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How can we translate this for laypeople? This was my attempt, > Imagine your existing water utility divided its offerings into "regular water" and "super clea

How can we translate this for laypeople? This was my attempt, > Imagine your existing water utility divided its offerings into "regular water" and "super clean water". You'd think, wait, isn't my tap water already clean? And you'd be right. > Swap "regular water" for "faster internet to specific websites" and you get the lobbyists' argument for killing net neutrality. It would produce slow internet to websites that don't pay up, effectively allowing ISPs to earn money two times for the same product, and elbowing smaller content producers out of the internet Improvements welcome. I think it could be more succinct.

theprop 9y ago
Try this: imagine the government put up a fence in front of everyone's house and they let poor people in fine, but charged rich people to get in through the fence. That's the basic idea for ISPs...they want to charge Google, Facebook, etc. money. They're already charging Netflix (Verizon forced them to pay or they would throttle them). There is NO CHANCE that ISPs will actually invest in two technically different products like regular/super clean water! That's just how ISPs want paint the debate, that they want the right to invest in "better technology", but the bottleneck is the last mile and the chances that Verizon will lay 2 different cables to your house is exactly zero! The requirement for prejudicial packet routing to deliver things like HD video is a non-starter, Netflix when it's not getting throttled is already delivers great hi-def video in the current non-prejudicial packet-based internet. It is really pure "extortion"...at least in my view and a clear case of necessary government intervention to insure fair market behavior (e.g. ISPs can only charge consumers, not web services, for internet service).
- studentrob 9y ago
  Thanks for your ideas! Points about bottleneck at the last mile and Verizon not offering to lay more cabling to your house are good I realize that ISPs want to paint the debate as separate products. I wanted to use their language in my description so that people can interpret their words alongside mine. If you're constantly making different points and not addressing your opponents', I feel the listener will walk away with a 50/50 chance of agreeing with you, probably choosing to follow their political party. If you offer some translation, maybe we can get some meaningful discussion about it. Regarding charging rich people to enter the fence. I feel that would only help convince the general public that net neutrality benefits big companies. Google and Facebook, forgive me if you work there, are teetering on not being perceived as evil mega corporations with access to all our data. Naming them as a victim doesn't do much to win over the public.
H4CK3RM4N 9y ago
This is a pretty good take on the 'pipe' idea from the last time Net Neutrality was threatened: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtt2aSV8wdw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtt2aSV8wdw
- studentrob 9y ago
  Ah, thanks for that link. That should be distributed again. Net neutrality at much more risk today than it was 3 years ago when that video was published
memracom 9y ago
Swap regular water for Brawndo. It's got electrolytes. Watch the movie "Idiocracy"
- studentrob 9y ago
  Funny movie, but, telling people they're idiots for considering the FCC's proposed policy changes isn't going to get anyone to listen.
nebabyte 9y ago
"Imagine some service came along tomorrow that was a better fb or youtube, and real fb/youtube got even shittier (play to anything you know annoys said friend about those plats, or think up things they could do for profit that would annoy your friend) "Now imagine that that new service can't compete, because fb/goog have a handshake deal with your ISP, so as long as you live here you're stuck with shitty X." Honestly this ^ kinda thing is all most people would care about if at all.
kristopolous 9y ago
My way is simpler and more broad: "Do you trust Comcast/Frontier is on your side? Why give them more power?" Phrasing it as no more than "the latest trick from ATT to screw you over" has huge resonance with people I've talked to. They don't care what it's about generally.
- cookiecaper 9y ago
  This only works with people who are already anti-corporate. A normal conservative would say "Because they're entitled to run their business and use their property as they see fit, and if you don't like what they're offering, you don't have to buy it." The much better argument is that BigCos are seeking to establish a cartel for the primary purpose of excluding entrepreneurship and limiting consumer choice. Emphasize the importance of the internet as a free platform for the market and that net non-neutrality allows an undue influence over that market to whoever the local telecom provider is. This is very real, because the main driver of interest for net non-neutrality from the ISP side is the possibility of protecting cable subscriptions. On that front, it's tech giants v. telecom and entertainment giants. Over 30% of Disney's gross revenue comes from ESPN (yes, really!), and most of that revenue comes from cable subscriptions. Anecdotally, typical-speed internet access will only consume around 30% of the average consumer's cable bill, meaning a cancellation results in ~70% monthly revenue loss from that customer (bundles, contracts, and packages are used to attempt to control this). Cordcutting is a very real threat to the established players, directly conflicting with their interest in delivering stable internet services that are sufficiently reliable and speedy to stream videos.
  - deciplex 9y ago
    > This only works with people who are already anti-corporate. A normal conservative would say "Because they're entitled to run their business and use their property as they see fit, and if you don't like what they're offering, you don't have to buy it." This is true, but I'm not sure what can be done about it. In my experience you can't really appeal to many conservatives along any axis, because they're already sold on the "businesses can do whatever they want" paradigm and if you knock down one pillar of that, they'll erect two others in its place. It won't matter to them if the pillars are made of bullshit, and it won't matter if you keep knocking them down, because they've got a seemingly endless supply of weak excuses for corporate misbehavior and authoritarianism. (And, after your discussion, they'll just prop back up all the pillars you knocked down as well.) So while the point I suspect you were trying to make was "find better ways to appeal to conservatives", what I take away from it is "convince more people to be anti-corporate". Conservatives are a lost cause IMO.
edoloughlin 9y ago
The germ of the idea is already in the article: imagine if your power company demanded that Samsung paid them for the electricity your TV uses etc.
just2n 9y ago
I think the problem is less that there are companies who want to sell you "faster internet to specific websites" and more that there can't be any companies who want to sell you "fast internet to all websites." And that remains true even with reclassification, and the arguments against that aren't against the freedom to access any content you want on the internet, but rather than it makes that competition even harder and less likely to happen. I'm just not sure it's fair to say that one side here is for content agnostic networks and the other is against them, but rather two different approaches to solving the problem where just about everyone agrees with content agnostic networks.
- studentrob 9y ago
  > I think the problem is less that there are companies who want to sell you "faster internet to specific websites" and more that there can't be any companies who want to sell you "fast internet to all websites." I don't follow. You don't feel there are currently any companies that provide fast access to all websites? Perhaps that's true in some parts of the US, but it isn't true worldwide. That suggests there is another way to go about setting up a competitive environment that yields low cost, high speed internet. > I'm just not sure it's fair to say that one side here is for content agnostic networks and the other is against them, but rather two different approaches to solving the problem where just about everyone agrees with content agnostic networks. When your ISP middle man charges special access fees for certain data, that isn't content agnostic. It's specifically giving preference to some content over others based on big corporate $$.
AndyMcConachie 9y ago
You want an analogy, here's a simple one. The Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) was created in 1887 to prevent the vertical integration of the freight train industry. Folks like Rockefeller (Standard Oil) owned the oil production and shipping (freight trains). And used their ownership of freight trains to price discriminate against competitors. Standard Oil shipped for free, other's oil had to pay so much money it put them out of business. The ICC was founded to combat this and break up vertical monopolies. In 1934 the FCC was founded in a similar vein as the ICC. One of its founding missions is to break up/prevent/regulate vertical monopolies. What the ISPs want is they want to be Rockefeller. They want to own the transit and the oil, only this time the transit is moving at the speed of light, and the oil is packets.
- studentrob 9y ago
  Pretty solid example. Thanks!

theprop 9y ago

Try this: imagine the government put up a fence in front of everyone's house and they let poor people in fine, but charged rich people to get in through the fence. That's the basic idea for ISPs...they want to charge Google, Facebook, etc. money. They're already charging Netflix (Verizon forced them to pay or they would throttle them). There is NO CHANCE that ISPs will actually invest in two technically different products like regular/super clean water! That's just how ISPs want paint the debate, that they want the right to invest in "better technology", but the bottleneck is the last mile and the chances that Verizon will lay 2 different cables to your house is exactly zero! The requirement for prejudicial packet routing to deliver things like HD video is a non-starter, Netflix when it's not getting throttled is already delivers great hi-def video in the current non-prejudicial packet-based internet. It is really pure "extortion"...at least in my view and a clear case of necessary government intervention to insure fair market behavior (e.g. ISPs can only charge consumers, not web services, for internet service).

studentrob 9y ago
Thanks for your ideas! Points about bottleneck at the last mile and Verizon not offering to lay more cabling to your house are good I realize that ISPs want to paint the debate as separate products. I wanted to use their language in my description so that people can interpret their words alongside mine. If you're constantly making different points and not addressing your opponents', I feel the listener will walk away with a 50/50 chance of agreeing with you, probably choosing to follow their political party. If you offer some translation, maybe we can get some meaningful discussion about it. Regarding charging rich people to enter the fence. I feel that would only help convince the general public that net neutrality benefits big companies. Google and Facebook, forgive me if you work there, are teetering on not being perceived as evil mega corporations with access to all our data. Naming them as a victim doesn't do much to win over the public.

H4CK3RM4N 9y ago

This is a pretty good take on the 'pipe' idea from the last time Net Neutrality was threatened: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtt2aSV8wdw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtt2aSV8wdw

studentrob 9y ago
Ah, thanks for that link. That should be distributed again. Net neutrality at much more risk today than it was 3 years ago when that video was published

memracom 9y ago

Swap regular water for Brawndo. It's got electrolytes. Watch the movie "Idiocracy"

studentrob 9y ago
Funny movie, but, telling people they're idiots for considering the FCC's proposed policy changes isn't going to get anyone to listen.

nebabyte 9y ago

"Imagine some service came along tomorrow that was a better fb or youtube, and real fb/youtube got even shittier (play to anything you know annoys said friend about those plats, or think up things they could do for profit that would annoy your friend) "Now imagine that that new service can't compete, because fb/goog have a handshake deal with your ISP, so as long as you live here you're stuck with shitty X." Honestly this ^ kinda thing is all most people would care about if at all.

kristopolous 9y ago

My way is simpler and more broad: "Do you trust Comcast/Frontier is on your side? Why give them more power?" Phrasing it as no more than "the latest trick from ATT to screw you over" has huge resonance with people I've talked to. They don't care what it's about generally.

cookiecaper 9y ago
This only works with people who are already anti-corporate. A normal conservative would say "Because they're entitled to run their business and use their property as they see fit, and if you don't like what they're offering, you don't have to buy it." The much better argument is that BigCos are seeking to establish a cartel for the primary purpose of excluding entrepreneurship and limiting consumer choice. Emphasize the importance of the internet as a free platform for the market and that net non-neutrality allows an undue influence over that market to whoever the local telecom provider is. This is very real, because the main driver of interest for net non-neutrality from the ISP side is the possibility of protecting cable subscriptions. On that front, it's tech giants v. telecom and entertainment giants. Over 30% of Disney's gross revenue comes from ESPN (yes, really!), and most of that revenue comes from cable subscriptions. Anecdotally, typical-speed internet access will only consume around 30% of the average consumer's cable bill, meaning a cancellation results in ~70% monthly revenue loss from that customer (bundles, contracts, and packages are used to attempt to control this). Cordcutting is a very real threat to the established players, directly conflicting with their interest in delivering stable internet services that are sufficiently reliable and speedy to stream videos.
- deciplex 9y ago
  > This only works with people who are already anti-corporate. A normal conservative would say "Because they're entitled to run their business and use their property as they see fit, and if you don't like what they're offering, you don't have to buy it." This is true, but I'm not sure what can be done about it. In my experience you can't really appeal to many conservatives along any axis, because they're already sold on the "businesses can do whatever they want" paradigm and if you knock down one pillar of that, they'll erect two others in its place. It won't matter to them if the pillars are made of bullshit, and it won't matter if you keep knocking them down, because they've got a seemingly endless supply of weak excuses for corporate misbehavior and authoritarianism. (And, after your discussion, they'll just prop back up all the pillars you knocked down as well.) So while the point I suspect you were trying to make was "find better ways to appeal to conservatives", what I take away from it is "convince more people to be anti-corporate". Conservatives are a lost cause IMO.

edoloughlin 9y ago

The germ of the idea is already in the article: imagine if your power company demanded that Samsung paid them for the electricity your TV uses etc.

just2n 9y ago

I think the problem is less that there are companies who want to sell you "faster internet to specific websites" and more that there can't be any companies who want to sell you "fast internet to all websites." And that remains true even with reclassification, and the arguments against that aren't against the freedom to access any content you want on the internet, but rather than it makes that competition even harder and less likely to happen. I'm just not sure it's fair to say that one side here is for content agnostic networks and the other is against them, but rather two different approaches to solving the problem where just about everyone agrees with content agnostic networks.

studentrob 9y ago
> I think the problem is less that there are companies who want to sell you "faster internet to specific websites" and more that there can't be any companies who want to sell you "fast internet to all websites." I don't follow. You don't feel there are currently any companies that provide fast access to all websites? Perhaps that's true in some parts of the US, but it isn't true worldwide. That suggests there is another way to go about setting up a competitive environment that yields low cost, high speed internet. > I'm just not sure it's fair to say that one side here is for content agnostic networks and the other is against them, but rather two different approaches to solving the problem where just about everyone agrees with content agnostic networks. When your ISP middle man charges special access fees for certain data, that isn't content agnostic. It's specifically giving preference to some content over others based on big corporate $$.

AndyMcConachie 9y ago

You want an analogy, here's a simple one. The Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) was created in 1887 to prevent the vertical integration of the freight train industry. Folks like Rockefeller (Standard Oil) owned the oil production and shipping (freight trains). And used their ownership of freight trains to price discriminate against competitors. Standard Oil shipped for free, other's oil had to pay so much money it put them out of business. The ICC was founded to combat this and break up vertical monopolies. In 1934 the FCC was founded in a similar vein as the ICC. One of its founding missions is to break up/prevent/regulate vertical monopolies. What the ISPs want is they want to be Rockefeller. They want to own the transit and the oil, only this time the transit is moving at the speed of light, and the oil is packets.

studentrob 9y ago
Pretty solid example. Thanks!