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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%

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 10y ago
Why is this getting down voted ?
- OJFord 10y 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.
  - thomastjeffery 10y ago
    > Because people use the down-vote button to express disagreement. While that is often true, this is not the case here. The purpose of the "downvote" is to push poor discussion to the bottom of the page. The rhetorical questions and obviously poor comparisons add nothing to the discussion.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- twoquestions 10y ago
  It's also attempting to argue by rhetorical questioning alone, rather than directly and honestly stating a position. I didn't downvote, but I find arguing in such an indirect way bad form and mildly disrespectful of the reader. IMHO even a bad argument presented directly and honestly is better than a good argument that cowers behind questions.
  - miguelrochefort 10y ago
    Hopefully I'm wrong, but I'm convinced that most net neutrality advocates haven't asked themselves these questions. I can't think of a better way to challenge an idea than by asking questions.
    - pawadu 10y ago
      I think the past actions of these companies speaks for themselves. The question YOU should ask yourself is why you think ATT & comsat will do a 180 turn and stop their attempts to kill the free market after this.
      - rtx 10y ago
        They will not, that's why we need better ISPs.
        noxToken 10y ago
        But you've been an advocate of deregulation all over this thread. The barrier of entry to becoming an ISP is high. A sort of compromise is to use sensible regulation to protect users from the active players. The keyword here is sensible, because I don't care for government mandated regulations. I do recognize that they are necessary. Profits (among other things) cloud judgement, and there are some ruthless, despicable people running companies. Unless a company with lots of expendable income is going to enter the market as a competitor, there won't be very many new ISPs that can offer more than aDSL speeds. Most US communities have one or two local ISP outside of the cable company and teleco providers like Time Warner and AT&T. The speeds are only good for people who check email and don't mind watching video at 480p. The other is satellite with similar speeds at even higher prices.
- root_axis 10y ago
  My guess is because people regard the shotgun questionnaire as a rhetorical tactic that burdens the responder with having to extrapolate the intended position that the questions are written to draw out, while simultaneously leaving a vacuum of supporting arguments to justify the analogies explored by the questions, as if the implied argument is so rock-solid that it requires no bolstering, convincing or exposition. This effect is compounded by the fact that some of the questions are clearly poor comparisons (e.g. the comparison between an organization that chooses to filter content within the confines of its network vs an ISP monopoly restricting a paying customer's access to legal content - no matter which way you come down on the question, they are clearly totally different scenarios)
clmckinley 10y ago
These are some really interesting questions. I think a lot of these depend on how you think of the internet. I think of it as a utility that is required for a true equal shot at a good life in america. Let me take a crack at your questions: 1) I assume you are speaking of primary school, in which case yes, because they are serving children that cannot be relied on to make good decisions. That said Libraries primary users are adults and children under adult supervision, in which case no they should not be filtered, but depending on what you do there could be consequences. 2) No, because cable is not a required for success in the same way the internet is. 3) No, see above. 4) Interesting question, but it is really a straw-man because it is so trivial. I would say no, internet providers should be required to treat all bytes the same. 5) This is interesting, but seems more like a content owning question then a net neutrality question. I personally don't think caching has anything to do with how you treat the bytes going across the wire. 6) Yes i do, and that is because there are different costs to serving different neighborhoods, where there are virtually no differential costs between bytes of data. 7) Net neutrality doesn't specify how much you can charge, just that all bytes are treated the same. 8) If it is a private network then i don't think it would be considered a utility. If it becomes a required monopoly (kind of like a foundation patent) then yes. 9) I don't understand this analogy. Coke and Pepsi are luxury goods goods that are physical that are sold in non-monopolistic industries. 10) Sure, but the ISP should charge and treat netflix bytes the same as other similar bytes. 11) Yes, but when they are essential they should treat all similar cars (packets) the same 12) I am not sure how this relates as long as VPN packets are treated the same by the network infrastructure i don't care who pays for the access to that infrastructure. 13) Yes, they should treat all packets the same when they go over the network. 14) I am not sure i understand this one. If they don't have the infrastructure to handle the incoming bytes that is different then the core internet infrastructure. But if you are talking about a small ISP then i think they should still be required to treat all bytes the same, now they could limit the number of bytes a customer purchases, but not they type. 15) i think a simple net neutrality law will prevent lots of special case laws. Just treat all packets the same, period.
anilgulecha 10y ago
1. Should a school or workplace be allowed to block specific websites? Why shouldn't ISPs be allowed to? Citizens aren't children. 2. Should cable providers be forced to distribute 100% of channels? Why should we apply a different standard to a different protocol? Yes, cable provide a broadcast platform. Internet is a communication platform. 3. Should toll-free telephone number be banned? No. It's an established practice, and not too many people have a problem with it. 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? I think the reasonable answer is No. 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? Ideally as long as they have the permission of the content holder. 6. Should a taxi driver be allowed not to serve specific neighborhoods, or should they be forced to serve 100% of neighborhoods? A taxi driver can stay in a certain neighbourhood. The taxi industry should not impose some neighbourhoods. 7. Should posting a letter to someone in the same city cost the same as posting a letter to someone in a different country? Yes as it's a physical transfer, and requires personnal effort. Bits on the wire don't cost more to transport across the world. 8. Should ISPs that implement their own proprietary protocol as an alternative to the Internet be forced to be neutral as well? No. This is already seen with something like Skype, which tries to woo customers to it's platform. TCP/IP is what should be neutral. 9. Should restaurants be forced to serve both Pepsi and Coca-Cola? The reasonable answer is of course they should not be forced. I hope you'll compare this answer to should hospitals be allowed to only recommend one brand of a drug? 10. Should Netflix be able to reduce your subscription price when used through a specific ISP? I could be convinced either way I think. 11. Should toll roads be allowed? Yes. And you may also change me for internet. You may not discriminate against or for some car brands. 12. Should a workplace be able to reimburse bandwidth fees associated with the use of their VPN? I'm afraid I don't understand this. 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)? No. ISPs may also try charging customers farther from the ocean pipes larger fees. 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? The startup has to handle scaling issues, and expand their infrastructure. No, they may not be subsidized. 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? Honestly, a simple one page net-neutrality law will suffice. This will almost definitely allow more startups to flourish as their traffic is not discriminated for or against other vendors. Thank you for the exhaustive list of scenarios, as this has provided a generous perspective.
HugoDaniel 10y ago
Here is a reply to your points: 1. Yes (to the first question). Because they operate at different layers of the internet stack. ISPs operate at lower layers of the stack than the school. If you fail to see how these are incompatible, please consider the following: Should you be able to choose where your electricity goes to (phone charger, tv, fridge, etc...) ? Why shouldn't your electricity provider be allowed this freedom ? 2. No (to the first question). Cable television works (conceptually) in a fundamentally different way from the internet. The provider must define its own set of protocols with each channel/network and price accordingly. The internet is distributed and free by default, there is an agreement on a common set of protocols and content gets served through these mostly in a federated way. This is different from having to establish a contract with each studio/channel and create your own offer (which is not how the internet was designed and intended to work, please read up on the physical layer alternative implementations). Also taking your argument one notch up: different protocols usually mean that you need to consider a different approach and abstraction/standard. Do not expect good things if you treat all protocols with the same standard. 3. No. Reason: The telephone network works in a different way than the way/purpose of the internet. Public switched circuit networks like the telephone network have a inherent hierarchy that is typically not trivial to pass through hence the costs that used to associated with regional/international calls and the need to create toll free numbers for special use cases. Even though in a given time window the internet used to work on top of the telephone line its intention and design is of a higher-level, all the juicy stuff on the internet happens above the physical layer. Would you complain to your ISP if facebook was down ? I don't have patience to answer the other points mostly because i feel that you didn't spend much time working/thinking on them and that possibly you don't really want them answered and are just trying to prove some void point while trying to avoid arguments. Please read up on history and technology and then rephrase them.

simula67 10y ago

Why is this getting down voted ?

OJFord 10y 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.
- thomastjeffery 10y ago
  > Because people use the down-vote button to express disagreement. While that is often true, this is not the case here. The purpose of the "downvote" is to push poor discussion to the bottom of the page. The rhetorical questions and obviously poor comparisons add nothing to the discussion.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
twoquestions 10y ago
It's also attempting to argue by rhetorical questioning alone, rather than directly and honestly stating a position. I didn't downvote, but I find arguing in such an indirect way bad form and mildly disrespectful of the reader. IMHO even a bad argument presented directly and honestly is better than a good argument that cowers behind questions.
- miguelrochefort 10y ago
  Hopefully I'm wrong, but I'm convinced that most net neutrality advocates haven't asked themselves these questions. I can't think of a better way to challenge an idea than by asking questions.
  - pawadu 10y ago
    I think the past actions of these companies speaks for themselves. The question YOU should ask yourself is why you think ATT & comsat will do a 180 turn and stop their attempts to kill the free market after this.
    - rtx 10y ago
      They will not, that's why we need better ISPs.
      - noxToken 10y ago
        But you've been an advocate of deregulation all over this thread. The barrier of entry to becoming an ISP is high. A sort of compromise is to use sensible regulation to protect users from the active players. The keyword here is sensible, because I don't care for government mandated regulations. I do recognize that they are necessary. Profits (among other things) cloud judgement, and there are some ruthless, despicable people running companies. Unless a company with lots of expendable income is going to enter the market as a competitor, there won't be very many new ISPs that can offer more than aDSL speeds. Most US communities have one or two local ISP outside of the cable company and teleco providers like Time Warner and AT&T. The speeds are only good for people who check email and don't mind watching video at 480p. The other is satellite with similar speeds at even higher prices.
root_axis 10y ago
My guess is because people regard the shotgun questionnaire as a rhetorical tactic that burdens the responder with having to extrapolate the intended position that the questions are written to draw out, while simultaneously leaving a vacuum of supporting arguments to justify the analogies explored by the questions, as if the implied argument is so rock-solid that it requires no bolstering, convincing or exposition. This effect is compounded by the fact that some of the questions are clearly poor comparisons (e.g. the comparison between an organization that chooses to filter content within the confines of its network vs an ISP monopoly restricting a paying customer's access to legal content - no matter which way you come down on the question, they are clearly totally different scenarios)

clmckinley 10y ago

These are some really interesting questions. I think a lot of these depend on how you think of the internet. I think of it as a utility that is required for a true equal shot at a good life in america. Let me take a crack at your questions: 1) I assume you are speaking of primary school, in which case yes, because they are serving children that cannot be relied on to make good decisions. That said Libraries primary users are adults and children under adult supervision, in which case no they should not be filtered, but depending on what you do there could be consequences. 2) No, because cable is not a required for success in the same way the internet is. 3) No, see above. 4) Interesting question, but it is really a straw-man because it is so trivial. I would say no, internet providers should be required to treat all bytes the same. 5) This is interesting, but seems more like a content owning question then a net neutrality question. I personally don't think caching has anything to do with how you treat the bytes going across the wire. 6) Yes i do, and that is because there are different costs to serving different neighborhoods, where there are virtually no differential costs between bytes of data. 7) Net neutrality doesn't specify how much you can charge, just that all bytes are treated the same. 8) If it is a private network then i don't think it would be considered a utility. If it becomes a required monopoly (kind of like a foundation patent) then yes. 9) I don't understand this analogy. Coke and Pepsi are luxury goods goods that are physical that are sold in non-monopolistic industries. 10) Sure, but the ISP should charge and treat netflix bytes the same as other similar bytes. 11) Yes, but when they are essential they should treat all similar cars (packets) the same 12) I am not sure how this relates as long as VPN packets are treated the same by the network infrastructure i don't care who pays for the access to that infrastructure. 13) Yes, they should treat all packets the same when they go over the network. 14) I am not sure i understand this one. If they don't have the infrastructure to handle the incoming bytes that is different then the core internet infrastructure. But if you are talking about a small ISP then i think they should still be required to treat all bytes the same, now they could limit the number of bytes a customer purchases, but not they type. 15) i think a simple net neutrality law will prevent lots of special case laws. Just treat all packets the same, period.

anilgulecha 10y ago

1. Should a school or workplace be allowed to block specific websites? Why shouldn't ISPs be allowed to? Citizens aren't children. 2. Should cable providers be forced to distribute 100% of channels? Why should we apply a different standard to a different protocol? Yes, cable provide a broadcast platform. Internet is a communication platform. 3. Should toll-free telephone number be banned? No. It's an established practice, and not too many people have a problem with it. 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? I think the reasonable answer is No. 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? Ideally as long as they have the permission of the content holder. 6. Should a taxi driver be allowed not to serve specific neighborhoods, or should they be forced to serve 100% of neighborhoods? A taxi driver can stay in a certain neighbourhood. The taxi industry should not impose some neighbourhoods. 7. Should posting a letter to someone in the same city cost the same as posting a letter to someone in a different country? Yes as it's a physical transfer, and requires personnal effort. Bits on the wire don't cost more to transport across the world. 8. Should ISPs that implement their own proprietary protocol as an alternative to the Internet be forced to be neutral as well? No. This is already seen with something like Skype, which tries to woo customers to it's platform. TCP/IP is what should be neutral. 9. Should restaurants be forced to serve both Pepsi and Coca-Cola? The reasonable answer is of course they should not be forced. I hope you'll compare this answer to should hospitals be allowed to only recommend one brand of a drug? 10. Should Netflix be able to reduce your subscription price when used through a specific ISP? I could be convinced either way I think. 11. Should toll roads be allowed? Yes. And you may also change me for internet. You may not discriminate against or for some car brands. 12. Should a workplace be able to reimburse bandwidth fees associated with the use of their VPN? I'm afraid I don't understand this. 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)? No. ISPs may also try charging customers farther from the ocean pipes larger fees. 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? The startup has to handle scaling issues, and expand their infrastructure. No, they may not be subsidized. 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? Honestly, a simple one page net-neutrality law will suffice. This will almost definitely allow more startups to flourish as their traffic is not discriminated for or against other vendors. Thank you for the exhaustive list of scenarios, as this has provided a generous perspective.

HugoDaniel 10y ago

Here is a reply to your points: 1. Yes (to the first question). Because they operate at different layers of the internet stack. ISPs operate at lower layers of the stack than the school. If you fail to see how these are incompatible, please consider the following: Should you be able to choose where your electricity goes to (phone charger, tv, fridge, etc...) ? Why shouldn't your electricity provider be allowed this freedom ? 2. No (to the first question). Cable television works (conceptually) in a fundamentally different way from the internet. The provider must define its own set of protocols with each channel/network and price accordingly. The internet is distributed and free by default, there is an agreement on a common set of protocols and content gets served through these mostly in a federated way. This is different from having to establish a contract with each studio/channel and create your own offer (which is not how the internet was designed and intended to work, please read up on the physical layer alternative implementations). Also taking your argument one notch up: different protocols usually mean that you need to consider a different approach and abstraction/standard. Do not expect good things if you treat all protocols with the same standard. 3. No. Reason: The telephone network works in a different way than the way/purpose of the internet. Public switched circuit networks like the telephone network have a inherent hierarchy that is typically not trivial to pass through hence the costs that used to associated with regional/international calls and the need to create toll free numbers for special use cases. Even though in a given time window the internet used to work on top of the telephone line its intention and design is of a higher-level, all the juicy stuff on the internet happens above the physical layer. Would you complain to your ISP if facebook was down ? I don't have patience to answer the other points mostly because i feel that you didn't spend much time working/thinking on them and that possibly you don't really want them answered and are just trying to prove some void point while trying to avoid arguments. Please read up on history and technology and then rephrase them.