3 ms·

My main gripe with Net Neutrality is simple economics. For almost any good or service you can pay for different tiers of quality. Why should the internet not b

My main gripe with Net Neutrality is simple economics. For almost any good or service you can pay for different tiers of quality. Why should the internet not be this way too? If the answer is because its a monopoly I would have to disagree.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
jkoll 9y ago
Websites already pay for the internet connections their servers use...
pdonis 9y ago
There can still be tiers of quality under Net Neutrality. ISPs can still offer different levels of bandwidth to their customers for different prices. What they can't do under Net Neutrality is offer faster bandwidth for websites that pay up and slower bandwidth for websites that don't.
H4CK3RM4N 9y ago
You can pay for faster postage in the same way you can pay for a higherspeed connection. But, what ISPs are trying to do is make you pay for faster postage on letters printed on pink paper.
wmf 9y ago
What ISPs are doing goes far beyond different tiers of quality. Like TWC/Spectrum secretly intentionally congesting Netflix, then telling customers that upgrading to a faster plan will fix it (which it won't, because the customer's plan wasn't the bottleneck). Then TWC/Spectrum secretly stopped congesting Netflix after Netflix secretly paid them. Like AT&T/Verizon charging content providers to bypass caps, then probably secretly charging their own content provider much less than they charge other companies. In theory the FCC's "not my problem" policy may allow these cases to be solved by the FTC, but first the FTC would have to somehow find out that this stuff is going on.
Spivak 9y ago
Right, everyone pays someone for access to 'the Internet' and of course you can pay more for higher bandwidth. The issue is that last mile ISPs realized that they can make people who do business with residential customers pay them in addition by artificially restricting access to their services.
cookiecaper 9y ago
I think that there's a tech bubble around this issue. In my experience, most normal people happily trade internet speed for discounts. In fact, I've found that people are more likely to be suspicious of those seeking high internet speeds than sympathetic. I am willing to bet that if someone offered an internet package that included full speeds for Facebook, Wikipedia, and 30 YouTube videos for $5 /mo, and then 20% speed for everything else, it'd do really well. Interestingly, this is a really a question about keeping the internet a free market. Just as a local boutique retailer would not be happy about the shopping center charging customers $1 per store they entered, small publishers, as usual, will be the people harmed by a non-neutral internet. I'm sure the big players are enthralled by the idea that their competitors will soon have an even harder time accessing alternatives, as if it wasn't difficult enough with a rabid copyright regime and restrictive network access. IMO, the only reason tech incumbents oppose net non-neutrality is because they're worried that Comcast will use it as a kludge to stymie the growth of their platforms as media platforms (which Comcast et al are desperate to do, because cordcutting is eviscerating the cable industry). It's too bad that the mainstream conservative party in the US has interpreted "free markets" and "competition" to mean making the startup environment extremely difficult for the little guy.
- intended 9y ago
  And this article correctly highlighted an issue with the new tech firms, once the old guard of CEOs dies, and the current crop of techies take charge. Imagine google run by someone who came out of the uber school of thought,
intended 9y ago
? Because you already do? You want more speed and bandwidth, pay for it. You want yet more, take a look at corporate plans. The internet is a meta creation on top of the bandwidth. It's the conversation you have over the telephone. The ISPS Are asking to double dip. They want to charge based not on network usage and speed subscription. They want to charge based on what you say and whose you listen to.
abvdasker 9y ago
It's a lot more complicated than that, especially when you consider that companies like Comcast also produce content via their subsidiaries (NBC and by proxy Hulu). Vertically integrated companies like Comcast can quickly turn into monopolies, eliminating healthy competition and hurting the consumer in the long run via rent-seeking behavior (which we already see today to some extent). Net Neutrality prevents these vertically integrated companies from favoring content which would benefit their businesses.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

jkoll 9y ago

Websites already pay for the internet connections their servers use...

pdonis 9y ago

There can still be tiers of quality under Net Neutrality. ISPs can still offer different levels of bandwidth to their customers for different prices. What they can't do under Net Neutrality is offer faster bandwidth for websites that pay up and slower bandwidth for websites that don't.

H4CK3RM4N 9y ago

You can pay for faster postage in the same way you can pay for a higherspeed connection. But, what ISPs are trying to do is make you pay for faster postage on letters printed on pink paper.

wmf 9y ago

What ISPs are doing goes far beyond different tiers of quality. Like TWC/Spectrum secretly intentionally congesting Netflix, then telling customers that upgrading to a faster plan will fix it (which it won't, because the customer's plan wasn't the bottleneck). Then TWC/Spectrum secretly stopped congesting Netflix after Netflix secretly paid them. Like AT&T/Verizon charging content providers to bypass caps, then probably secretly charging their own content provider much less than they charge other companies. In theory the FCC's "not my problem" policy may allow these cases to be solved by the FTC, but first the FTC would have to somehow find out that this stuff is going on.

Spivak 9y ago

Right, everyone pays someone for access to 'the Internet' and of course you can pay more for higher bandwidth. The issue is that last mile ISPs realized that they can make people who do business with residential customers pay them in addition by artificially restricting access to their services.

cookiecaper 9y ago

I think that there's a tech bubble around this issue. In my experience, most normal people happily trade internet speed for discounts. In fact, I've found that people are more likely to be suspicious of those seeking high internet speeds than sympathetic. I am willing to bet that if someone offered an internet package that included full speeds for Facebook, Wikipedia, and 30 YouTube videos for $5 /mo, and then 20% speed for everything else, it'd do really well. Interestingly, this is a really a question about keeping the internet a free market. Just as a local boutique retailer would not be happy about the shopping center charging customers $1 per store they entered, small publishers, as usual, will be the people harmed by a non-neutral internet. I'm sure the big players are enthralled by the idea that their competitors will soon have an even harder time accessing alternatives, as if it wasn't difficult enough with a rabid copyright regime and restrictive network access. IMO, the only reason tech incumbents oppose net non-neutrality is because they're worried that Comcast will use it as a kludge to stymie the growth of their platforms as media platforms (which Comcast et al are desperate to do, because cordcutting is eviscerating the cable industry). It's too bad that the mainstream conservative party in the US has interpreted "free markets" and "competition" to mean making the startup environment extremely difficult for the little guy.

intended 9y ago
And this article correctly highlighted an issue with the new tech firms, once the old guard of CEOs dies, and the current crop of techies take charge. Imagine google run by someone who came out of the uber school of thought,

intended 9y ago

? Because you already do? You want more speed and bandwidth, pay for it. You want yet more, take a look at corporate plans. The internet is a meta creation on top of the bandwidth. It's the conversation you have over the telephone. The ISPS Are asking to double dip. They want to charge based not on network usage and speed subscription. They want to charge based on what you say and whose you listen to.

abvdasker 9y ago

It's a lot more complicated than that, especially when you consider that companies like Comcast also produce content via their subsidiaries (NBC and by proxy Hulu). Vertically integrated companies like Comcast can quickly turn into monopolies, eliminating healthy competition and hurting the consumer in the long run via rent-seeking behavior (which we already see today to some extent). Net Neutrality prevents these vertically integrated companies from favoring content which would benefit their businesses.