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"The internet" or "the web" is already dead, in the sense that most people use a handful of sites run by a handful of large companies. The internet could essent

"The internet" or "the web" is already dead, in the sense that most people use a handful of sites run by a handful of large companies. The internet could essentially be a native app run by a corporate governing body and more than 95% of people wouldn't notice. Net neutrality is an irrelevant issue given that situation. And if you want to change that situation, pay-to-play is the least of your worries: convincing people to change their walled garden habits will be far more pricey.

oliv__ 9y ago
No it's not. Just because most people's use of the Internet can be summed up by visits to X, Y and Z.com doesn't mean I can't create W.com to take them over. You can still compete. Without net neutrality, forget about it.
- harryf 9y ago
  > Without net neutrality, forget about it. Why? I just don't see it. It makes no sense that telecoms companies are going to go after startups that anyway don't have money. But I can imagine YouTube, for example, is another story, given how much bandwidth must be consumed by it.
  - apoorvkumar 9y ago
    How about Comcast put a straight up 10% equity cost for their 'start-up bundle' to use their 'non-substandard' channel? Would you be ok with that?
    - oconnore 9y ago
      Do you want an FTC antitrust case? Because this is how you get an FTC antitrust case...
      - apoorvkumar 9y ago
        The net providers and Ajit Pai's would sell it as a 'premium feature' being made available to poor start-ups at a discount. FTC can't go after Amazon for giving out large AWS servers to start ups for some equity.
pdonis 9y ago
> Net neutrality is an irrelevant issue given that situation. No, it most certainly is not, because those of us who do not belong to the 95%, those of us who are trying to build new Internet services or new products that need fast, reliable Internet service in order to work, need net neutrality as a core principle in order to have a fair chance at competing. Innovators are always a small percentage of the population, but that does not mean their needs are irrelevant.
- oconnore 9y ago
  Starting a web business is already massively cheaper than in any other industry, and that won't change anytime soon. Your innovation is not going to fail because you have to pay extra money for bandwidth -- you're probably already paying Amazon's massively marked up $0.09/GB because it's slightly more convenient. If Comcast/Verizon decide they want a couple cents on top of that, you'll either optimize slightly and come out net-even, or continue not caring about bandwidth costs because you have bigger problems like building a user/customer base.
  - kylecordes 9y ago
    It's not only about a potential small per gigabit price though. Imagine instead that in order for your new website idea to be reachable by possible customers, you had to apply and then negotiate with business-development people at a cable company prior to being able to launch at all.
    - oconnore 9y ago
      This is a straw man. We're talking about video streaming. Comcast/Verizon want a cut of your video streaming business. That's it. Ethical or not, this is not a practical issue for new companies.
      - todayiamme 9y ago
        What makes you think they'll stop there? Once you give them that power, do you think they won't use it to make more and more? To squeeze every last dime from your pockets? That's what they've done in the past. They've carved up territory like drug gangs to maximise profit. (Look at the maps - notice how they don't overlap? https://www.publicintegrity.org/2015/04/01/16998/us-internet-users-pay-more-and-have-fewer-choices-europeans https://www.publicintegrity.org/2015/04/01/16998/us-internet... ). At the same time, they've often colluded to pass legislation that locks out competitors (https://www.theverge.com/2015/5/1/8530403/chattanooga-comcast-fcc-high-speed-internet-gigabit https://www.theverge.com/2015/5/1/8530403/chattanooga-comcas...). And they've gotten so good at it that even the almighty El Goog couldn't break into their territory - I mean, market. What makes you think that these rent seekers won't extract their pound of flesh and then some from you and your customers? After all, past behavior is indeed predictive of future results.
unimpressive 9y ago
Extremely disappointed this is the top comment. You are letting the perfect be the enemy of the good here. As other comments point out, you need net neutrality to even have a chance of fixing the situation you're describing.
harryf 9y ago
Exactly! Was just about to write something similar. Going one further, after hearing "ending net neutrality is going to kill the internet" one too many times, I got interested in hear what the other side was saying. Populist arguments always make me want to question them and find out more. It's almost a taboo so not be anything but 100% _for_ net neutrality. I resent being told what my opinion should be. In fact it's pretty interesting to listen to Ajit Pai the FEC chairman talk about it eg https://youtu.be/6Q5_oV4JB10 https://youtu.be/6Q5_oV4JB10 His point that a "flat internet" disincentives telecoms companies to invest in infrastructure makes some sense. Google, Facebook et al. have completely cut them out of the "applications" part of the Internet (voice, messaging etc) so now all that's left is flat data provision to a stable / not growing customer base which leads to them going on "cruise control", cutting costs and investments. What if feels at the moment is there's big money behind propping up net neutrality. That's why it's getting so much air time. Would like to follow the money...
- apoorvkumar 9y ago
  It's quite standard political hogwash saying how net neutrality is disincentivising investment. What is really curbing investment is the monopoly of the few network providers. There are a lot of net-neutral countries in the world with significantly better infrastructure than the US. Yes, in this case what is good for public also aligns with what is good for GOOG and FB. So what? It's like saying you're not convinced about children getting good education because it aligns with 'big money'.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
natoliniak 9y ago
I don't care where and how majority of people in the USA use the internet. Net Neutrality provides a safety net and thus a sort of "free market guarantee" that as soon as these "handful of sites" start getting too comfortable in their monopolistic positions and start sacrificing quality or cost for higher profits, that a new service can very quickly spring up to compete. Net neutrality is what allowed these sites to exist in the first place and push aside the Altavistas and Myspaces of the earlier Internet!
noam87 9y ago
This is silly. Just because most people spend their time on the same handful of platforms, doesn't mean there's not plenty of traffic going to smaller websites. (In fact, in absolute terms, more traffic than ever.) Nobody today is stopping you from hosting a forum about hobby endangered snail breeding from a Raspberry Pi in your closet if you want. I'm sure you've met people who make decent money off of niche websites -- and even giants like YouTube and Gmail have modest competition. Sure, not competition that's gonna eat their lunch, but does every business have to Take Over The World™ to be considered a success? A few websites capturing most of the public's attention is to be expected to a certain extent: for better or worse, it's always been the case that a handful of media companies lead the conversation (that's why it's called "popular culture"). AWS increasingly monopolizing the web's hardware is something to worry about much more IMO; but so long as they don't get special treatment they can be circumvented.
SkyMarshal 9y ago
>"The internet" or "the web" is already dead, in the sense that most people use a handful of sites run by a handful of large companies. The internet could essentially be a native app run by a corporate governing body and more than 95% of people wouldn't notice. Even if true, an open Internet provides a hedge/fallback/alternative to corporate overreach and therefore is necessary.

oliv__ 9y ago

No it's not. Just because most people's use of the Internet can be summed up by visits to X, Y and Z.com doesn't mean I can't create W.com to take them over. You can still compete. Without net neutrality, forget about it.

harryf 9y ago
> Without net neutrality, forget about it. Why? I just don't see it. It makes no sense that telecoms companies are going to go after startups that anyway don't have money. But I can imagine YouTube, for example, is another story, given how much bandwidth must be consumed by it.
- apoorvkumar 9y ago
  How about Comcast put a straight up 10% equity cost for their 'start-up bundle' to use their 'non-substandard' channel? Would you be ok with that?
  - oconnore 9y ago
    Do you want an FTC antitrust case? Because this is how you get an FTC antitrust case...
    - apoorvkumar 9y ago
      The net providers and Ajit Pai's would sell it as a 'premium feature' being made available to poor start-ups at a discount. FTC can't go after Amazon for giving out large AWS servers to start ups for some equity.

pdonis 9y ago

> Net neutrality is an irrelevant issue given that situation. No, it most certainly is not, because those of us who do not belong to the 95%, those of us who are trying to build new Internet services or new products that need fast, reliable Internet service in order to work, need net neutrality as a core principle in order to have a fair chance at competing. Innovators are always a small percentage of the population, but that does not mean their needs are irrelevant.

oconnore 9y ago
Starting a web business is already massively cheaper than in any other industry, and that won't change anytime soon. Your innovation is not going to fail because you have to pay extra money for bandwidth -- you're probably already paying Amazon's massively marked up $0.09/GB because it's slightly more convenient. If Comcast/Verizon decide they want a couple cents on top of that, you'll either optimize slightly and come out net-even, or continue not caring about bandwidth costs because you have bigger problems like building a user/customer base.
- kylecordes 9y ago
  It's not only about a potential small per gigabit price though. Imagine instead that in order for your new website idea to be reachable by possible customers, you had to apply and then negotiate with business-development people at a cable company prior to being able to launch at all.
  - oconnore 9y ago
    This is a straw man. We're talking about video streaming. Comcast/Verizon want a cut of your video streaming business. That's it. Ethical or not, this is not a practical issue for new companies.
    - todayiamme 9y ago
      What makes you think they'll stop there? Once you give them that power, do you think they won't use it to make more and more? To squeeze every last dime from your pockets? That's what they've done in the past. They've carved up territory like drug gangs to maximise profit. (Look at the maps - notice how they don't overlap? https://www.publicintegrity.org/2015/04/01/16998/us-internet-users-pay-more-and-have-fewer-choices-europeans https://www.publicintegrity.org/2015/04/01/16998/us-internet... ). At the same time, they've often colluded to pass legislation that locks out competitors (https://www.theverge.com/2015/5/1/8530403/chattanooga-comcast-fcc-high-speed-internet-gigabit https://www.theverge.com/2015/5/1/8530403/chattanooga-comcas...). And they've gotten so good at it that even the almighty El Goog couldn't break into their territory - I mean, market. What makes you think that these rent seekers won't extract their pound of flesh and then some from you and your customers? After all, past behavior is indeed predictive of future results.

unimpressive 9y ago

Extremely disappointed this is the top comment. You are letting the perfect be the enemy of the good here. As other comments point out, you need net neutrality to even have a chance of fixing the situation you're describing.

harryf 9y ago

Exactly! Was just about to write something similar. Going one further, after hearing "ending net neutrality is going to kill the internet" one too many times, I got interested in hear what the other side was saying. Populist arguments always make me want to question them and find out more. It's almost a taboo so not be anything but 100% _for_ net neutrality. I resent being told what my opinion should be. In fact it's pretty interesting to listen to Ajit Pai the FEC chairman talk about it eg https://youtu.be/6Q5_oV4JB10 https://youtu.be/6Q5_oV4JB10 His point that a "flat internet" disincentives telecoms companies to invest in infrastructure makes some sense. Google, Facebook et al. have completely cut them out of the "applications" part of the Internet (voice, messaging etc) so now all that's left is flat data provision to a stable / not growing customer base which leads to them going on "cruise control", cutting costs and investments. What if feels at the moment is there's big money behind propping up net neutrality. That's why it's getting so much air time. Would like to follow the money...

apoorvkumar 9y ago
It's quite standard political hogwash saying how net neutrality is disincentivising investment. What is really curbing investment is the monopoly of the few network providers. There are a lot of net-neutral countries in the world with significantly better infrastructure than the US. Yes, in this case what is good for public also aligns with what is good for GOOG and FB. So what? It's like saying you're not convinced about children getting good education because it aligns with 'big money'.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

natoliniak 9y ago

I don't care where and how majority of people in the USA use the internet. Net Neutrality provides a safety net and thus a sort of "free market guarantee" that as soon as these "handful of sites" start getting too comfortable in their monopolistic positions and start sacrificing quality or cost for higher profits, that a new service can very quickly spring up to compete. Net neutrality is what allowed these sites to exist in the first place and push aside the Altavistas and Myspaces of the earlier Internet!

noam87 9y ago

This is silly. Just because most people spend their time on the same handful of platforms, doesn't mean there's not plenty of traffic going to smaller websites. (In fact, in absolute terms, more traffic than ever.) Nobody today is stopping you from hosting a forum about hobby endangered snail breeding from a Raspberry Pi in your closet if you want. I'm sure you've met people who make decent money off of niche websites -- and even giants like YouTube and Gmail have modest competition. Sure, not competition that's gonna eat their lunch, but does every business have to Take Over The World™ to be considered a success? A few websites capturing most of the public's attention is to be expected to a certain extent: for better or worse, it's always been the case that a handful of media companies lead the conversation (that's why it's called "popular culture"). AWS increasingly monopolizing the web's hardware is something to worry about much more IMO; but so long as they don't get special treatment they can be circumvented.

SkyMarshal 9y ago

>"The internet" or "the web" is already dead, in the sense that most people use a handful of sites run by a handful of large companies. The internet could essentially be a native app run by a corporate governing body and more than 95% of people wouldn't notice. Even if true, an open Internet provides a hedge/fallback/alternative to corporate overreach and therefore is necessary.