4 ms·

I think you don't understand what net neutrality is? Yes, electricity companies do charge you like a dumb pipe, exactly as ISPs should (and most are). A dumb

I think you don't understand what net neutrality is? Yes, electricity companies do charge you like a dumb pipe, exactly as ISPs should (and most are). A dumb pipe does not mean that the ISP cannot count your traffic and bill you for it, possibly even at varying rates throughout the day. It only means that the ISP doesn't get to look at the contents of your traffic, just as the electricity company doesn't get too look at what you use your electricity for. A non-neutral electricity company would be one that didn't charge you according to load on their network and generation facilities, but based on the application you use electricity for. Now, they usually do offer various plans intended for different types of uses--but mind you that that does not mean that you only get to use them for those uses, the contract is about load profiles and energy prices. For example, you might have a plan for storage heaters. But there is absolutely nothing that forces or requires you to use the electricity for storage heaters. The contracts is simply about different prices per kWh during different times of the day. If you run a startup that produces gadgets at night using cheap electricity from that plan, that is perfectly fine. Fetching email from gmail's IMAP server produces exactly the same load on an ISP's network as fetching email from some local email provider's IMAP server. Net neutrality is about not distinguishing between those. There is nothing wrong with offering a "1 GB/month, 1 Mb/s" plan that is well-suited for only receiving and sending emails. The problem is when they want to prevent me from using IRC instead, or they only allow specific email providers.

BoorishBears 9y ago
I do understand net neutrality, my example might have been poor though. Electricity companies can’t (reliably) tell what you’re using the power for so in a sense they do act as dumb pipes (except they do care if you use it for commercial vs residential), but they don’t strive to be dumb pipes. To put it in terms of your space heater analogy, they can’t give you electricity that only works with your space heater, so they’ll give you rebates for using a specific space heater. The goal is the same, the implementation just takes the limitations of granularity in metering electricity usage. I know what net neutrality is, and I have no problem with a non-neutral internet. It’s not the same as a lawless unregulated internet. Right now zero-rating is what ISPs have taken advantage of it for. People argue zero rating means base prices must be encompassing the cost of the “free” service, but it’s coming with strings attached like reduced bandwidth or as a way to attract new users. While I do feel certain companies might be able to use zero-rating to reinforce monopolies, I don’t feel zero-rating inherently creates an environment where companies can’t compete. If ISPs do take further moves to absurd it, those moves can still be regulated/blocked, but my experience in many other countries has been that it doesn’t progress further than that, certainly not to the 2 mock images shown in the article (the one real one has a subtle, but important difference, access isn’t blocked if you don’t choose one of those packages, you just pay the normal base rate) That being said, I’ll refrain from talking about net neutrality on HN. This is the crowd that would have the most reasons to support it. After all, zero rating on Netflix doesn’t help a unicorn become the next Netflix, and there are plenty of people here who feel like all of this goes against the very spirit of the internet. But it’s impossible to have a meaningful discussion when everything you say is immediately downvoted to ghost status. I mean I made that were barely more than a single fact got downvoted until they couldn’t easily be read anymore, and people are still mass downvoting my statements hours later.
- zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 9y ago
  > Electricity companies can’t (reliably) tell what you’re using the power for so in a sense they do act as dumb pipes (except they do care if you use it for commercial vs residential), No, actually, they don't. That is what the plans are labeled as, but they really don't care about whether you are commercial or residential, that is the point that I was trying to make. What they care about is your load profile. Residential vs. commercial users on average have a very distinct load profiles (throughout the day and throughout the week), and that leads to different costs, which is why they want to bill you according to your load profile. Ultimately, if you happen to run a business that has the load profile of a typical residential user, they would often rather want to have you as a residential customer because that matches their costs. It's just that billing using load-dependent prices throughout the day has traditionally not been technically feasible, which is why the simplified distinction of residential vs. commercial plans was developed, because that matches reality well enough in most cases. > People argue zero rating means base prices must be encompassing the cost of the “free” service, but it’s coming with strings attached like reduced bandwidth or as a way to attract new users. How is that a contradiction? Yes, it comes with reduced bandwidth ... which still is being paid for with the income from the base prices, isn't it? And yes, it is being used as a way to attract new users ... while also hurting the existing customers, the new users, and their competition!? I really don't see how this in any way reduces the negative impact of it all, and thus why you even bring it up?! > While I do feel certain companies might be able to use zero-rating to reinforce monopolies, I don’t feel zero-rating inherently creates an environment where companies can’t compete. Well, what do you mean by "can't compete"? Do you mean "are unavoidably destined for failure", or "have an increased risk of failure"? The former probably isn't the case, but also is not a useful standard. Almost nothing that is generally agreed to be bad directly guarantees total failure. Does putting carcinogens into food mean that everyone will die of cancer? No, it doesn't. Do we still consider putting carcinogens into food a bad thing? Yes, we do. Why? Because it increases the risk of dying of cancer. Now, if you do agree that increased risk of failure is a good enough reason to consider something bad ... isn't it obvious that having higher costs than your competition increases the risk of failure for a business? > (the one real one has a subtle, but important difference, access isn’t blocked if you don’t choose one of those packages, you just pay the normal base rate) What practical difference does it make whether access is blocked or prohibitively expensive? Suppose we introduced a new law that requires you to pay a million bucks, not refundable, in order to leave the country (for travel or otherwise), except if you purchased the travel package for 100 bucks that allows unlimited travel to Australia? Would you also say that it's a subtle but important difference that traveling abroad was not forbidden and relations to other countries would not suffer, you would just have to pay the base rate? > After all, zero rating on Netflix doesn’t help a unicorn become the next Netflix, and there are plenty of people here who feel like all of this goes against the very spirit of the internet. I guess there are. But isn't that much more importantly against the spirit of a competetive market economy, and thus in particular against the interests of the customers? > But it’s impossible to have a meaningful discussion when everything you say is immediately downvoted to ghost status. I mean I made that were barely more than a single fact got downvoted until they couldn’t easily be read anymore, and people are still mass downvoting my statements hours later. Really, looking through which of your comments got downvoted, my impression is that's mostly for glaringly obvious errors in logic, primarily a failure to consider solutions to problems that are possible without a violation of network neutrality. The mere fact that there is a problem and an ISP that is not bound by network neutrality can solve that problem by violating network neutrality just doesn't say anything about whether net neutrality is a good idea, if you don't ever consider how the same problem might be solved with network neutrality.

BoorishBears 9y ago

I do understand net neutrality, my example might have been poor though. Electricity companies can’t (reliably) tell what you’re using the power for so in a sense they do act as dumb pipes (except they do care if you use it for commercial vs residential), but they don’t strive to be dumb pipes. To put it in terms of your space heater analogy, they can’t give you electricity that only works with your space heater, so they’ll give you rebates for using a specific space heater. The goal is the same, the implementation just takes the limitations of granularity in metering electricity usage. I know what net neutrality is, and I have no problem with a non-neutral internet. It’s not the same as a lawless unregulated internet. Right now zero-rating is what ISPs have taken advantage of it for. People argue zero rating means base prices must be encompassing the cost of the “free” service, but it’s coming with strings attached like reduced bandwidth or as a way to attract new users. While I do feel certain companies might be able to use zero-rating to reinforce monopolies, I don’t feel zero-rating inherently creates an environment where companies can’t compete. If ISPs do take further moves to absurd it, those moves can still be regulated/blocked, but my experience in many other countries has been that it doesn’t progress further than that, certainly not to the 2 mock images shown in the article (the one real one has a subtle, but important difference, access isn’t blocked if you don’t choose one of those packages, you just pay the normal base rate) That being said, I’ll refrain from talking about net neutrality on HN. This is the crowd that would have the most reasons to support it. After all, zero rating on Netflix doesn’t help a unicorn become the next Netflix, and there are plenty of people here who feel like all of this goes against the very spirit of the internet. But it’s impossible to have a meaningful discussion when everything you say is immediately downvoted to ghost status. I mean I made that were barely more than a single fact got downvoted until they couldn’t easily be read anymore, and people are still mass downvoting my statements hours later.

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 9y ago
> Electricity companies can’t (reliably) tell what you’re using the power for so in a sense they do act as dumb pipes (except they do care if you use it for commercial vs residential), No, actually, they don't. That is what the plans are labeled as, but they really don't care about whether you are commercial or residential, that is the point that I was trying to make. What they care about is your load profile. Residential vs. commercial users on average have a very distinct load profiles (throughout the day and throughout the week), and that leads to different costs, which is why they want to bill you according to your load profile. Ultimately, if you happen to run a business that has the load profile of a typical residential user, they would often rather want to have you as a residential customer because that matches their costs. It's just that billing using load-dependent prices throughout the day has traditionally not been technically feasible, which is why the simplified distinction of residential vs. commercial plans was developed, because that matches reality well enough in most cases. > People argue zero rating means base prices must be encompassing the cost of the “free” service, but it’s coming with strings attached like reduced bandwidth or as a way to attract new users. How is that a contradiction? Yes, it comes with reduced bandwidth ... which still is being paid for with the income from the base prices, isn't it? And yes, it is being used as a way to attract new users ... while also hurting the existing customers, the new users, and their competition!? I really don't see how this in any way reduces the negative impact of it all, and thus why you even bring it up?! > While I do feel certain companies might be able to use zero-rating to reinforce monopolies, I don’t feel zero-rating inherently creates an environment where companies can’t compete. Well, what do you mean by "can't compete"? Do you mean "are unavoidably destined for failure", or "have an increased risk of failure"? The former probably isn't the case, but also is not a useful standard. Almost nothing that is generally agreed to be bad directly guarantees total failure. Does putting carcinogens into food mean that everyone will die of cancer? No, it doesn't. Do we still consider putting carcinogens into food a bad thing? Yes, we do. Why? Because it increases the risk of dying of cancer. Now, if you do agree that increased risk of failure is a good enough reason to consider something bad ... isn't it obvious that having higher costs than your competition increases the risk of failure for a business? > (the one real one has a subtle, but important difference, access isn’t blocked if you don’t choose one of those packages, you just pay the normal base rate) What practical difference does it make whether access is blocked or prohibitively expensive? Suppose we introduced a new law that requires you to pay a million bucks, not refundable, in order to leave the country (for travel or otherwise), except if you purchased the travel package for 100 bucks that allows unlimited travel to Australia? Would you also say that it's a subtle but important difference that traveling abroad was not forbidden and relations to other countries would not suffer, you would just have to pay the base rate? > After all, zero rating on Netflix doesn’t help a unicorn become the next Netflix, and there are plenty of people here who feel like all of this goes against the very spirit of the internet. I guess there are. But isn't that much more importantly against the spirit of a competetive market economy, and thus in particular against the interests of the customers? > But it’s impossible to have a meaningful discussion when everything you say is immediately downvoted to ghost status. I mean I made that were barely more than a single fact got downvoted until they couldn’t easily be read anymore, and people are still mass downvoting my statements hours later. Really, looking through which of your comments got downvoted, my impression is that's mostly for glaringly obvious errors in logic, primarily a failure to consider solutions to problems that are possible without a violation of network neutrality. The mere fact that there is a problem and an ISP that is not bound by network neutrality can solve that problem by violating network neutrality just doesn't say anything about whether net neutrality is a good idea, if you don't ever consider how the same problem might be solved with network neutrality.