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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?
by 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 agoThe 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 agoComcast/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 agoThat 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 agoThanks for the ELI5! :-)