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Short answer: look at Portugal but worse. In most countries, it wouldn't matter too much as the market forces could in effect nearly cause them to self-regulat

Short answer: look at Portugal but worse. In most countries, it wouldn't matter too much as the market forces could in effect nearly cause them to self-regulate. That said the current state of the internet in the USA is a different story. Regions are locked in with legislation making micro monopolies, This is especially true with apartment complexes. There are laws that prevent competition. local governments have won and lost elections based around the issue of allowing for more competition with the current ISP's. Meanwhile, some of the smallest towns feel almost forced into needing to create their own, as they aren't receiving proper coverage from the larger companies, not in cell towers or landlines. There have already been examples of sites being throttled to be nearly useless, and some sites blocked, other sites are intentionally sped up to be misleading(speedtest.net vs fast.com - they don't match up because speedtest is usually boosted to mislead how fast your internet is). Cell providers have done things like block payment apps, instead only supporting a proprietary payment app which I believe is a great example of how competition can and would be stifled. I believe I heard that for a time the ISP's slowed down Netflix until Netflix paid them off. So to conclude, it would be the slow erosion of freedom of speech, a swift decline in innovation, prices for services like Netflix would rise, and if we are lucky they would only nickel and dime us more (think microtransactions) instead of blocking out entire chunks of the internet. The USA would lose its dominance technologically, investment in internet companies would slow, the best minds would hesitate to move here, ones we already have would think about leaving, Europe and Canada would have a chance to shine. The only good that would come from it is large ISP's make more money, and Republicans would feel like they have a win.

twblalock 9y ago
> So to conclude, it would be the slow erosion of freedom of speech, a swift decline in innovation, prices for services like Netflix would rise, and if we are lucky they would only nickel and dime us more (think microtransactions) instead of blocking out entire chunks of the internet. The USA would lose its dominance technologically, investment in internet companies would slow, the best minds would hesitate to move here, ones we already have would think about leaving, Europe and Canada would have a chance to shine. Given that the US has never really had net neutrality, why hasn't this scenario already come to pass?
- michaelbrave 9y ago
  I don't follow your reasoning that it's never existed as the FCC has fined a lot of companies for neglecting it (VoIP cases). Most attempts at creating laws were overturned that's true, except most recently in 2016 the DC circuit court affirmed the open internet rules https://www.publicknowledge.org/documents/dc-circuit-open-internet-opinion-2016 https://www.publicknowledge.org/documents/dc-circuit-open-in... which was upheld and as of now that's still on the books. Why didn't it happen sooner though is a good question, I think competition factors in as the ISP's were never as consolidated as they are now. When we used 56k modems there were a lot of ISP's, with DSL less but still a lot, now with cable and fiber there is only a handful. Part of why it didn't happen when we used DSL and before was because DSL and before was treated with the same laws as phone lines, so it functioned rather similar to ISP's being title2 now. Most of these problems began with the decision in 2002 http://transition.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Cable/News_Releases/2002/nrcb0201.html http://transition.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Cable/News_Releases/2002/n... where cable internet was regulated differently after that decision boundaries started being pushed, net neutrality laws were brought up and then struck down until finally ISP's were reclassified into title2.
- michaelmrose 9y ago
  Network neutrality has been the de facto situation. Efforts to the contrary have met with legal challenges, consumer hostility, and threats of more onerous regulation.

twblalock 9y ago

> So to conclude, it would be the slow erosion of freedom of speech, a swift decline in innovation, prices for services like Netflix would rise, and if we are lucky they would only nickel and dime us more (think microtransactions) instead of blocking out entire chunks of the internet. The USA would lose its dominance technologically, investment in internet companies would slow, the best minds would hesitate to move here, ones we already have would think about leaving, Europe and Canada would have a chance to shine. Given that the US has never really had net neutrality, why hasn't this scenario already come to pass?

michaelbrave 9y ago
I don't follow your reasoning that it's never existed as the FCC has fined a lot of companies for neglecting it (VoIP cases). Most attempts at creating laws were overturned that's true, except most recently in 2016 the DC circuit court affirmed the open internet rules https://www.publicknowledge.org/documents/dc-circuit-open-internet-opinion-2016 https://www.publicknowledge.org/documents/dc-circuit-open-in... which was upheld and as of now that's still on the books. Why didn't it happen sooner though is a good question, I think competition factors in as the ISP's were never as consolidated as they are now. When we used 56k modems there were a lot of ISP's, with DSL less but still a lot, now with cable and fiber there is only a handful. Part of why it didn't happen when we used DSL and before was because DSL and before was treated with the same laws as phone lines, so it functioned rather similar to ISP's being title2 now. Most of these problems began with the decision in 2002 http://transition.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Cable/News_Releases/2002/nrcb0201.html http://transition.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Cable/News_Releases/2002/n... where cable internet was regulated differently after that decision boundaries started being pushed, net neutrality laws were brought up and then struck down until finally ISP's were reclassified into title2.
michaelmrose 9y ago
Network neutrality has been the de facto situation. Efforts to the contrary have met with legal challenges, consumer hostility, and threats of more onerous regulation.