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"How do you compete against competing services owned by ISPs?" Good question. I guess you wouldn't need to as long as the ISP market is competitive. You might

"How do you compete against competing services owned by ISPs?" Good question. I guess you wouldn't need to as long as the ISP market is competitive. You might go to another competitor and convince them your product is good or your product can help/augment the service they are currently providing. The invisible hand would be really interesting to watch there.

jamescostian 9y ago
> I guess you wouldn't need to as long as the ISP market is competitive How would it be competitive? If my ISP released its own Netflix and throttled my connection to Netflix to the point where Netflix seemed extremely slow but my ISP's version of Netflix was super fast, there would be no competition. My ISP would dominate. > You might go to another competitor and convince them your product is good or your product can help/augment the service they are currently providing. Do you mean go to another ISP? There aren't that many consumer ISPs around, so what happens when they've all made a deal with someone's Netflix, and a new company wants to revolutionize/reinvent their own Netflix? Now it's even harder for them to do so, because the existing players already have contracts to make themselves very fast and everyone else very slow. Currently, this stuff can't happen (legally) due to NN, but if you remove NN, you enable this stuff, and you prevent new competition from coming up.
- rocqua 9y ago
  The point is that NN would be less important if there were more consumer ISPs around. Specifically if consumers had more choice. I should note that competition amongst ISPs wouldn't do much to prevent zero-rating, which is still problematically anti-competitive.
  - shkkmo 9y ago
    Well, NN also helps make it easier for new ISPs to compete. If there is good content (netflix) that is not owned or exclusive to other ISPs then it is much easier to launch your own ISP.
    - rocqua 9y ago
      I believe that almost the entire barrier to entry for ISPs is the last mile. Network Neutrality does very little to remove that barrier.
johnward 9y ago
> I guess you wouldn't need to as long as the ISP market is competitive. But it's not.
rocqua 9y ago
Market forces do very little against zero-rating. It's not anti-consumer so users see little need to switch. It is very much anti-competitive though.

jamescostian 9y ago

> I guess you wouldn't need to as long as the ISP market is competitive How would it be competitive? If my ISP released its own Netflix and throttled my connection to Netflix to the point where Netflix seemed extremely slow but my ISP's version of Netflix was super fast, there would be no competition. My ISP would dominate. > You might go to another competitor and convince them your product is good or your product can help/augment the service they are currently providing. Do you mean go to another ISP? There aren't that many consumer ISPs around, so what happens when they've all made a deal with someone's Netflix, and a new company wants to revolutionize/reinvent their own Netflix? Now it's even harder for them to do so, because the existing players already have contracts to make themselves very fast and everyone else very slow. Currently, this stuff can't happen (legally) due to NN, but if you remove NN, you enable this stuff, and you prevent new competition from coming up.

rocqua 9y ago
The point is that NN would be less important if there were more consumer ISPs around. Specifically if consumers had more choice. I should note that competition amongst ISPs wouldn't do much to prevent zero-rating, which is still problematically anti-competitive.
- shkkmo 9y ago
  Well, NN also helps make it easier for new ISPs to compete. If there is good content (netflix) that is not owned or exclusive to other ISPs then it is much easier to launch your own ISP.
  - rocqua 9y ago
    I believe that almost the entire barrier to entry for ISPs is the last mile. Network Neutrality does very little to remove that barrier.

johnward 9y ago

> I guess you wouldn't need to as long as the ISP market is competitive. But it's not.

rocqua 9y ago

Market forces do very little against zero-rating. It's not anti-consumer so users see little need to switch. It is very much anti-competitive though.