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Net neutrality is in jeopardy again
- 1ba9115454 9y agoHow much of this can just be fixed by the free market? If I feel an ISP is limiting my choices wouldn't I just switch?
- cageface 9y agoIn many parts of the US there is no real choice.
- charia 9y agoIt could work like that if you have a choice in ISPs in your area. Many people don't and are subject to the whims of the single ISP that serves their area.
- roblabla 9y agoIn some places, you don't have a choice of which ISP you use. It's comcast or nothing. The free market doesn't automatically fix everything, because of the high cost to entry related to infrastructure.
- hughw 9y agoIn rural Texas I am lucky to have the one choice I have, and it's 12 Mbps ADSL+. Most out here can't get that.
- Neliquat 9y agoI live in an area with one ISP. What do I do? Please do not tell me to 'start my own'.
- ohthehugemanate 9y agoBecause the telcos in America have legislated the market away. If you live in a major city like New York, you probably have many options - which boil down to the big 3 telcos and their resellers. If you live in a city of under 3 million, you likely don't even get this illusion of choice.
- notsrg 9y agoMore and more people are moving into condos in cities where a board picks one ISP and that's what you get. Are you really going to move just to switch ISP's?
- jballanc 9y agoHow many ISPs do you have to choose from? Personally, I have two: Comcast and AT&T. Comcast has been a nightmare recently, with almost weekly outages and frequent periods of severely degraded bandwidth. AT&T (even their supposed "Fiber" offering) requires a working copper twisted-pair RJ11 outlet where the gateway is to be installed, which I don't have and which would require an electrician and multiple holes in my walls to supply. So I'm on Comcast. Reluctantly. Now what if Comcast decided to charge more for access to HN? Where's your free market god now?
- feld 9y agoYou are choosing to not use AT&T over holes in the walls of your dwelling required for installation. The free market is working as intended in this case. Most people really don't have a choice. You're just being a prick.
- sctb 9y agoYou can always safely leave out the personal jeers, like the guidelines ask. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- feld 9y agoIt wasn't a personal jeer. I was commenting on his behavior/attitude, not calling him names. There's a big difference. alternately: > You're just being (a prick | stubborn | bullheaded | rigid | perverse | unreasonable)
- sctb 9y agoIf there's a difference, it's one that doesn't bring the comment within the guidelines. They don't just ask us not to call people names, they ask us not to call names at all: > When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. E.g. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- ep103 9y agoIt costs a lot of money for ISPs to expand their areas of service. As such, they explicitly avoid expanding into areas where a competitor already exists (riskier rate of return). To counter this, government at all levels have provided tax subsidies or outright payment to ISPs to expand into their localities. And regularly, the ISPs simply take the money and do nothing, relying on the fact that they are large enough that they can fight it out in court. The end result is a nation of monopoly coverage.
- SimbaOnSteroids 9y agoDon't forget the lobbying efforts that result in local legislation that make it illegal for other companies to move in, see google fiber or any of the municipal attempts.
- ajross 9y agoFor the same reason the "free market" doesn't afford you competitive choice in power or gas delivery, sewer service, trash pickup, road paving outside your driveway... Physical residential networks are, like all other civil infrastructure, natural monopolies. They don't work in a "free market" and never have. The insistence on the part of glibertarians that somehow this "regulation-free" mode will work for data when it hasn't for literally a century and a half of experience with other utilities is... frustrating.
- woah 9y agoYou can get 540mbps wifi gear for like $50 now. Radio internet is not a natural monopoly.
- throwaway2048 9y agothose speeds are not achievable anywhere outside of a perfect test condition lab. With a lot of other wifi radios in the area, you are lucky to get a usable signal at all.
- giaour 9y agoI live in a major tech hub in a neighborhood full of Amazon and Microsoft engineers, and the only available ISP is Comcast. If I had literally any other choice, I would never give Comcast another dime. Given the prohibitive cost of last mile infrastructure, I can't see how I'll ever have another option in a deregulated market.
- kakarot 9y agoWhere do you live that gives you more than one choice of a decent ISP? Do you really think even if you had half a dozen good providers, they wouldn't play ball and snatch up premium data deals? Who do you think is lobbying for this change in policy to begin with? All of our ISPs, uniting against a common enemy: the savvy consumer. When you hear and agree with things like "but free market competition will save us!" you are buying directly into their propaganda campaign.
- Bartweiss 9y agoWhere I live now, I have two ISP choices. There's no actual evidence of collusion, but their prices are high, eerily similar, and far different from their prices in higher-competition markets. Where I lived before this, I had one ISP choice. And the local government had given them a legal monopoly, so the free market was incapable of offering me an alternative. Even if the market arguments are sound in theory, net neutrality is happening in the world we actually have. That's a world where ISP competition is somewhere between "scarce" and "illegal".
- jwilk 9y agoIf you want people to take your article seriously, then maybe you shouldn't put a pointless animated GIF in it.
- scoates 9y agoThe HTML of the page doesn't contain "888". This makes it impossible for some disabled people to get the number at all. This makes it a practical concern in addition to bad taste.
- aplaice 9y agoIt's rather sad that none of the images (that I checked — I might be wrong) on blog.mozilla.org seem to have an alttext. (For the record, while I generally dislike gifs, I don't have strong feelings, either way, regarding the animated image here.)
- Bartweiss 9y agoThat is unfortunate. I'm not generally opposed to sensible use of images or (occasionally) gifs, but the practice of describing their contents in alttext is excellent - it enables both usability and machine-readability, and I really hope it catches on more widely.
- jimktrains2 9y agoAnd it flashes so fast, no human could actually call the number. It's very frustrating, even for able people!
- matt4077 9y agoThis feels like one of those complaints only ever made because "others may find it objectionable". I've seen that sentiment ruin the best ideas with mediocracy. Maybe "Marketing Correctness" would be an appropriate term: "A creative idea that everyone thinks is extraordinarily good, but that nobody is willing to embrace because they expect others to complain". I. e. what happens when you want to name an airline "Virgin", or a morning-after pill "Plan B" and aren't Richard Branson.
- pbhowmic 9y agoI tried commenting on the proceeding at the FCC site but I keep getting service unavailable errors. The FCC site itself is up but conveniently we the public cannot comment on the issue.
- Chaebixi 9y agoIs it because the public is denied access or just capacity problems? Where can I find this proceeding to lodge a comment?
- skrebbel 9y ago> Is it because the public is denied access or just capacity problems? There's no difference. It's like understaffing voting booths in areas where the majority is anti-current-government.
- samsolomon 9y agoI have attempted to comment, but the form won't let me select a state. When I submit the form, I get an error telling me that I must select a state. Does anyone else have this issue? https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/filings/express https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/filings/express
- alexanderdmitri 9y agoyou can upload a document with your comment here: https://www.fcc.gov/restoring-internet-freedom-comments-wc-docket-no-17-108 https://www.fcc.gov/restoring-internet-freedom-comments-wc-d... you can also submit via API: https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/public-api-docs.html https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/public-api-docs.html
- Dragonai 9y ago> you can also submit via API: https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/public-api-docs.html https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/public-api-docs.html That's dope, I had no idea this was available. Thanks for sharing!
- wehadfun 9y agoTrumps appointees disappoint me a lot. This guy and the one over the EPA
- kyrra 9y agoAjit Pai was technically appointed to the FCC by Obama. (Though this panel of 5 people can have only at-most 3 people of the same part affiliation on it at any given time). What Trump did was appoint Ajit the chairman of the FCC. The FCC only has 3 people on it right now (2 R, 1 D), with 2 vacant seats.
- artursapek 9y ago...but Trump is the devil and Obama is our saviour?!?!
- sctb 9y agoPlease don't post unsubstantively like this.
- alexanderdmitri 9y agoThis is true. I think it's also worth noting this whole deregulation push to have a fast lane was initiated by Tom Wheeler, who was appointed chairman of the FCC by Obama (Ajit Pai was in the ranks at the time). The initiative Wheeler introduced was supported into motion by the 3 Dems appointed to the FCC (overriding the 2 dissenting Reps)[1]. What stopped the fast lane momentum (IMO) was a very loud outcry by the public and some of the big tech companies that also voiced dissent. It's what Trinity said that has me really worried: "A déjà vu is usually a glitch in the Matrix. It happens when they change something." [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRDEZHJxdw4&t=230s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRDEZHJxdw4&t=230s ( 2:18 to 5:00 )
- akhilcacharya 9y agoHe was recommended by Mitch McConnell - its customary to appoint the Republican recommendation.
- deleted 9y ago
- jfaucett 9y agoDoes anyone else find the internet market odd? Up until now net neutrality and other policies have given us the following: 1. Massive monopolies which essentially control 95% of all tech (google, facebook, amazon, microsoft, apple, etc) 2. An internet where every consumer assumes everything should be free. 3. An internet where there's only enough room for a handfull of players in each market globally i.e. if you have a "project-management app" there will not be a successfull one for each country much less hundreds for each country. 4. Huge barriers of entry for any new player into many of the markets (no one can even begin competing with google search for less than 20 million). I think there's still a lot of potential to open up new markets with different policies that would make the internet a much better place for both consumers and entrepreneurs - especially the small guys. I'm just not 100% sure maintaining net-neutrality is the best way to help the little guy and bolster innovation. Anyone have any ideas how we could alleviate some of the above mentioned problems? EDIT: another question :) If net-neutrality has absolutely nothing to do with the tech monopolies maintaining their power position then why do they all support it? [https://internetassociation.org/ https://internetassociation.org/]
- and0 9y agoNet neutrality has nothing to do with why we have monopolies, and is something we absolutely need in response to those monopolies.
- learc83 9y agoPlease tell me how allowing ISPs to to steer consumers towards services owned by them via preferential treatment of their data helps small businesses.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- liveoneggs 9y agoThe internet is the greatest barrier-lowering device to starting a business ever conceived. You can, using just your skills and barely any money, compete with google and facebook this afternoon! (google and amazon will even give you a month to try for free) Your chances at winning are pretty low, but eventually someone will do it.
- jameslk 9y agoI don't understand why you're getting downvoted. This is a valid question and shouldn't be downvoted so others can learn from the discussion.
- specializeded 9y agoYou don't understand why a talking point that's been attacked and discredited every single time it's been brought up, every single time net neutrality is rearing its head is downvoted? Why don't you just honestly say: "stop downvoting" instead of feigning this absurd obtuseness. There were 7 top level replies to the comment before you came along, hardly lacking discussion even with the downvotes.
- jameslk 9y ago> a talking point It's a question. There isn't any statements or manipulation in it. > Why don't you just honestly say: "stop downvoting" I effectively did. I said it "shouldn't be downvoted" > There were 7 top level replies to the comment before you came along, hardly lacking discussion even with the downvotes. That's my point. Hopefully others get to read those comments if this question isn't already pinned to the bottom. For the record, I'm not against net neutrality.
- specializeded 9y agoA free market solution to net neutrality is a talking point, regardless of how a specific comment is formatted. You missed this part: "without feigning this absurd obtuseness". And for the record I'm addressing the dopey false concern, not your stance on net neutrality. Have an honest day.
- jameslk 9y agoIt's unfortunate you don't seem to appreciate the difference between rhetoric and a question. I skipped your baseless accusation of "feigning this absurd obtuseness" since it was flamebait and wasn't worth addressing. Being insulting isn't really appreciated in this community.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- weberc2 9y agoI wasn't impressed with this article; it reads like fear mongering. More importantly, I don't think the fix is regulation, I think it's better privacy tech + increased competition via elimination of local monopolies. Do we really want to depend on government to enforce privacy on the Internet?
- shallot_router 9y agoHow do you suggest we eliminate ISP monopolies?
- weberc2 9y agoDeflating the cost of access to rights of way would be a huge start.
- Jtsummers 9y agoPrivacy is tangential to the issue of net neutrality.
- hobs 9y agoWe have documented cases over and over where the ISP monopolies prevent innovation and higher tiers of speeds and said ISPs are trying their hardest to clamp down on the specific regulations that make them less money. If we dont depend on government for regulation we lose everything because no other system can arise within the confines of what we have. Eliminating regulation will in no way eliminate local monopolies, only the opposite.
- vacri 9y agoYou depend on the government to enforce privacy elsewhere, so why not? A man hanging around inside the women's toilets? Government deals with that. A stranger hanging around inside your house, or just peeping in your windows? Government deals with that. The whole point of government is to lay down the rules to keep society ticking along.
- ctrl-j 9y agoNet neutrality has little to nothing to do with privacy. Better tech and competition can definitely help with keeping data locked down. What alternatives to government regulation do you see in regards to data selling and paid preferential QoS? Other than "voting with your wallet" (which is largely impossible since most markets only have 1-2 ISPs) what can the average consumer do to prevent this? How will they even gain visibility? Do you know what information your ISP has sold about you over the last few years? It's definitely more than you think.
- MichaelBurge 9y ago> The order meant individuals were free to say, watch and make what they want online, without meddling or interference from Internet service providers. > Without net neutrality, big companies could censor your voice and make it harder to speak up online. Hmm, was it ever prohibited for e.g. some Twitter user to write your ISP an angry letter calling you a Nazi, so they shut your internet off to avoid the headache? I've only heard about "net neutrality" in the context of bandwidth pricing. It's very different if companies are legally required to sell you internet(except maybe short of an actual crime).
- Bartweiss 9y agoThis is an interesting question, actually. I don't know of that being prohibited, but I've also never heard of it actually happening to anyone. Does anyone know of an example or a regulation against it?
- tycho01 9y agoI'm curious: to what extent could a US ruling on this affect the rest of the world?
- pwtweet 9y agoNot much affect with regards to the EU as net neutrality became EU law in 2015.
- grandalf 9y agoNet Neutrality is a meme started by Google (the Halliburton of advertising) as propaganda intended to help harm its competitors. Why shouldn't a local ISP make a deal with Bing Video to stream 5K unlimited in exchange for interruption ads, while limiting youtube traffic to 1080p? Why should Google strong-arm those ISPs (via net neutrality) into providing support for the most expensive leg of data transit between customers and youtube without offering some kind of subsidy? Why are we all crossing our fingers hoping Google offers last mile in our area rather than aspiring to start a far better last-mile ISP using cutting edge tech? Our highways do not have "neutrality". Only certified cars and trucks capable of certain speeds who have paid registration fees and taxes are allowed on the scarce resource. With "highway neutrality" we'd have people walking, someone on a unicycle, various antique vehicles, a bus emitting smoke, and hordes of go-carts. All this traffic would require highways to be significantly larger than they are today, possibly 20-30 lanes wide. With highways, we know there is demand to transit between cities, so we prioritize that traffic. The traffic pays a toll to the builder of the infrastructure. For internet, we handle it differently. We grant a monopoly to the last mile providers and then force them to charge no tolls. So they create services that allow for the most cost-savings at the expense of overall quality... This means high latency, since batching upstream is one way they save money. A low latency internet is not compatible with net neutrality, unless a latency requirement is built into the regulation as it is with POTS. Since most content demanded (in bytes) is video, the network characteristics to optimize video will dominate ISP buildout, and all other protocols will suffer. If ISPs build to meet demand, and massive services like YouTube are heavily demanded, then net neutrality offers competitive protection for YouTube/Google (the Halliburton of advertising), blocking local ISPs from doing deals that would challenge YouTube's dominance. But why would an ISP build to meet demand for other services/protocols when the bar is simply set at providing adequate YouTube streaming? There is no incentive to push for better/faster protocols and more granular, tiered pricing. Proponents of Net Neutrality need to detail exactly what QoS settings they are calling for, so that we can all evaluate specifically how our desired use-cases will be impacted. Low latency, rather than burst bandwidth, is by far the most important characteristic of the last mile internet, and so we should be wary of any policies that de-emphasize latency.
- stuartaxelowen 9y ago
- boona 9y agoIf the internet is fundamental to free speech, maybe it's not a good idea to give it's freedom over to state control, and in particular to an agency who historically has gone beyond it's original mandate and censored content. When you hand over control to the government, don't ask yourself what it would look like if you were creating the laws, ask yourself what it'll look like when self-interested politicians create them.
- pweissbrod 9y agoYour argument glosses over the difference between a last-mile private corporation controlling every byte of content and the government simply preventing the practice of route prioritization. Just because you are in favor of preventing route prioritization doesnt mean youre in favor of the bizarre absolute opposite of government "controlling content". nobody (I know of) is advocating government control of content. That is a different discussion entirely from net neutrality.
- boona 9y agoYou've missed the point of my argument entirely. The FCC was put into place to regulate airwaves, i.e. who can use what airwaves and for what purpose. It didn't take long for them to start regulating the content said airwaves. My point is that I really don't care what your good intention are, or what you believe the government will limit itself to. That's all nice and sweet, and a great discussion for a 5th grade civics class, but what I'm saying is how long do you think before well intended, someone please think of the children types (or more recently those of the outrage culture spawned from university campuses), will start regulating the content? Once you give them authority to make decisions about how the internet should be regulated, they'll start getting creative. The FCC is a historical example of that, and it's the exact department your handing over the internet to.
- JustAnotherPat 9y agoNovember 8th was critical to the Internet's future, not today. People made their bed when they refused to get behind Clinton. Now you must accept the consequences.
- croon 9y agohttp://gofccyourself.com http://gofccyourself.com (redirect) Edit: If it stays blank after redirect it's because it (FCC's site) can't handle the load, or [conspiracy theory].
- nathcd 9y agoAfter you hit the redirect, click the "+ Express" button the right to go to the comment page.
- dlavalle 9y agoPlease maintain the requirements for net neutrality.
- Julezsanders 9y agoPreserve your neutrality on title Two
- Julezsanders 9y agoI support strong net neutrality of title two oversight of isp's
- Julezsanders 9y agoI support strong net neutrality of title two oversight of isp's
- Julezsanders 9y agoI support strong net neutrality of title two oversight of isp's
- shearman312 9y agoI support net neutrality with Title Two oversight
- duanat 9y agoI support net neutrality with Title Two oversite of isp's
- playa1 9y ago
- shawnee_ 9y agoNet neutrality is fundamental to free speech. Without net neutrality, big companies could censor your voice and make it harder to speak up online. Net neutrality has been called the “First Amendment of the Internet.” Not just harder. Infinitely more dangerous. Probably the scariest implications for NN being gutted are those around loss of anonymity through the Internet. ISPs who are allowed to sell users' browsing history, data packets, personal info with zero legal implications --> that anonymity suddenly comes with a price. And anything that comes with a price can be sold. A reporter's sources must be able to be anonymous in many instances where release of information about corruption creates political instability, endangers the reporter, endangers the source, endangers the truth from being revealed. These "rollbacks" of regulations make it orders of magnitude easier for any entity in a corporation or organization to track down people who attempt to expose their illegal actions / skirting of laws. Corporations have every incentive to suppress information that hurts their stock price. Corrupt local officials governments have every incentive to suppress individuals who threaten their "job security". Corrupt PACs have every incentive to drown out that one tiny voice that speaks the truth. A government that endorses suppression cannot promote safety, stability, or prosperity of its people. EDIT: Yes, I am also referring to the loss of Broadband Privacy rules as they have implications in the rollback of net neutrality: https://www.theverge.com/2017/3/29/15100620/congress-fcc-isp-web-browsing-privacy-fire-sale https://www.theverge.com/2017/3/29/15100620/congress-fcc-isp... Loss of broadband privacy: Yes, your data can and will be sold Loss of net neutrality: How much of it and for how much?
- gcb0 9y agocurrent regulation doesn't account for anonymity. only that a isp must also do its best to route packages it can't understand. but doesn't guarantee either. if they can understand the content and want to monitor it, there's no protection against it. without it they can just block/charge extra for things they cant read. making anonymity and privacy harder. but again, they wont have any new rigths that they don't have today.
- apexalpha 9y agoI'm not American, so please correct me if I'm wrong but I have yet to see any proof of this whole 'sell your internet history' complaint that seems to be blatently copied by everyone without any research. The way I understand it is that ISPs can sell anonymized data from groups of users. Like: people who visit news.ycombinator.com generally also visit stackoverflow. I also don't know how an ISP would get your actual internet history if the website uses HTTPS. Yes, I am a strong supporter of NN and I was appaled when the EU diluted it, but this reply is directed at your 'ISPs who are allowed to sell users' browsing history' part.
- bkeroack 9y agoI've written it before and I'll write it again (despite the massive downvotes from those who want to silence dissent): Title II regulation of the Internet is not the net neutrality panacea that many people think it is. That is the same kind of heavy-handed regulation that gave us the sorry copper POTS network we are stuck with today. The free market is the solution, and must be defended against those who want European-style top-down national regulation of what has historically been the most free and vibrant area of economic growth the world has ever seen. The reason the internet grew into what it is today during the 1990s was precisely because it was so free of regulation and governmental control. If the early attempts[1] to regulate the internet had succeeded, HN probably wouldn't exist and none of us would have jobs right now. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Decency_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Decency_Act (just one example from memory--there were several federal attempts to censor and tax the Internet in the 1990s)
- 1_2__3 9y agoMost of the POTS system is fiber and has been for some time. The "sorry copper POTS network" enabled the future through any number of amazing technologies up to and including SS7 and lots of modern tech. If you're saying NN gets us something as long-lasting, ubiquitous and powerful as the POTS system, sign me up.
- freehunter 9y agoNot to mention POTS goes everywhere and provides basically the same service to everyone at roughly the same price nationwide. And it works even if the power is out. If broadband stood still at the speed it's at right now (my not-impressive suburban area is 40-60mbps) but matched the consistency and affordability of POTS nationwide, we would be in a far better place than we are now.
- BenjiWiebe 9y agoIt puts a smile on my face every time someone refers to 60Mbps as not impressive... I live in a rural area, that is true, but it isn't that under populated or that far from a city. And we can get 6Mbps tops, unless we go to Verizon and pay per gig. Oh wait, actually Verizon service is pretty terrible here too.
- marcgcombi 9y agoSomeone whom has read and UNDERSTANDS the Net Neutrality legislation AND code of regulation, please comment. If you have only stayed at a Holiday Inn Express, please restrain yourself :-) Having been a user of the Internet prior to the birth of the HTTP standard, I find these arguments spurious, straw men, and red herrings. But, I am open (probably more open, than my progressive peers) to being better informed. So please help... and don't flame. Advance ideas. "Net neutrality is fundamental to free speech. Without net neutrality, big companies could censor your voice and make it harder to speak up online. Net neutrality has been called the “First Amendment of the Internet.”" Help me to understand how freedom of speech was attenuated, prior to Net Neutral, or how was it ACTUALLY threatened? Why couldn't I have published my own blog or editorial site, now or in the future? "Net neutrality is fundamental to competition. Without net neutrality, big Internet service providers can choose which services and content load quickly, and which move at a glacial pace. That means the big guys can afford to buy their way in, while the little guys are muscled out." Why wouldn't other Internet services step into the void, to fulfill a demand? Perfect example: As in China, the Great Firewall has caused a boom in VPN / tunneling technology, to fulfill a consumer demand for government-free access to information. "Net neutrality is fundamental to innovation. Without net neutrality, creators and entrepreneurs could struggle to reach new users. Investment in new ideas would dry up, and the Internet would start to look more and more like cable TV: so many channels, but with nothing on." Any honest person would refute the assertion that "investment in innovation would dry up." There will always be wild-cat investors seeking huge multiple returns and willing to dump stupid cash on a bunch of white dudes in hoodies. However, I would stipulate that large corps like Fakebook would be better able to absord the risk of innovation, ergo innovations may be captive to large companies... and that would stink for eager entrepreneurs. I do, however, think that revenue-sharing concepts that include the transmission companies, modeled after the cable monopolies of olde (cable cutting is killing that model) could be a suitable alternative to todays two-tier model (transmission vs. content). "Net neutrality is fundamental to user choice. Without net neutrality, ISPs could decide you’ve watched too many cat videos in one day, and throttle your Internet speeds — leaving you behind on the latest Maru memes." This is true, I have no argument for this... ala AT&T "unlimited bandwidth" (small print) until you get to 20GB and then we will throttle your device until it is essentially useless, as a smart device :-( (BTW, kiss my @$$ AT&T for that).
- bjt2n3904 9y agoSo, which is it HackerNews? Are we OK with companies deciding what gets on the internet, or are we not? On one hand, we laud Facebook et al. for suppressing "fake news", and then we get upset when ISPs do the same. Furthermore, the FCC has historically engaged in content regulation. Anyone wonder why there's no more cartoons on broadcast television? Or perhaps why the FCC is investigating Colbert's Trump Jokes? If we're so concerned about content freedom, the FCC is not the organization to trust.
- chasing 9y agoFacebook isn't an ISP. Facebook -- though big! -- is one site on the internet and if you feel like you're not receiving news about things that are important to you there, you hop onto another site. If enough people stop using Facebook, Facebook will be compelled to make changes. Breaking net neutrality laws makes it harder for you to find alternatives. Imagine you're stuck with whatever news sources your ISP picks for you. "Huffington Post, Reddit, and Twitter have decided not to pay us, so we no longer offer our users access to those sites."
- bjt2n3904 9y ago> Comcast -- though big! -- is one ISP on the internet and if you feel like you're not receiving news about things that are important to you there, you hop onto another ISP. If enough people stop using Comcast, Comcast will be compelled to make changes. [...] Imagine you're stuck with whatever news sources your social network picks for you. "Huffington Post, Reddit, and Twitter have decided not to pay us, so we no longer accept links to those sites." And yet, when you change the name of the company, the argument somehow doesn't apply. I'd make the argument that Facebook has just a powerful monopoly on social networking as ISPs have on service. Especially with things like "shadow profiles". We should have the FCC break up Facebook and Twitter for open source things like Mastodon, right? You also dodged my point about the FCC's history of content regulation.
- FullMtlAlcoholc 9y ago> Comcast -- though big! -- is one ISP on the internet and if you feel like you're not receiving news about things that are important to you there, you hop onto another ISP. If enough people stop using Comcast, Comcast will be compelled to Unfortunately, for the majority of people in the US, there would only be one other choice. For me, that's AT&T. The big companies will payoff both or one isp for fast lanes, the ISP's will definitely put there service in the fast lane, if your service competes with either of them, get to pay not only the normal infrastructure costs, you now have to bribe the isp's not to throttle your service. Facebook in the same class of monopoly as there are many other niche social networking apps built around oarticular interests. I only have two ways to connect to the Internet. I lament that my ISP choices are limited, but not enough people even understand tech issues to care about them and certainly no one in Congress, save for a few.
- sleepingeights 9y agoMany of these articles are missing an easily exploitable position. The key term is "bandwidth" which is the resource at stake. What is being fought over is how to define this "bandwidth" in a way that will be enforceable against the citizen and favorable to the corporation (i.e. "government"). One way they could do this is to divide it like they did the radio spectrum by way of frequency, where frequency is related to "bandwidth". The higher the frequency, the greater the bandwidth. With communication advances, the frequencies can be grouped just like they did with radio, where certain "frequencies" are reserved by the government/military, and others are monopolized by the corporations, and a tiny sliver is provided as a "public" service. This way would be the most easily enforceable for them to attack NN and the first amendment, as it already exists by form of radio. * It is already being applied by cable providers through "downstream/upstream" where your participation by "uploading" of your content is viewed inferior to your consumption of it. i.e. Your contribution (or upload) is a tiny fraction of your consumption (or download). * Also, AWS, Google and other cloud services charge your VPS for "providing" content (egress) and charge you nothing for consuming (ingress). On that scale, the value of what you provide is so miniscule it is almost non-existent to the value of what you consume. tldr; NN is already partly destroyed.
- J5892 9y agoBandwidth doesn't have a frequency. Net Neutrality is literally the concept of treating all bandwidth the same, no matter the source.
- mbroshi 9y agoI am agnostic on net neutrality (ie. neither for nor against, just admitting my own lack of ability to assess its fallout). I read a lot of sweeping, but hard to measure claims on its affects (such as in the linked article). Are there any concrete, measurable affects that anyone is willing to predict? Examples might be: * Average load times for the 1000 most popular webpages will decrease. * There will be fewer internet startups over the next 5 years than the previous. Edit: formatting
- chillacy 9y agoTo that end, I'm curious how the internet works in countries without net neutrality protections: https://www.thisisnetneutrality.org/ https://www.thisisnetneutrality.org/ I know in china there are a handful of telecom companies with absolutely terrible peering between each other, so that companies have to buy CDN services which have points of presence in all the carriers. But that may or may not be an effect of their lack of net neutrality policy, since there's so much else going on there.
- J5892 9y agoYour examples are actually pretty spot on. > * Average load times for the 1000 most popular webpages will decrease. Absolutely possible if companies in the top 1000 pay for priority over other companies in the top 1000. Also possible if an ISP decides to make their own version of a top 1000 site, and throttles its competitors. > * There will be fewer internet startups over the next 5 years than the previous. When ISPs create an artificial barrier to entry such as paid prioritization, costs to start a business and become profitable will increase, which will absolutely reduce the amount of new startups.
- laughingman2 9y agoI never thought hackernews would have so many opposing net neutrality. Is some alt-right brigading this thread? which is ironic considering how they claim to care about free speech.
- wtf_is_up 9y ago"Why aren't you all falling in line out of fear of this boogeyman?"
- marcgcombi 9y agoPretty much, only liberal progressive "brigade" holes like this....
- vog 9y agoIt is really a pity that in the US, net neutrality was never established by law, but "just" on institutional level. Here in the EU, things are much slower and the activists were somewhat envious how fast net neutrality was established in the US, while in the EU this is a really slow legislation process. But now it seems the this slower way is at least more sustainable. We still don't have real net neutrality in the EU, but the achievements we have so far are more durable, and can't be overthrown that quickly.
- alexanderdmitri 9y agoOut of curiosity, what laws does the EU have that are similar and why do you say it's not 'real' net neutrality?
- stinkytaco 9y agoHonest question, but is Net Neutrality the answer to these problems? A few weeks ago on HN, someone made an analogy to water: someone filling their swimming pool should pay more for water than someone showering or cooking with it. This seems to make sense to me, water is a scarce resource and it should be prioritized. Is the same true of the Internet? I absolutely agree that ISPs that are also in the entertainment business shouldn't be allowed to prioritize their own data, but that seems to me an anti-trust problem, not a net neutrality problem. I also agree that ISPs should be regulated like utilities, but even utilities are allowed to limit service to maintain their infrastructure (see: rolling blackouts). Perhaps I simply do not understand NN and perhaps organizations haven't done a good job of explaining it, but I don't know that these problems are not best solved by the FTC, not the FCC.
- syrrim 9y agoISPs are allowed to limit their services to prevent overuse. See: data caps and bandwidth limits. Net neutrality is concerned specifically with limits on usage that are not related to the amount of data used, but rather the information contained in that data.
- Someone1234 9y agoImagine if a water company intentionally degraded the water supply coming into your home so that it was unsafe to consume but safe for most other needs. Then that same company offers to sell you safe to consume bottled water. There's nothing specifically immoral about selling safe bottled water. But as soon as you induce people to buy it, in this case by degrading the tap water, you're doing something wrong. Much like water companies, many areas either have no choice in ISP or can only choose between the big three who have very similar policies. Choice is in effect an illusion.
- secabeen 9y ago>A few weeks ago on HN, someone made an analogy to water: someone filling their swimming pool should pay more for water than someone showering or cooking with it. This seems to make sense to me, water is a scarce resource and it should be prioritized. I don't think so. Water is a resource that can be stored. Bandwidth is a perishable good. If it's not used, you can't store the excess for use later. Billing based on peak usage or peak available bandwidth maps properly to provider costs, but billing based on usage doesn't.
- alexanderdmitri 9y agoI think a great thing to do (if you are for net neutrality), is pick specific parts of the NPRM filed with this proceeding and comment directly on it[1] to help do some work for the defense. I feel sorry for anyone who might actually need to address this document point for point to defend net neutrality. I tried my hand at the general claim of regulatory uncertainty hurting business, then Paragraphs 45 and 47: -> It is worth noting that by bringing this into the spotlight again the NPRM is guilty of iginiting the same regulatory uncertainty it repeatedly claims has hurt its investments. -> Paragraph 45 devotes 124 words (94% of the paragraph), gives 3 sources (75% of the references in this paragraph) and a number of figures (100% of explicitly hand-picked data) making the claim Title II regulation has suppressed investment. It then ends with 8 words and 1 reference vaguely stating "Other interested parties have come to different conclusions." Given the NPRM's insistence on both detail and clarity, this is absolutely unacceptable. -> There are also a number of extremely misleading and insubstantiated arguments throughout. Reference 114 in Paragraph 47, for example, is actually a hapzard mishmash of 3 references with clearly hand-picked data from somewhat disjointed sources and analyses. Then the next two references [115, 116] in the same paragraph, point to letters sent to the FCC over 2 years ago from small ISP providers before regulations were classified as Title II. Despite discussing the fears raised in these letters, the NRPM provides little data on whether these fears were actually borne out. In fact, one of the providers explicitly mentioned in reference 115, Cedar Falls Utilities, have not in any way been subject to these regulations (they have less than 100,000 customers ... in fact the population of Cedar Falls isn't even 1/2 of the 100,000 customer exemption the FCC has provided!). This is obviously faked concern for the small ISP businesses and again, given the NPRM's insistence on both detail and clarity, this is absolutely unacceptable. [1] makes a great point on specifically addressing what's being brought up in the NPRM: https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/27/how-to-comment-on-the-fccs-proposal-to-revoke-net-neutrality/ https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/27/how-to-comment-on-the-fccs...
- FullMtlAlcoholc 9y agoWhy does anyonw want to give more power to Comcast or AT&T? Neither has hardly ever been described as innovative.. unless you count clueless members of Congress.
- crazy1van 9y ago> Neither has hardly ever been described as innovative I'm not sure what you consider innovative, but my local comcast connection has grown by about 10x in bandwidth over the last 15 years.
- FullMtlAlcoholc 9y agoComcast tops out at 60Mbps where I live, which is basically Beverly Hills, a pretty wealthy area. Oh, the upload speed is a comcastic 5Mbps. It's $80, it's regularly throttled, and it has data caps (although I've gone over and not been charged.) If I had a 4K tv, I'd most likely be over. This is a perfect example of how they stifle innovation by being another impediment/middle man in the move to 4K TV. Previously, I lived in a ramshackle studio apartment in Venice that had Fios where I paid $50 for symmetrical 200Mbps. I don't want or need my ISP to be innovative. I want a dumb, no BS pipe that offers a decent price without bundling, since I don't need tv or a phone
- rhino369 9y agoThey are rolling out Docsis 3.1 in pretty wide areas. Sooner rather than later you'll be able to get way over 60mbit. And 60 mbit is nothing to sneeze at. >I don't want or need my ISP to be innovative. I want a dumb, no BS pipe that offers a decent price without bundling, since I don't need tv or a phone No, you don't want it to be a dumb pipe. You want an ever increasingly fast service. If they installed a dumb pipe in 2003 and never upgraded you'd be mad as hell.
- FullMtlAlcoholc 9y ago> And 60 mbit is nothing to sneeze at. It's substandard, especially when living in the 2nd largest city in the US. It's nealy unacceptable when the upload speeds are a paltry 5Mbps. I want, a network that simply provides simple bandwidth and network speed while being completely neutral with regard to the services and applications the customer accesses that offers if not symmetrical, usable upload speeds. A dumb pipe is not a stagnant pipe, upgrades to network speed doesn't make it smart.
- billfor 9y agoI'm not sure putting the internet into the same class of service as a telephone made sense for all the unintended consequences. Everyone is fine until they wind up paying $50/month for their internet and then seeing another $15 in government fees added to their bill. From a pragmatic point of view, I'm sure the government will always have the option to regulate it later on.
- rosalinekarr 9y ago[The propaganda Comcast is tweeting right now is absolutely ridiculous.][1] [1]: https://twitter.com/comcast/status/859091480895410176 https://twitter.com/comcast/status/859091480895410176
- gojiberry 9y agoWhat else can be expected from Trump and Republicans?
- justforFranz 9y agoMaybe we should give up and just let global capitalists own and run everything and jam web cameras up everyone's asshole.
- vivekd 9y ago>The internet is not broken,” There is no problem for the government to solve.” - FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai This is sooo true. If internet carriers were preferring some kind of content, or censoring or giving less bandwidth to certain content, or charging for certain content - and this was causing the problems described in the mozilla article - then yes - we could have legislation to solve that problem. What gets to me about the net neutrality movement is that the legislation they are pushing for is based on vague fears and panic. Caring about net neutrality has become some sort of weird silicon valley techno-virtue signaling. If ISPs start behaving badly or restricting free speech, I would be happily on board to having legislation to address that. This has not happened and there is no evidence that there is any imminent threat of this happening. Net neutrality legislation is a solution to a vague non-existent speculative problem.
- zmarty 9y agoIf you have no problem with net neutrality, how about we just let it be?
- vivekd 9y agoBecause legislating every conceivable fear and every instance of mass panic will lead to an overly complex and overly burdensome legal system that hampers legitimate activity. In the words of Cicero, "more laws, less justice" When we start having problems with net neutrality, we can legislate against it. As we don't have any such issues, and there is no evidence that we are in imminent threat of net neutrality being dismantled, I see no reason for net neutrality legislation.
- rybosome 9y agoDo you trust the Trump administration and Ajit Pai to listen to the public at that point? I sure as fuck don't. You're right that I don't know of any instances of the sort of censorship people are afraid of, but once they start happening, I have zero faith that the (current) government will protect consumers' rights.
- kristopolous 9y agoFreedom is never won, only temporarily secured.
- SkyMarshal 9y agoLooking at Comcast's webpage on this: http://corporate.comcast.com/comcast-voices/comcast-supports-net-neutrality-and-reversal-of-title-ii-classification-title-ii-is-not-net-neutrality http://corporate.comcast.com/comcast-voices/comcast-supports... They're arguing that Title II Classification is not the same as Net Neutrality, with the following statement: "Title II is a source of authority to impose enforceable net neutrality rules. Title II is not net neutrality. Getting rid of Title II does not mean that we are repealing net neutrality protections for American consumers. We want to be very clear: As Brian Roberts, our Chairman and CEO stated, and as Dave Watson, President and CEO of Comcast Cable writes in his blog post today, we have and will continue to support strong, legally enforceable net neutrality protections that ensure a free and Open Internet* for our customers, with consumers able to access any and all the lawful content they want at any time. Our business practices ensure these protections for our customers and will continue to do so."* So if Title II goes away, where do those strong, legally enforceable net neutrality protections come from? Wasn't that the reasoning behind Title II in the first place, it's the only effectively strong, legally enforceable way of protecting net neutrality (vs other methods with loopholes)?
- lightbyte 9y ago>Wasn't that the reasoning behind Title II in the first place Yes, Verizon v FCC [1] ruled that Title II classification is required for any sort of NN regulation. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verizon_Communications_Inc._v._FCC_(2014) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verizon_Communications_Inc._v....
- twoodfin 9y agoOther than passing a new law, which is at least my preferred means to substantially change policy governing a huge industry.
- Sami_Lehtinen 9y agoMy Internet connection contract already says that they reserve right to: Queue, Prioritize and Throttle traffic. This is used to optimize traffic. - Doesn't sound too neutral to me? It's also clearly stated that some traffic on the network get absolute priority over secondary classes. Interestingly at one point 100 Mbit/s connection wasn't nearly fast enough to play almost any content from YouTube. - Maybe there's some kind of relation, maybe not.
- guelo 9y agoIt's insane the amount of comments on HN of all places that don't understand that the end of Net Neutrality is the end of the open web. People that didn't get a peek at Compuserve have no idea the fire we're playing with here. The open web is the most significant human achievement since the transistor and we're about to kill it happily.
- Imagenuity 9y agoCould you expand on your Compuserve comment? What happened?
- jhardcastle 9y agoPresumably OP is referring to the walled garden of CompuServe, Prodigy, and others where you could only talk to other CompuServe customers on their proprietary message boards. If you wanted to talk with someone else, it was impossible (until later) because the systems didn't interoperate. CompuServe controlled the message boards, and could control which ones were created (or not created) and thus controlled the message. Not maliciously, just as the nature of their product and the state of technology at the time.
- drawnwren 9y agoI used AOL and Compuserve, but after they had both expanded to allowing access to everything. What drove the expansion? It seems like the market worked as expected in this case...
- guelo 9y agoWhen the web came along the walled gardens were immediately obsolete. By the time you joined they were trying to stay relevant by becoming portals to the web. Some people were actually fooled into thinking AOL was the web for over a decade afterwards.
- PeterisP 9y agoThe existence of the open internet made it beneficial to interoperate; lack of it would mean that the expected market interest would require them to not interoperate. For many markets, the natural consequence of unregulated free market conditions is to aggregate towards a monopolistic or oligopolistic market, which isn't a free market any more. The idealized economic free market isn't a stable equilibrium - it's a good position for society, but it doesn't stay there on it's own, it needs to be kept free by preventing it from devolving into the monopolistic optimum.
- c8g 9y ago> Net neutrality is fundamental to competition. so, I won't get 20 times faster youtube. fuck that net neutrality.
- mcv 9y agoYour speed depends on the speed of your own connection, not on whether youtube has a special deal with your ISP. Net Neutrality means you are the customer of your ISP, rather than the content provider.
- c8g 9y agospeed of my own connection is not sufficient to watch youtube video. youtube don't have any deal with my ISP. they just provide extra facilities on play store, youtube, facebook, dl.google.com (some isp on all google services) ubuntu mirror, local server, connection with user in our country etc. you probably won't want to spent half of your salary to watch youtube and install a package faster.
- akhilcacharya 9y agoIt's interesting how much could have changed if ~175k or fewer people in the Great Lakes region had voted differently..
- WmyEE0UsWAwC2i 9y agoNet neutrality should be on the constitution. Safe from lobbists and the politician in office.
- twsted 9y agoIt's sad that this article stayed at the first positions for so little time. And we are on HN. But is this HN folks fault? At the time of my writing "Kubernetes clusters for the hobbyist" - who thinks it is as important as this one? - with 470 points less, almost 300 comments less, both posted 6/7 hours ago is six positions above.
- arca_vorago 9y agoSomeone tell me again why we don't have public internet backbone like we do roads?
- notadoc 9y agoIs the internet a utility? And are internet providers a utility service? That's really what this is about.
- M2Ys4U 9y ago(In the US)
- pc2g4d 9y agoThe top comments here seem to misunderstand net neutrality. It's not about companies selling your browsing history---that was recently approved by Congress in a separate bill[1]---but rather is about whether ISPs can prioritize the data of different sites or apps. IIUC net neutrality doesn't really provide any privacy protections, though it's likely good for privacy by making a more competitive market that motivates companies to act more (though not always) in consumers' interests. 1: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/03/how-isps-can-sell-your-web-history-and-how-to-stop-them/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/03/how-i...
- albertTJames 9y agoNeutrality does not mean anything should be authorized... international law should allow ISP to submit to judiciary surveillance of individuals if those a suspected of serious crimes, terrorism, pedophilia, black hat hacking, psychological operations/fake news. I don't think because policemen can stop me in the street it is a violation of my freedom. Moreover the article is extremely vague and use argumentum ad populum to push its case while remaining quite unclear on what is really planned: "His goal is clear: to overturn the 2015 order and create an Internet that’s more centralized."
- em3rgent0rdr 9y agoTitle II "Net Neutrality" is a dangerous power grab -- a solution in search of a problem that doesn't exist, with the potential to become an engine of censorship (requiring ISPs to non-preferentially deliver "legal content" invites the FCC and other regulatory and legislative bodies to define some content as "illegal"). Title II "Net Neutrality" is also an instance of regulatory capture through which large consumers of bandwidth (such as Google and Netflix) hope to externalize the costs of network expansions to accommodate their ever-growing bandwidth demands. To put it differently, instead of building those costs into the prices their customers pay, they want to force Internet users who AREN'T their customers to subsidize their bandwidth demands.
- smsm42 9y agoThat article makes little sense to me. For example: > Net neutrality is fundamental to free speech. Without net neutrality, big companies could censor your voice and make it harder to speak up online. Big companies are censoring your voice right now! Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and literally every other big provider is censoring online speech all the time. If it's so scary, why nobody cares? If it's not, what Mozilla is trying to say here? > Net neutrality is fundamental to competition. Without net neutrality, big Internet service providers can choose which services and content load quickly, and which move at a glacial pace. Internet has been around for a while, and nothing like that happened, even though we didn't have current regulations in place until 2015, e.g. last two years. At which point we start asking for evidence and not just "they might do something evil"? Yes, there were shenanigans, and they were handled, way before 2015 regulations were in place. > Net neutrality is fundamental to innovation Again, innovation has been going on for decades without current regulations. What happened that suddenly it started requiring them? > Net neutrality is fundamental to user choice. Without net neutrality, ISPs could decide you’ve watched too many cat videos in one day, ISPs never did it, as far as we know, for all history of ISP existence. Why would they suddenly start now - because they want to get abandoned by users and fined by regulators (which did fine ISPs way before 2015)? > In 2015, nearly four million people urged the FCC to protect the health of the Internet Before 2015, the Internet was doing fine for decades. What happened between 2015 and 2017 that now we desperately need this regulation and couldn't survive without it like we did until 2015?
- kewpiedoll99 9y agoLast Week Tonight just did a piece about it. They described the circuitous, torturous route the FCC site put into place to hinder consumer feedback. LWT announced they have purchased the domain >>> gofccyourself.com <<< to take you right to the FCC page you need to get to. Go to gofccyourself.com and comment. Long form is better. Well written is better. Well reasoned is better. But any comments are (one hopes) better than nothing. Get involved!
- noyes 9y agoCan someone define net neutrality? I've yet to see a definition. Well if I understand the definition then there's no debate. Net neutrality ended long ago. Anyone ever heard of akamai?