13 ms·

> I easily have 3 good ISP choices and those are local to each market, so worldwide there are hundreds or thousands. That's exactly my point. I think your miss

> I easily have 3 good ISP choices and those are local to each market, so worldwide there are hundreds or thousands. That's exactly my point. I think your missing the point. You already have Net Neutrality (by your own admission) so that seems like a solved issue for you. But the Americans don't have what you have -- almost nobody in the US can claim to "easily have 3 good ISP choices". Most Americans have 1.5-ish ISP choices or less (usually a shitty-but-usable monopoly cable provider, and occasionally a shitty monopoly DSL provider that is often so slow it not really competitive). The Americans are simply trying to create regulation that would allow them to have a situation closer to the ones most Europeans already have.

pedrocr 9y ago
>I think your missing the point. You already have Net Neutrality (by your own admission) so that seems like a solved issue for you. Having a choice of ISPs isn't net neutrality. All the ISPs I have access to will sell differentiated access to their networks absent net neutrality rules. Europe has some (generally weak) net neutrality because it has legislated it like the US should too. But my point isn't that we shouldn't fight for net neutrality. It's that Netflix/Amazon say that ISPs shouldn't be able to play favorites over streaming services (and I agree) while they play favorites over devices (and I disagree and say it's hypocrisy).
- maxsilver 9y ago
  > Having a choice of ISPs isn't net neutrality. Right. A choice of ISPs (in my opinion) is actually better than net neutrality, for the things that matter most. > while (Netflix/Amazon) play favorites over devices (and I disagree and say it's hypocrisy) How do you draw that distinction? Is it "playing favorites over devices" that I can't sign into Xbox Live from my PlayStation? Or that Apple won't let me watch my iPad-purchased movies on an Android device? Or that Spotify won't let me listen to music in iTunes? Is it playing favorites that Comcast can stream the Hallmark Channel, but Hulu TV can't? Or that Nintendo won't let me play my Wii U games on my Gaming PC? I agree that you have a valid criticism of those video services. But your comparison of it to Net Neutrality feels forced. I don't think it's relevant to the discussion of Net Neutrality -- it's seems like a clear case of comparing Apples and Oranges. If "Netflix is a hypocrite because they don't support 4K on my Linux laptop", then your basically upset with the entire tech industry, where every product has a list of platforms they've chosen to support, and a list they do not support.
  - pedrocr 9y ago
    >Right. A choice of ISPs (in my opinion) is actually better than net neutrality, for the things that matter most. They're orthogonal, you can have net neutrality without choice of ISPs and vice versa. I also think net neutrality is much more important than choice of ISPs because ISP monopolies are unstable over the long term. Technology advances fast enough that today's monopoly will not hold once new access technologies are deployed. My ISP has already felt the heat from LTE providers to upgrade me to fiber for example. And Elon Musk is working on high-speed satellite internet for everyone. Over the long term ISP monopolies crumble. Content monopolies are much more long lasting because they have the copyright law hammer and net neutrality is a freedom of speech issue. Of the three topics ISP choice is by far the least important even if it's the one that currently inconveniences Americans the most. >I agree that you have a valid criticism of those video services. But your comparison of it to Net Neutrality feels forced. I don't think it's relevant to the discussion of Net Neutrality -- it's seems like a clear case of comparing Apples and Oranges. I'm not discussing net neutrality at all. As far as I'm concerned that discussion is a no brainer. I'm saying that Netflix is complaining that ISPs are using their monopoly in one area (internet access) to condition another market (streaming services) while at the same time using their monopoly in one area (streamings services) to condition another market (playback devices). If that's not an apples to apples comparison about business practices I don't know what is. >If "Netflix is a hypocrite because they don't support 4K on my Linux laptop", then your basically upset with the entire tech industry, where every product has a list of platforms they've chosen to support, and a list they do not support. This and your other comparisons are disingenuous. I'm not saying Netflix needs to write a custom app for every platform under the Sun. I'm saying they shouldn't be allowed to actively disallow platforms that would otherwise work fine if they didn't arbitrarily restrict them. That's how Youtube works for example. Anything that can work with it's webpage gets to stream video and anyone can implement an app that works with their API. Google Search's interface is a standards compliant web page. Do you think it would be ok for them to implement software to make it so their web page only worked on some browsers, didn't work for FreeBSD users and only provided low quality results to Linux users? Because this is exactly what Netflix does today.
    - maxsilver 9y ago

pedrocr 9y ago

>I think your missing the point. You already have Net Neutrality (by your own admission) so that seems like a solved issue for you. Having a choice of ISPs isn't net neutrality. All the ISPs I have access to will sell differentiated access to their networks absent net neutrality rules. Europe has some (generally weak) net neutrality because it has legislated it like the US should too. But my point isn't that we shouldn't fight for net neutrality. It's that Netflix/Amazon say that ISPs shouldn't be able to play favorites over streaming services (and I agree) while they play favorites over devices (and I disagree and say it's hypocrisy).

maxsilver 9y ago
> Having a choice of ISPs isn't net neutrality. Right. A choice of ISPs (in my opinion) is actually better than net neutrality, for the things that matter most. > while (Netflix/Amazon) play favorites over devices (and I disagree and say it's hypocrisy) How do you draw that distinction? Is it "playing favorites over devices" that I can't sign into Xbox Live from my PlayStation? Or that Apple won't let me watch my iPad-purchased movies on an Android device? Or that Spotify won't let me listen to music in iTunes? Is it playing favorites that Comcast can stream the Hallmark Channel, but Hulu TV can't? Or that Nintendo won't let me play my Wii U games on my Gaming PC? I agree that you have a valid criticism of those video services. But your comparison of it to Net Neutrality feels forced. I don't think it's relevant to the discussion of Net Neutrality -- it's seems like a clear case of comparing Apples and Oranges. If "Netflix is a hypocrite because they don't support 4K on my Linux laptop", then your basically upset with the entire tech industry, where every product has a list of platforms they've chosen to support, and a list they do not support.
- pedrocr 9y ago
  >Right. A choice of ISPs (in my opinion) is actually better than net neutrality, for the things that matter most. They're orthogonal, you can have net neutrality without choice of ISPs and vice versa. I also think net neutrality is much more important than choice of ISPs because ISP monopolies are unstable over the long term. Technology advances fast enough that today's monopoly will not hold once new access technologies are deployed. My ISP has already felt the heat from LTE providers to upgrade me to fiber for example. And Elon Musk is working on high-speed satellite internet for everyone. Over the long term ISP monopolies crumble. Content monopolies are much more long lasting because they have the copyright law hammer and net neutrality is a freedom of speech issue. Of the three topics ISP choice is by far the least important even if it's the one that currently inconveniences Americans the most. >I agree that you have a valid criticism of those video services. But your comparison of it to Net Neutrality feels forced. I don't think it's relevant to the discussion of Net Neutrality -- it's seems like a clear case of comparing Apples and Oranges. I'm not discussing net neutrality at all. As far as I'm concerned that discussion is a no brainer. I'm saying that Netflix is complaining that ISPs are using their monopoly in one area (internet access) to condition another market (streaming services) while at the same time using their monopoly in one area (streamings services) to condition another market (playback devices). If that's not an apples to apples comparison about business practices I don't know what is. >If "Netflix is a hypocrite because they don't support 4K on my Linux laptop", then your basically upset with the entire tech industry, where every product has a list of platforms they've chosen to support, and a list they do not support. This and your other comparisons are disingenuous. I'm not saying Netflix needs to write a custom app for every platform under the Sun. I'm saying they shouldn't be allowed to actively disallow platforms that would otherwise work fine if they didn't arbitrarily restrict them. That's how Youtube works for example. Anything that can work with it's webpage gets to stream video and anyone can implement an app that works with their API. Google Search's interface is a standards compliant web page. Do you think it would be ok for them to implement software to make it so their web page only worked on some browsers, didn't work for FreeBSD users and only provided low quality results to Linux users? Because this is exactly what Netflix does today.
  - maxsilver 9y ago