore more profitable) by throttling the competition's bandwidth. Your UPS analogy doesn't fit at all. UPS would have to own Jet, and Amazon would have to have no choice but to use UPS delivery for a large subset of its customers (remember that broadband service is an effective monopoly in large portions of the US). UPS would absolutely be able to slow down Amazon's packages, because that's what eliminating net neutrality literally means: ISPs are no longer required to treat all packets equally, they can pick and choose which traffic gets priority, and naturally they're going to prioritize their own, or those that have paid an extra tariff to get in the fast lane. Amazon's products would either be more expensive, because they're paying that tariff; or they'd have inferior delivery time. Either way, UPS profits, not because of the quality or speed of their service, but because they have the ability to degrade the quality of their competitors. In a non-net neutrality world, faster != expensive (at least not any more than is already the case). Consumer choice == expensive. "Faster" would remain under the control of the ISPs, exactly as it is right now.