3 ms·

By "open internet" they mean, "open to becoming monopolized" or "open to the highest bidder".

LoonyBalloony 9y ago
ISPs (at least around where I live) pretty much are already a monopoly. Can you tell me how this is will be worse then our current situation?
- pdelbarba 9y ago
  The aspect of this that people are mostly taking issue with is the ability for ISPs to try to extort money from hosts and more money from users by throttling traffic if they don't pay. The famous example is when Comcast attempted to force Netflix to pay more for the distribution bandwidth that they use (not the upload bandwidth necessarily, but the load that Netflix was imposing as users downloaded streams). This resulted in Comcast throttling data from netflix servers until some sort of deal was reached. The legislation this proposal would remove protects consumers from this behavior.
- idbehold 9y ago
  Comcast/NBC will be able to put things like Hulu in the "fast lane" and other services like Netflix will not. Unless of course Netflix is willing to pay Comcast/NBC more. In which case the ISP will be able to charge twice for the same service. The consumer pays the ISP to access the internet, and the service pays the ISP to deliver their content to the user.
- thomastjeffery 9y ago
  That fact is the basis for the problem. Net neutrality prevents ISPs from abusing their customers. Without net neutrality, the free market must react by creating alternatives. Since these ISPs are essentially monopolies, the free market cannot react.
  - LoonyBalloony 9y ago
    Thanks for the ELI5! :-)
jacquesm 9y ago
Romania is fantastic in this respect. Somehow during the first decade the government didn't take this internet thing all too serious resulting in a decade long free-for-all when it came to internet providers. You can have incredible speeds for very little money there.
- nebabyte 9y ago
  I've been correlating this sort of anecdata with countries that meet other metrics I'd ideally have met on nomadlist (its 'internet metrics' don't really go into granularities like cost, net freedoms, or so on), I'll add Romania to the running list. Thanks

ISPs (at least around where I live) pretty much are already a monopoly. Can you tell me how this is will be worse then our current situation?

pdelbarba 9y ago
The aspect of this that people are mostly taking issue with is the ability for ISPs to try to extort money from hosts and more money from users by throttling traffic if they don't pay. The famous example is when Comcast attempted to force Netflix to pay more for the distribution bandwidth that they use (not the upload bandwidth necessarily, but the load that Netflix was imposing as users downloaded streams). This resulted in Comcast throttling data from netflix servers until some sort of deal was reached. The legislation this proposal would remove protects consumers from this behavior.
idbehold 9y ago
Comcast/NBC will be able to put things like Hulu in the "fast lane" and other services like Netflix will not. Unless of course Netflix is willing to pay Comcast/NBC more. In which case the ISP will be able to charge twice for the same service. The consumer pays the ISP to access the internet, and the service pays the ISP to deliver their content to the user.
thomastjeffery 9y ago
That fact is the basis for the problem. Net neutrality prevents ISPs from abusing their customers. Without net neutrality, the free market must react by creating alternatives. Since these ISPs are essentially monopolies, the free market cannot react.
- LoonyBalloony 9y ago
  Thanks for the ELI5! :-)

jacquesm 9y ago

Romania is fantastic in this respect. Somehow during the first decade the government didn't take this internet thing all too serious resulting in a decade long free-for-all when it came to internet providers. You can have incredible speeds for very little money there.

nebabyte 9y ago
I've been correlating this sort of anecdata with countries that meet other metrics I'd ideally have met on nomadlist (its 'internet metrics' don't really go into granularities like cost, net freedoms, or so on), I'll add Romania to the running list. Thanks