12 ms·

More than 800 startups sign letter objecting to plans to kill net neutrality

219 points by ergo14 9y ago

rtx 9y ago
Startups asking for more regulation, very hypocritical of them. I understand need for regulation in mobile internet as it is a limited resource.
- scsh 9y ago
  Care to explain why this is hypocritical and why there shouldn't be any regulation around non-mobile internet?
  - rtx 9y ago
    I believe ISPs should be able to offer services as they wish. Same as Uber with Taxi regulations, Amazon with sales tax and BnB with hotel regulations. Demand for more government regulation from one of the main proponents of free market is weird. We should make easier for people to start ISPs. Not add more regulation and increase barriers.
    - briandear 9y ago
      However, let's be clear, some of those calling for more "free market" actually don't want more free market at all -- they want more government regulation and control. A free market, by definition, is a market definite by minimal regulation and the ease of entry and exit.
- acdha 9y ago
  How is asking for a free market hypocritical? Most U.S. households have a single broadband option and the large ISPs have already demonstrated that they are willing to abuse their network control to attack services like Netflix when their own services aren't competitive.
  - beaconstudios 9y ago
    Internet service is one of those areas where you can only free up one market by limiting another. You create an even playing ground for internet companies and users by heavily regulating ISPs. I'm not a fan of either side to be honest - I think efforts should be made to make it easier to enter the ISP market so that competition and consumer choice forces competition between ISPs to provide the best service.
    - acdha 9y ago
      What market is being limited in a natural monopoly? “Market” is commonly used with the implication that multiple sellers exist and the buyer can choose any or none, all of which is unlike the ISP situation for millions of people. What I think makes the most sense is going back to what we had with DSL: require the owner of the cable to the house to provide access at cost, allowing competition for the higher level services.
      - beaconstudios 9y ago
        ISPs aren't a natural monopoly - trunk cables are. I can see a good case for having those be federally owned and managed if they aren't at the moment - I can't really speak to the US situation at that level because I'm from the UK and most cables are owned by BT who lease access to other ISPs.
  - briandear 9y ago
    Net neutrality isn't free market. I am not saying it's bad -- but I am saying that a private ISP being forced to do something isn't free market at all. Net neutrality is a solution to the wrong problem. The real problem is lack of real ISP competition in many areas. If there were actually a free market with ISPs, then consumers could pick the service that delivers data in a way that is pleasing to them.
    - tremon 9y ago
      Please read up on the difference between a free person and a free market. A market is free when all participants (both buyers and sellers) have equal power. Large businesses and corporations skew that balance because of their size, so regulation is a necessity to ensure that free market.
- chasing 9y ago
  As a well-known start-up founder I know likes to say, to paraphrase: I like regulations because they're guidelines that help us operate in the best interests of ourselves and the public. And they prevent our competitors from acting immorally or dangerously to get a business advantage (which might force us to have to take either make the same immoral/dangerous moves or shut down). Bad regulations are bad, of course, but regulations empower businesses when applied correctly.
  - rtx 9y ago
    Thats the problem, we have limited control on people making those regulations. So as a compromise less regulation is always better.
    - chasing 9y ago
      You have more control over your government than you have over Uber or AirBnB -- especially if you're not a customer of either of those businesses. The government is (ideally) merely a voice of all of the people. Transportation and housing (for example) are parts of the critical infrastructure of a community. Allowing decisions about those things to be made entirely by the (relatively wealthy and mono-cultural) owners and customers of those businesses is unfair to the other people affected by those businesses. Hence regulation. Which, again: There are bad and stupid regulations. Of course. But regulations are useful tools, overall.
      - rtx 9y ago
        True, however we don't live in an ideal world. We need to take our society into consideration. Where Rich have more say in the government. This can be remedied by government having less say in my life.
        chasing 9y ago
        > We need to take our society into consideration. Where Rich have more say in the government. These two ideas are at odds. The rich are doing fine for themselves. The people we need to go out of our way to make sure we're helping is the less wealthy and the less powerful. That's whom the government should be advocating for. But in balance. Businesses need to be allowed to flourish, as well. And, by the way, you benefit greatly by having the government have a say in your life. [Edit: I believe I misinterpreted the bit of text I quoted from you. Apologies on that. But my general comment stands.]
RugnirViking 9y ago
Is there a single good argument for removing net neutrality? No conspiracy theories, or anything like that. Why is it a issue even worthy of debate? I am utterly confused
- mseebach 9y ago
  Basically, unintended consequences. That there's a risk that it accidentally outlaws something that will be truly beneficial to the internet. The internet is still young - it's arrogant to presume that we know enough about what the next 20 years will bring. It's perfectly plausible that 50 (? whenever) years ago when cable providers were awarded geographical monopolies in exchange for providing coverage that it made sense in the context of the day and wasn't quite the crony backroom deal it's made out to be today.
  - nebabyte 9y ago
    Not 'made out to be', is today. A baseless argument for 'plausibility' about something you weren't around to experience 50 ("(? whenever)") years ago is one thing, but doesn't support taking a similar complacent head-in-the-sand approach in the modern day. The progenitor of a given practice doesn't actually matter when its implications w.r.t. your actual system begin with some person learning about it deciding to use it to better their position. Modern day barons don't actually have to care about or hail the world of yesteryear that created the mechanisms by which they grow or maintain their wealth; getting hung up on them is as pointless as hanging onto precedent for its own sake.
    - mseebach 9y ago
      I don't believe we've arrived at some kind of maximum level of understanding that means that we're better suited for making decisions with impact decades into the future. Sure, we've learned something things, but there are plenty of things to be wrong about still. When everybody agrees, somebody's not paying attention, as they say. I used the cable monopoly decisions as an analogy, not because it's important as the progenitor of a practice. Back then, I'm sure reasonable people were convinced that it was a good deal, but the deal didn't foresee the internet, yet we're still stuck with it.
cm2187 9y ago
To me the problem is not net neutrality, it is monopolistic behavior in broadband providers. If there was a true competition, providers trying to control the access of their subscribers would meet the same fate that AOL (with their custom email, browser, etc), they would become irrelevant.
- oxide 9y ago
  Ah, but try to take away the monopolies and they throw money at it until you lose. First they'll lobby. If that fails, they'll sue. They'll have all kinds of bullshit reasons why this is necessary for growth, investment and infrastructure. They have better access to legislators and regulators, as well as more sympathetic ears in the government due to having, for lack of a better term, monopoly money to throw around. It's frustrating to say the least.
  - rtx 9y ago
    Many big companies are suing smaller ones in their industries. And that is the result of regulation. We shouldn't be creating more of them.
    - jackmott 9y ago
      >And that is the result of regulation It might be the result of some local regulatory deal they have made to become a monopoly, but it isn't the result of FCC's net neutrality regulation. Have you ever looked around the world and found a nation that has no regulations at all, or nearly so, that you want to live in? There are still places that are wild west like. Aren't really teeming with VC or good internet though. Where do you people get this fantasy?
      - rtx 9y ago
        You are the one living in fantasy. Where you think, there are people in this world who want to live in a lawless society. Less regulation is dosent mean no regulation. Many laws are designed to stifle class mobility. Why, because rich are closer to the politicians.
LoSboccacc 9y ago
At this point the problem isn't Net Neutrality, it's the internet is privately owned by for profit companies. Imagine what'd be if every single road and water pipe was ran by private company for profit without oversight. Internet needs to be treated like infrastructure, because that's what is, both to service consumers and providers. There are many ways to have private company to profit over infrastructure if they so chose it, but having a guaranteed baseline would resolve most issue about having to regulate private companies or stifling innovation. I.e. there could be private pipes with state subsidized access having guaranteed QOS. There could be public pipes with state renting access to private companies. There are plenty solution, but the issue is that public can't lobby for what benefits them and deep pocket can and will buy legislation.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- rtx 9y ago
  So government should buy the infrastructure from different ISP and nationalize it. Then ISPs can rent the it from the government. However if I want to start a ISP which only delivers Netflix, I should be allowed to.
  - LoSboccacc 9y ago
    gov can also rent infrastructure and enforce neutrality on gov't resold lines, leaving private provided lines unregulated.
  - coldpie 9y ago
    I would love this, but can you imagine the gnashing of teeth from the 63 million people who voted for Trump? Not gonna happen. We're stuck with the for-profit Internet thanks to the scary, shouty man on TV.
    - metalliqaz 9y ago
      Honestly I don't care what those people think. Their judgement is bad and they should feel bad.
miguelrochefort 9y ago
1. Should a school or workplace be allowed to block specific websites? Why shouldn't ISPs be allowed to? 2. Should cable providers be forced to distribute 100% of channels? Why should we apply a different standard to a different protocol? 3. Should toll-free telephone number be banned? 4. Should ISPs charge for data used to check your balance or account statement? Should phone companies bill the minutes used to call their customer services? 5. Should ISPs be allowed to cache arbitrary content on their servers to reduce their loads (e.g., Netflix movies), and distribute the savings to their users? 6. Should a taxi driver be allowed not to serve specific neighborhoods, or should they be forced to serve 100% of neighborhoods? 7. Should posting a letter to someone in the same city cost the same as posting a letter to someone in a different country? 8. Should ISPs that implement their own proprietary protocol as an alternative to the Internet be forced to be neutral as well? 9. Should restaurants be forced to serve both Pepsi and Coca-Cola? 10. Should Netflix be able to reduce your subscription price when used through a specific ISP? 11. Should toll roads be allowed? 12. Should a workplace be able to reimburse bandwidth fees associated with the use of their VPN? 13. Should web hosts (e.g., Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, Heroku, etc) be neutral as well? Should Amazon charge the same fees to all of their customers (including themselves)? 14. What should be done about small startups that can't handle all the incoming traffic? Should some other regulation subsidize their hosting cost so that they can compete with larger competitors? 15. How many new laws and regulations will be required (if they don't already exist) just to address the above examples? Wouldn't these laws and regulations only make it more difficult for startups to emerge and compete with the so-called monopolies?
- simula67 9y ago
  Why is this getting down voted ?
  - OJFord 9y ago
    Because people use the down-vote button to express disagreement. I wish they didn't, but as far as I can tell it's not explicitly against the guidelines, so what can you do really. I don't agree with GP (as in, I'm pro-neutrality) but there are interesting points there that stir the free-market-ist in me. On some level I think 'let them' and I'll vote with my money. However, I don't think that will actually work, it doesn't seem to be working with mobile phones even on price of text/voice/data; never mind data-neutrality.
gravypod 9y ago
Why don't these 800 startups, their thousands of brilliant employees, and the hackers on hacker news start a push to build a part-wireless and part-cable mesh network? The only reason why the loons in the government or these companies have any clout is because they have the only working network that spans the US/Globe. If citizens just got together, on their time, and built a free and open network we'd have something better. It's not like it's never been done before [1]. [1] - https://www.dailydot.com/layer8/greek-off-the-grid-internet-mesh/ https://www.dailydot.com/layer8/greek-off-the-grid-internet-...
- ZeroManArmy 9y ago
  Unfortunately that would require people's money and time. We'd also have to put our differences aside about each other and work for the greater good. A person is reasonable, people are dumb.
  - gravypod 9y ago
    I often see a lot of people signing silly things like petitions. I've got two towers that I can get to and put systems up on. One in Newark, NJ and the other in Montclair, NJ. I've been emailing different mesh networks attempting to get someone to tell me what to put up to be part of their network and no one is interested. I'm also a ham so I can operate part 97
    - woah 9y ago
      I'm working on altheamesh.com. The idea is to allow routers in mesh networks to collect payments in a decentralized, ownerless way. I'm hoping to start doing some testing of it in the next couple of years. Email me at jehan@altheamesh.com.
- unityByFreedom 9y ago
  What is to prevent that from becoming privatized and incentivized by whoever owns it? Why rebuild the wheel? We have decent infrastructure already. We just need society to not mess it up.
unityByFreedom 9y ago
Forget the red vs. blue politics for once. This isn't about that. This is something that most of us, as techies, believe is a bad idea. This should be a campaign issue. We don't need to build more silos. If it's unpopular, politicians won't pass it.
nickpsecurity 9y ago
People signing letters should donate money to politicians' campaign with letters to those politicians advocating specific legislation. That legislation might also have compromises that consider all parties or at least concretely show benefit to them. Alternatively, convince rich people and profitable businesses to donate as well.

219 points by ergo14 9y ago

rtx 9y ago

Startups asking for more regulation, very hypocritical of them. I understand need for regulation in mobile internet as it is a limited resource.

scsh 9y ago
Care to explain why this is hypocritical and why there shouldn't be any regulation around non-mobile internet?
- rtx 9y ago
  I believe ISPs should be able to offer services as they wish. Same as Uber with Taxi regulations, Amazon with sales tax and BnB with hotel regulations. Demand for more government regulation from one of the main proponents of free market is weird. We should make easier for people to start ISPs. Not add more regulation and increase barriers.
  - briandear 9y ago
    However, let's be clear, some of those calling for more "free market" actually don't want more free market at all -- they want more government regulation and control. A free market, by definition, is a market definite by minimal regulation and the ease of entry and exit.
acdha 9y ago
How is asking for a free market hypocritical? Most U.S. households have a single broadband option and the large ISPs have already demonstrated that they are willing to abuse their network control to attack services like Netflix when their own services aren't competitive.
- beaconstudios 9y ago
  Internet service is one of those areas where you can only free up one market by limiting another. You create an even playing ground for internet companies and users by heavily regulating ISPs. I'm not a fan of either side to be honest - I think efforts should be made to make it easier to enter the ISP market so that competition and consumer choice forces competition between ISPs to provide the best service.
  - acdha 9y ago
    What market is being limited in a natural monopoly? “Market” is commonly used with the implication that multiple sellers exist and the buyer can choose any or none, all of which is unlike the ISP situation for millions of people. What I think makes the most sense is going back to what we had with DSL: require the owner of the cable to the house to provide access at cost, allowing competition for the higher level services.
    - beaconstudios 9y ago
      ISPs aren't a natural monopoly - trunk cables are. I can see a good case for having those be federally owned and managed if they aren't at the moment - I can't really speak to the US situation at that level because I'm from the UK and most cables are owned by BT who lease access to other ISPs.
- briandear 9y ago
  Net neutrality isn't free market. I am not saying it's bad -- but I am saying that a private ISP being forced to do something isn't free market at all. Net neutrality is a solution to the wrong problem. The real problem is lack of real ISP competition in many areas. If there were actually a free market with ISPs, then consumers could pick the service that delivers data in a way that is pleasing to them.
  - tremon 9y ago
    Please read up on the difference between a free person and a free market. A market is free when all participants (both buyers and sellers) have equal power. Large businesses and corporations skew that balance because of their size, so regulation is a necessity to ensure that free market.
chasing 9y ago
As a well-known start-up founder I know likes to say, to paraphrase: I like regulations because they're guidelines that help us operate in the best interests of ourselves and the public. And they prevent our competitors from acting immorally or dangerously to get a business advantage (which might force us to have to take either make the same immoral/dangerous moves or shut down). Bad regulations are bad, of course, but regulations empower businesses when applied correctly.
- rtx 9y ago
  Thats the problem, we have limited control on people making those regulations. So as a compromise less regulation is always better.
  - chasing 9y ago
    You have more control over your government than you have over Uber or AirBnB -- especially if you're not a customer of either of those businesses. The government is (ideally) merely a voice of all of the people. Transportation and housing (for example) are parts of the critical infrastructure of a community. Allowing decisions about those things to be made entirely by the (relatively wealthy and mono-cultural) owners and customers of those businesses is unfair to the other people affected by those businesses. Hence regulation. Which, again: There are bad and stupid regulations. Of course. But regulations are useful tools, overall.
    - rtx 9y ago
      True, however we don't live in an ideal world. We need to take our society into consideration. Where Rich have more say in the government. This can be remedied by government having less say in my life.
      - chasing 9y ago
        > We need to take our society into consideration. Where Rich have more say in the government. These two ideas are at odds. The rich are doing fine for themselves. The people we need to go out of our way to make sure we're helping is the less wealthy and the less powerful. That's whom the government should be advocating for. But in balance. Businesses need to be allowed to flourish, as well. And, by the way, you benefit greatly by having the government have a say in your life. [Edit: I believe I misinterpreted the bit of text I quoted from you. Apologies on that. But my general comment stands.]

RugnirViking 9y ago

Is there a single good argument for removing net neutrality? No conspiracy theories, or anything like that. Why is it a issue even worthy of debate? I am utterly confused

mseebach 9y ago
Basically, unintended consequences. That there's a risk that it accidentally outlaws something that will be truly beneficial to the internet. The internet is still young - it's arrogant to presume that we know enough about what the next 20 years will bring. It's perfectly plausible that 50 (? whenever) years ago when cable providers were awarded geographical monopolies in exchange for providing coverage that it made sense in the context of the day and wasn't quite the crony backroom deal it's made out to be today.
- nebabyte 9y ago
  Not 'made out to be', is today. A baseless argument for 'plausibility' about something you weren't around to experience 50 ("(? whenever)") years ago is one thing, but doesn't support taking a similar complacent head-in-the-sand approach in the modern day. The progenitor of a given practice doesn't actually matter when its implications w.r.t. your actual system begin with some person learning about it deciding to use it to better their position. Modern day barons don't actually have to care about or hail the world of yesteryear that created the mechanisms by which they grow or maintain their wealth; getting hung up on them is as pointless as hanging onto precedent for its own sake.
  - mseebach 9y ago
    I don't believe we've arrived at some kind of maximum level of understanding that means that we're better suited for making decisions with impact decades into the future. Sure, we've learned something things, but there are plenty of things to be wrong about still. When everybody agrees, somebody's not paying attention, as they say. I used the cable monopoly decisions as an analogy, not because it's important as the progenitor of a practice. Back then, I'm sure reasonable people were convinced that it was a good deal, but the deal didn't foresee the internet, yet we're still stuck with it.

cm2187 9y ago

To me the problem is not net neutrality, it is monopolistic behavior in broadband providers. If there was a true competition, providers trying to control the access of their subscribers would meet the same fate that AOL (with their custom email, browser, etc), they would become irrelevant.

oxide 9y ago
Ah, but try to take away the monopolies and they throw money at it until you lose. First they'll lobby. If that fails, they'll sue. They'll have all kinds of bullshit reasons why this is necessary for growth, investment and infrastructure. They have better access to legislators and regulators, as well as more sympathetic ears in the government due to having, for lack of a better term, monopoly money to throw around. It's frustrating to say the least.
- rtx 9y ago
  Many big companies are suing smaller ones in their industries. And that is the result of regulation. We shouldn't be creating more of them.
  - jackmott 9y ago
    >And that is the result of regulation It might be the result of some local regulatory deal they have made to become a monopoly, but it isn't the result of FCC's net neutrality regulation. Have you ever looked around the world and found a nation that has no regulations at all, or nearly so, that you want to live in? There are still places that are wild west like. Aren't really teeming with VC or good internet though. Where do you people get this fantasy?
    - rtx 9y ago
      You are the one living in fantasy. Where you think, there are people in this world who want to live in a lawless society. Less regulation is dosent mean no regulation. Many laws are designed to stifle class mobility. Why, because rich are closer to the politicians.

LoSboccacc 9y ago

At this point the problem isn't Net Neutrality, it's the internet is privately owned by for profit companies. Imagine what'd be if every single road and water pipe was ran by private company for profit without oversight. Internet needs to be treated like infrastructure, because that's what is, both to service consumers and providers. There are many ways to have private company to profit over infrastructure if they so chose it, but having a guaranteed baseline would resolve most issue about having to regulate private companies or stifling innovation. I.e. there could be private pipes with state subsidized access having guaranteed QOS. There could be public pipes with state renting access to private companies. There are plenty solution, but the issue is that public can't lobby for what benefits them and deep pocket can and will buy legislation.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
rtx 9y ago
So government should buy the infrastructure from different ISP and nationalize it. Then ISPs can rent the it from the government. However if I want to start a ISP which only delivers Netflix, I should be allowed to.
- LoSboccacc 9y ago
  gov can also rent infrastructure and enforce neutrality on gov't resold lines, leaving private provided lines unregulated.
- coldpie 9y ago
  I would love this, but can you imagine the gnashing of teeth from the 63 million people who voted for Trump? Not gonna happen. We're stuck with the for-profit Internet thanks to the scary, shouty man on TV.
  - metalliqaz 9y ago
    Honestly I don't care what those people think. Their judgement is bad and they should feel bad.

miguelrochefort 9y ago

1. Should a school or workplace be allowed to block specific websites? Why shouldn't ISPs be allowed to? 2. Should cable providers be forced to distribute 100% of channels? Why should we apply a different standard to a different protocol? 3. Should toll-free telephone number be banned? 4. Should ISPs charge for data used to check your balance or account statement? Should phone companies bill the minutes used to call their customer services? 5. Should ISPs be allowed to cache arbitrary content on their servers to reduce their loads (e.g., Netflix movies), and distribute the savings to their users? 6. Should a taxi driver be allowed not to serve specific neighborhoods, or should they be forced to serve 100% of neighborhoods? 7. Should posting a letter to someone in the same city cost the same as posting a letter to someone in a different country? 8. Should ISPs that implement their own proprietary protocol as an alternative to the Internet be forced to be neutral as well? 9. Should restaurants be forced to serve both Pepsi and Coca-Cola? 10. Should Netflix be able to reduce your subscription price when used through a specific ISP? 11. Should toll roads be allowed? 12. Should a workplace be able to reimburse bandwidth fees associated with the use of their VPN? 13. Should web hosts (e.g., Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, Heroku, etc) be neutral as well? Should Amazon charge the same fees to all of their customers (including themselves)? 14. What should be done about small startups that can't handle all the incoming traffic? Should some other regulation subsidize their hosting cost so that they can compete with larger competitors? 15. How many new laws and regulations will be required (if they don't already exist) just to address the above examples? Wouldn't these laws and regulations only make it more difficult for startups to emerge and compete with the so-called monopolies?

simula67 9y ago
Why is this getting down voted ?
- OJFord 9y ago
  Because people use the down-vote button to express disagreement. I wish they didn't, but as far as I can tell it's not explicitly against the guidelines, so what can you do really. I don't agree with GP (as in, I'm pro-neutrality) but there are interesting points there that stir the free-market-ist in me. On some level I think 'let them' and I'll vote with my money. However, I don't think that will actually work, it doesn't seem to be working with mobile phones even on price of text/voice/data; never mind data-neutrality.

gravypod 9y ago

Why don't these 800 startups, their thousands of brilliant employees, and the hackers on hacker news start a push to build a part-wireless and part-cable mesh network? The only reason why the loons in the government or these companies have any clout is because they have the only working network that spans the US/Globe. If citizens just got together, on their time, and built a free and open network we'd have something better. It's not like it's never been done before [1]. [1] - https://www.dailydot.com/layer8/greek-off-the-grid-internet-mesh/ https://www.dailydot.com/layer8/greek-off-the-grid-internet-...

ZeroManArmy 9y ago
Unfortunately that would require people's money and time. We'd also have to put our differences aside about each other and work for the greater good. A person is reasonable, people are dumb.
- gravypod 9y ago
  I often see a lot of people signing silly things like petitions. I've got two towers that I can get to and put systems up on. One in Newark, NJ and the other in Montclair, NJ. I've been emailing different mesh networks attempting to get someone to tell me what to put up to be part of their network and no one is interested. I'm also a ham so I can operate part 97
  - woah 9y ago
    I'm working on altheamesh.com. The idea is to allow routers in mesh networks to collect payments in a decentralized, ownerless way. I'm hoping to start doing some testing of it in the next couple of years. Email me at jehan@altheamesh.com.
unityByFreedom 9y ago
What is to prevent that from becoming privatized and incentivized by whoever owns it? Why rebuild the wheel? We have decent infrastructure already. We just need society to not mess it up.

unityByFreedom 9y ago

Forget the red vs. blue politics for once. This isn't about that. This is something that most of us, as techies, believe is a bad idea. This should be a campaign issue. We don't need to build more silos. If it's unpopular, politicians won't pass it.

nickpsecurity 9y ago

People signing letters should donate money to politicians' campaign with letters to those politicians advocating specific legislation. That legislation might also have compromises that consider all parties or at least concretely show benefit to them. Alternatively, convince rich people and profitable businesses to donate as well.