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I don't understand why anyone would support Net Neutrality. What's the difference between forcing a TV cable provider to provide all channels, forcing Netflix

I don't understand why anyone would support Net Neutrality. What's the difference between forcing a TV cable provider to provide all channels, forcing Netflix to provide all movies, forcing Spotify to provide all albums, forcing Amazon to sell all products, forcing Fedex to ship anywhere, forcing libraries to carry all books, forcing AT&T to let me call anyone (at no additional cost), and forcing Comcast to provide all websites? What if some ISP build their own protocol, are they subject to Net Neutrality's regulations? Why? Why prevent content providers from working with ISPs to better distribute their content? How is it different than allowing stores to associate with arbitrary shipping companies?

opportune 9y ago
Those are completely different business models. Cable companies pay channels to host them. Spotify pays artists / record labels to play their music. Comcast does not pay websites to transmit their data, and the websites are fine with that; they just want to be seen.
abakker 9y ago
They would support it because your analogy is faulty? Because our providers of internet are often the ONLY choice, due to enforced monopolies, any choices the carrier makes are forced choices on the consumers. If you were forced to buy all your products from amazon, all movies from netflix, and all songs from spotify, then your analogy would hold.
- miguelrochefort 9y ago
  What if carriers were forced to provide a package that gives access to the entire Internet, but also free to provide packages that makes streaming Netflix or Spotify free?
  - abakker 9y ago
    While I have no conceptual problem with that, it only really makes sense if you pay for bandwidth. Right now, I pay for "internet @ speed". I think your model would work if I paid for "100GB of Internet @ speed". The argument against it, which I am O.K. with, is that the carrier would bias consumption toward established brands, and that would set up competitive barriers to entry for new companies. This would theoretically reduce consumer choice and decrease competition, eventually raising prices. (after all, if the carriers just recoup the costs from Netflix, they'll eventually pass them along to us.)
  - cestith 9y ago
    Then YouTube, Pandora, and any little startup video or music streaming service is at a crippling disadvantage when Comcast decides to zero-rate stuff from Comcast, Netflix, and Spotify free. Which, by the way, won't happen. Comcast owns NBC, Universal Pictures, and a whole lot more. They own part of Hulu along with Disney, Fox, and Time Warner. They'll be zero-rating Xfinity On Demand and Hulu. Netflix, YouTube, and anything else they don't own will suffer from unequal market conditions in the large areas where Comcast has government-mandated monopolies. It's essentially government granting unfair competition to monopolies they already granted. Imagine if Ford or GM built toll roads, but customers who bought Ford or GM cars could pay nothing or some small percentage of full price to drive on those roads.
  - zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 9y ago
    That's ultimately just nonsense. Streaming Netflix or Spotify consumes bandwidth, and the infrastructure that provides that bandwidth costs money, thus, streaming Netflix or Spotify costs money. So, if someone is offering you "free Netflix streaming", you should ask yourself: Who is paying for it? If you are not paying for it, someone else is. The ISP certainly is not (they are a business and not a charity). So, obviously Netflix is paying for it. And as that's a cost for Netflix, and they, too, are a business and not a charity, they'll have to set their prices to cover those costs as well. So, in the end, you are still paying for Netflix streaming, it's just that you are paying for some of the bandwidth of your provider through Netflix. Now, so far that would be just pointless (you are paying for it anyway ...), but not anything necessarily wrong with it. Now, the question is: Why would anyone fight for and implement such a pointless setup? And the reason is that it allows monopolies to be established, and being a monopoly allows you to charge higher prices: If every streaming service could buy bandwidth to some ISP's customer at the same rate, which would also be the same rate that the customer would otherwise pay themselves, it would just be pointless all around ... so, what happens instead, is, that some parties buy exclusive rights in some form or another, which puts the competition at a disadvantage.
terravion 9y ago
Because the internet isn't just entertainment, it is a telecom service that provides common carrier services. The internet is also how many Americans make phone calls, access government services, organize physical travel, and conduct their banking. When I pay for internet access, I expect to be able to access any site on the internet. I don't want Comcast saying, well you can't register with the DMV because their ISP isn't paying us extra--that's why net neutrality is important and is fundamentally different than the inapt comparisons you've provided. Further, the telecoms embrace their common carrier status when it does things like allow them to use the eminent domain powers of the government to construct infrastructure across private land or on public lands--which is fantastic as long as they reciprocate by providing common access to their infrastructure. Amazon didn't need use eminent domain powers to build their warehouses on a promise of a universal public service.
- adrr 9y ago
  I support repeal of net neutrality if I can charge internet providers access to the utility easement on my property.
- snowwrestler 9y ago
  It's also worth pointing out that ISPs rely on the "dumb pipe" theory of their service to avoid liability for carrying problematic data like IP infringement, child porn, drug deals, etc. I'd be less worried about net neutrality if ISPs acquired liability for content once they started being selective about what they carry. That would be a pretty strong incentive to stay neutral.
rootusrootus 9y ago
Only two of those things are communication channels, and one of those has a plausible case for tolls. And that same one is also heavily regulated. Comcast has an effective monopoly on service to my home, granted to them by the gov't, paid for to some extent with my own tax dollars. They should be regulated. And to be completely frank, the gov't should own the last mile wiring and make it available at central locations to any ISP who shows up. Then _maybe_ you have a plausible argument for allowing ISPs to discriminate on content, because I'm more likely to have options to switch to a competitor.
5ilv3r 9y ago
You've got your value streams all mixed up.
scottLobster 9y ago
First, bandwidth is not scarce in the same way that those other products you mentioned are. Channels must be produced and licensed, as must music. Products must be bought/warehoused/shipped. Internet bandwidth is simply a function of available infrastructure, infrastructure the ISPs have in abundance and are seeking to artificially limit to gouge customers. Second, TV channels are not an essential service, nor is music, nor is Amazon. Internet access most assuredly is in the 21st century. Third, cable is not the only source of media, Spotify is not the only source of music, and amazon is not the only source of products. In the US ISPs are often monopolies. A better analogy IMO is that letting ISPs discriminate how users utilize their bandwidth is like letting electrical utilities say that if you buy Whirpool appliances it won't count against your electric bill, because they have a deal with Whirlpool. Or perhaps even more accurate, you're forced to buy the electrical company's appliances, period, or else incur penalties. It decreases consumer choice and competition, and is actually anti-business and anti-capitalist despite the rhetoric to the contrary.
- miguelrochefort 9y ago
  I recognize that net neutrality makes sense when the infrastructure is regulated, funded or subsidized with public money. Perhaps that's true in most places and that's why so many people believe it's a necessity. I can understand that. Let's imagine a different scenario. I put a satellite in orbit and offer internet access to people. No government subsidies, no monopoly. Should I be free to discriminate and only offer the websites I want?
  - scottLobster 9y ago
    Is your satellite the only source of internet access for a given region? Are you going to actively lobby and sue to prevent municipalities and other companies from building their own competing satellites? If the answer to both of those is no then sure, discriminate away! If people don't like your offerings they can go elsewhere, or can build their own. But the big ISPs, at least here in America, would answer "yes" to both and have long, well-documented histories to that effect.
notadoc 9y ago
Is the internet a utility or not? That's the real question.
mwfunk 9y ago
You are arguing against something other than net neutrality. I don't know what you're arguing against (sounds like a strawman for socialism), but it's not net neutrality. The purpose of net neutrality, like the purpose of antitrust laws, aren't to subvert the free market, but to prevent bad actors from subverting the free market for their own gain. Nobody's asking Spotify to have every song, because if I don't like what's on Spotify I have tons of alternatives. Comcast customers (for example) are already paying Comcast to receive bits from Netflix. Comcast wants to double dip that traffic by charging Netflix to send that data to those customers. That's it. If there's no legal impediment to them doing that, they are going to do that. Ultimately, customers end up paying for that- any service that a telecom double dips on will be forced to charge their own subscribers to cover at least part of the difference. So really, it's just more money leaving customer's pockets and being indirectly routed to Comcast. No value is added. Maybe, possibly, there will be some extra resources spent on the telecom side to help a double dipped content provider better distribute their content. But that's not a guarantee and there's nothing preventing them from making such arrangements already. Net neutrality has nothing to do with whether or not telecoms can build better infrastructure to better support certain content providers. Net neutrality is about making sure telecoms don't double dip, just because they can.
- branchly2 9y ago
  There's actually a third dip: Comcast can tell the customer that for an extra fee they can get faster Netflix. That is, even though the customer is already paying for internet access, Comcast can throttle Netflix traffic (even making it unusably slow), then offer to the customer to remove the throttling ("get turbo Netflix speeds!") for an additional fee.
mikeash 9y ago
The postal service already has to serve everyone. So do phone companies. So bringing those up as counterexamples seems odd to me. I think of net neutrality as "just deliver the mail." ISPs are in the delivery service and they don't care who the stuff is from, who it's going to, or what's in it, they should just deliver the mail. FedEx doesn't block or slow deliveries from Amazon in an attempt to get me to use their own store. AT&T doesn't block United's ticketing number because they got a better deal from Southwest. Just deliver the mail.

opportune 9y ago

Those are completely different business models. Cable companies pay channels to host them. Spotify pays artists / record labels to play their music. Comcast does not pay websites to transmit their data, and the websites are fine with that; they just want to be seen.

abakker 9y ago

They would support it because your analogy is faulty? Because our providers of internet are often the ONLY choice, due to enforced monopolies, any choices the carrier makes are forced choices on the consumers. If you were forced to buy all your products from amazon, all movies from netflix, and all songs from spotify, then your analogy would hold.

miguelrochefort 9y ago
What if carriers were forced to provide a package that gives access to the entire Internet, but also free to provide packages that makes streaming Netflix or Spotify free?
- abakker 9y ago
  While I have no conceptual problem with that, it only really makes sense if you pay for bandwidth. Right now, I pay for "internet @ speed". I think your model would work if I paid for "100GB of Internet @ speed". The argument against it, which I am O.K. with, is that the carrier would bias consumption toward established brands, and that would set up competitive barriers to entry for new companies. This would theoretically reduce consumer choice and decrease competition, eventually raising prices. (after all, if the carriers just recoup the costs from Netflix, they'll eventually pass them along to us.)
- cestith 9y ago
  Then YouTube, Pandora, and any little startup video or music streaming service is at a crippling disadvantage when Comcast decides to zero-rate stuff from Comcast, Netflix, and Spotify free. Which, by the way, won't happen. Comcast owns NBC, Universal Pictures, and a whole lot more. They own part of Hulu along with Disney, Fox, and Time Warner. They'll be zero-rating Xfinity On Demand and Hulu. Netflix, YouTube, and anything else they don't own will suffer from unequal market conditions in the large areas where Comcast has government-mandated monopolies. It's essentially government granting unfair competition to monopolies they already granted. Imagine if Ford or GM built toll roads, but customers who bought Ford or GM cars could pay nothing or some small percentage of full price to drive on those roads.
- zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 9y ago
  That's ultimately just nonsense. Streaming Netflix or Spotify consumes bandwidth, and the infrastructure that provides that bandwidth costs money, thus, streaming Netflix or Spotify costs money. So, if someone is offering you "free Netflix streaming", you should ask yourself: Who is paying for it? If you are not paying for it, someone else is. The ISP certainly is not (they are a business and not a charity). So, obviously Netflix is paying for it. And as that's a cost for Netflix, and they, too, are a business and not a charity, they'll have to set their prices to cover those costs as well. So, in the end, you are still paying for Netflix streaming, it's just that you are paying for some of the bandwidth of your provider through Netflix. Now, so far that would be just pointless (you are paying for it anyway ...), but not anything necessarily wrong with it. Now, the question is: Why would anyone fight for and implement such a pointless setup? And the reason is that it allows monopolies to be established, and being a monopoly allows you to charge higher prices: If every streaming service could buy bandwidth to some ISP's customer at the same rate, which would also be the same rate that the customer would otherwise pay themselves, it would just be pointless all around ... so, what happens instead, is, that some parties buy exclusive rights in some form or another, which puts the competition at a disadvantage.

terravion 9y ago

Because the internet isn't just entertainment, it is a telecom service that provides common carrier services. The internet is also how many Americans make phone calls, access government services, organize physical travel, and conduct their banking. When I pay for internet access, I expect to be able to access any site on the internet. I don't want Comcast saying, well you can't register with the DMV because their ISP isn't paying us extra--that's why net neutrality is important and is fundamentally different than the inapt comparisons you've provided. Further, the telecoms embrace their common carrier status when it does things like allow them to use the eminent domain powers of the government to construct infrastructure across private land or on public lands--which is fantastic as long as they reciprocate by providing common access to their infrastructure. Amazon didn't need use eminent domain powers to build their warehouses on a promise of a universal public service.

adrr 9y ago
I support repeal of net neutrality if I can charge internet providers access to the utility easement on my property.
snowwrestler 9y ago
It's also worth pointing out that ISPs rely on the "dumb pipe" theory of their service to avoid liability for carrying problematic data like IP infringement, child porn, drug deals, etc. I'd be less worried about net neutrality if ISPs acquired liability for content once they started being selective about what they carry. That would be a pretty strong incentive to stay neutral.

rootusrootus 9y ago

Only two of those things are communication channels, and one of those has a plausible case for tolls. And that same one is also heavily regulated. Comcast has an effective monopoly on service to my home, granted to them by the gov't, paid for to some extent with my own tax dollars. They should be regulated. And to be completely frank, the gov't should own the last mile wiring and make it available at central locations to any ISP who shows up. Then _maybe_ you have a plausible argument for allowing ISPs to discriminate on content, because I'm more likely to have options to switch to a competitor.

5ilv3r 9y ago

You've got your value streams all mixed up.

scottLobster 9y ago

First, bandwidth is not scarce in the same way that those other products you mentioned are. Channels must be produced and licensed, as must music. Products must be bought/warehoused/shipped. Internet bandwidth is simply a function of available infrastructure, infrastructure the ISPs have in abundance and are seeking to artificially limit to gouge customers. Second, TV channels are not an essential service, nor is music, nor is Amazon. Internet access most assuredly is in the 21st century. Third, cable is not the only source of media, Spotify is not the only source of music, and amazon is not the only source of products. In the US ISPs are often monopolies. A better analogy IMO is that letting ISPs discriminate how users utilize their bandwidth is like letting electrical utilities say that if you buy Whirpool appliances it won't count against your electric bill, because they have a deal with Whirlpool. Or perhaps even more accurate, you're forced to buy the electrical company's appliances, period, or else incur penalties. It decreases consumer choice and competition, and is actually anti-business and anti-capitalist despite the rhetoric to the contrary.

miguelrochefort 9y ago
I recognize that net neutrality makes sense when the infrastructure is regulated, funded or subsidized with public money. Perhaps that's true in most places and that's why so many people believe it's a necessity. I can understand that. Let's imagine a different scenario. I put a satellite in orbit and offer internet access to people. No government subsidies, no monopoly. Should I be free to discriminate and only offer the websites I want?
- scottLobster 9y ago
  Is your satellite the only source of internet access for a given region? Are you going to actively lobby and sue to prevent municipalities and other companies from building their own competing satellites? If the answer to both of those is no then sure, discriminate away! If people don't like your offerings they can go elsewhere, or can build their own. But the big ISPs, at least here in America, would answer "yes" to both and have long, well-documented histories to that effect.

notadoc 9y ago

Is the internet a utility or not? That's the real question.

mwfunk 9y ago

You are arguing against something other than net neutrality. I don't know what you're arguing against (sounds like a strawman for socialism), but it's not net neutrality. The purpose of net neutrality, like the purpose of antitrust laws, aren't to subvert the free market, but to prevent bad actors from subverting the free market for their own gain. Nobody's asking Spotify to have every song, because if I don't like what's on Spotify I have tons of alternatives. Comcast customers (for example) are already paying Comcast to receive bits from Netflix. Comcast wants to double dip that traffic by charging Netflix to send that data to those customers. That's it. If there's no legal impediment to them doing that, they are going to do that. Ultimately, customers end up paying for that- any service that a telecom double dips on will be forced to charge their own subscribers to cover at least part of the difference. So really, it's just more money leaving customer's pockets and being indirectly routed to Comcast. No value is added. Maybe, possibly, there will be some extra resources spent on the telecom side to help a double dipped content provider better distribute their content. But that's not a guarantee and there's nothing preventing them from making such arrangements already. Net neutrality has nothing to do with whether or not telecoms can build better infrastructure to better support certain content providers. Net neutrality is about making sure telecoms don't double dip, just because they can.

branchly2 9y ago
There's actually a third dip: Comcast can tell the customer that for an extra fee they can get faster Netflix. That is, even though the customer is already paying for internet access, Comcast can throttle Netflix traffic (even making it unusably slow), then offer to the customer to remove the throttling ("get turbo Netflix speeds!") for an additional fee.

mikeash 9y ago

The postal service already has to serve everyone. So do phone companies. So bringing those up as counterexamples seems odd to me. I think of net neutrality as "just deliver the mail." ISPs are in the delivery service and they don't care who the stuff is from, who it's going to, or what's in it, they should just deliver the mail. FedEx doesn't block or slow deliveries from Amazon in an attempt to get me to use their own store. AT&T doesn't block United's ticketing number because they got a better deal from Southwest. Just deliver the mail.