9 ms·

It's unlikely popular and profitable services will be hindered by the lack of net neutrality. But any new services that threaten existing ones will be hard-pre

It's unlikely popular and profitable services will be hindered by the lack of net neutrality. But any new services that threaten existing ones will be hard-pressed to compete. Imagine I start a new streaming service. In order for my service to reach people, ISP's will charge me a higher price than Netflix, probably a _significantly_ higher rate. This will make it extremely difficult for my new service to reach enough people to make it an ongoing concern. This is just another nail in the oligarchy coffin we are actively sealing ourselves in. It will also allow ISP's to control and block content if someone pays them to do so. There are still anti-competitive laws on the books, but are any of them even being enforced anymore. We allowed the banks to become monopolies, we've allowed the AT&T fox back in the hen house. If we don't fight back, we're going to become slaves to the digital age.

imglorp 9y ago
> It's unlikely popular and profitable services will be hindered by the lack of net neutrality. Huh? Did you forget already that both Verizon and Comcast throttled services like Netflix? They both argued they should get a cut if they were going to carry the traffic to their customers. Now they're getting exactly what they wanted. 1. https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/07/verizon-wireless-apparently-throttles-streaming-video-to-10mbps https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/07/veriz... 2. https://consumerist.com/2014/02/23/netflix-agrees-to-pay-comcast-to-end-slowdown/ https://consumerist.com/2014/02/23/netflix-agrees-to-pay-com...
- sbov 9y ago
  Except Netflix doesn't care about net neutrality anymore - Reed Hastings claims they are now big and popular enough for it not to matter for them: https://www.cnet.com/news/net-neutrality-netflix-reed-hastings/ https://www.cnet.com/news/net-neutrality-netflix-reed-hastin...
  - ajross 9y ago
    The point was to reply to a contention that "popular services will not be affected" with a counter example. Popular services certainly could have been squeezed by ISP, and in fact they were in the past, very notably. So sure: Netflix maybe might not due to size and popularity. The next great thing will be, for sure.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    > Except Netflix doesn't care about net neutrality anymore Yes, they do: https://twitter.com/netflix/status/933042368156123136 https://twitter.com/netflix/status/933042368156123136
    - jhasse 9y ago
      That's just a tweet. On the other hand they partnered with Telekom (most popular ISP in Germany) for a service called "StreamOn". With that you can stream Netflix (and other partnered streaming sites) without affecting your monthly data cap.
      - dragonwriter 9y ago
        So? Desires about what the legal context should be and business was strategy given what the legal context is are separate issues.
        jhasse 9y ago
        German government regulation agency (Bundesnetzargentur) and the EU have their doubts that StreamOn is legal even in the current context. So by participating they are setting a statement. It's like a vegetarian eating meat from factory farming every day.
  - chrischen 9y ago
    Or he's subtly pointing out that Netflix wouldn't have been started if it wasn't for net neutrality. > It's an issue that would have been more important to "the Netflix of 10 years ago," he said.
- mediocrejoker 9y ago
  What is the actual reason they shouldn't? This is a highly politicized topic but it's hard to find rational discussion. If I built a network I would expect to be able to charge whatever I wanted to whomever I wanted in exchange for the use of my network. Is the answer that taxpayers helped fund the network so now feel they deserve not to pay twice? How much of the current internet infrastructure is paid for by taxpayers vs private corporations? Any good sources you'd suggest reading on the pros and cons of each side of the argument?
  - shanusmagnus 9y ago
    1) Do you think it would be okay for a hardware store to price a shovel differently depending on what the customer wanted to dig? 2) The telcos never seem to reflect on the fact that the only reason people want broadband at all is because there are services that they want to access. So just by existing they're already getting their cut. It would be just as reasonable for Amazon and Netflix to ask Comcast for a cut of their revenue, since they're providing these attractive services that Comcast isn't paying a dime to provide.
    - mediocrejoker 9y ago
      I think hardware stores are maybe not the best comparison because if a hardware store was doing that then it would be pretty easy for a competitor to open a hardware store across the street and undercut the first on shovels and steal all the business. I think this might be a better solution than a law that specifically mandates the price at which a hardware store can sell shovels, since I think that law would only address a very specific problem caused by a larger underlying issue. I think the shovel case at least, when the market can sort something out then it's "better" to let it do so. For Amazon/Netflix, at least on the surface, I would say that the ISP and the content provider can ask for whatever they want and whether or not they get it will be a function of how much each one needs the other. Perhaps ironically a very similar system to how internet peering currently works (the little guy pays the bigger guy for transit).
      - NegativeLatency 9y ago
- woodrowbarlow 9y ago
  the big companies will happily pay. for their money they are getting a promise that any potential competitor will have to climb over a wall before entering the ring. the big companies just don't want to be the _only_ ones paying.
rhino369 9y ago
It doesn't really make sense to go after small fry start ups. They don't have money and it would be an administrative nightmare. But Netflix is already getting a better deal than start ups at many ISPs. Netflix gets free rackspace for their CDN servers. No start up gets that. There is already a "fast lane" in many ISPs and Netflix gets it for free.
Brotkrumen 9y ago
We had a glimpse of the future with Telekom. They looked at startups and offered them faster cheaper access in return for equity. Now imagine that model with the threat of throttling that startup if they dont comply.
api 9y ago
Don't forget about the cloud oligopolies... "Amazon EC2 and S3 now include prioritized traffic to the network edge through Amazon's deals with over a hundred local and regional ISPs. Just add traffic priority to any elastic IP or S3 bucket and for only $0.04/gb outgoing your traffic will take the fast lane to your customers!" How will Digital Ocean, Vultr, ARP Networks, Linode, etc. compete with that? What we're seeing here is the closing of the digital frontier. That being said my personal preference is not for net neutrality but for changes to state and local regulation to allow for a lot more ISP competition. But due to the patchwork nature of state and local regs that's a brutal slog in the trenches. So we need net neutrality in lieu of more ISP competition. Either that or we need to somehow overrule state and local regs at the Federal level to allow municipal and small startup broadband. That's tough given the fact that the Fed doesn't necessarily have any authority there. They'd have to argue it's interstate commerce.
- LocalH 9y ago
  Arguably, the Internet is a lot closer to being interstate commerce than a lot of the things the Fed has already stretched interstate commerce to cover.
- fjsolwmv 9y ago
  Paying for faster bits doesn't violate NN at all. That's just QoS. Paying more for Amazon bits than Google bits violates NN.
unclesaamm 9y ago
> This is just another nail in the oligarchy coffin we are actively sealing ourselves in. Or rather, that we're being sealed into, since this can hardly be called democracy.
- jstarfish 9y ago
  This administration was voluntarily voted in.
zerostar07 9y ago
> it will also allow ISP's to control and block content if someone pays them to do so. Content is controlled and blocked by advertisers in the application layer already. E.g. youtube
elihu 9y ago
> But any new services that threaten existing ones will be hard-pressed to compete. That's the sad part: the new services that fail will fail quietly and we'll never know what we lost.

imglorp 9y ago

> It's unlikely popular and profitable services will be hindered by the lack of net neutrality. Huh? Did you forget already that both Verizon and Comcast throttled services like Netflix? They both argued they should get a cut if they were going to carry the traffic to their customers. Now they're getting exactly what they wanted. 1. https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/07/verizon-wireless-apparently-throttles-streaming-video-to-10mbps https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/07/veriz... 2. https://consumerist.com/2014/02/23/netflix-agrees-to-pay-comcast-to-end-slowdown/ https://consumerist.com/2014/02/23/netflix-agrees-to-pay-com...

sbov 9y ago
Except Netflix doesn't care about net neutrality anymore - Reed Hastings claims they are now big and popular enough for it not to matter for them: https://www.cnet.com/news/net-neutrality-netflix-reed-hastings/ https://www.cnet.com/news/net-neutrality-netflix-reed-hastin...
- ajross 9y ago
  The point was to reply to a contention that "popular services will not be affected" with a counter example. Popular services certainly could have been squeezed by ISP, and in fact they were in the past, very notably. So sure: Netflix maybe might not due to size and popularity. The next great thing will be, for sure.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > Except Netflix doesn't care about net neutrality anymore Yes, they do: https://twitter.com/netflix/status/933042368156123136 https://twitter.com/netflix/status/933042368156123136
  - jhasse 9y ago
    That's just a tweet. On the other hand they partnered with Telekom (most popular ISP in Germany) for a service called "StreamOn". With that you can stream Netflix (and other partnered streaming sites) without affecting your monthly data cap.
    - dragonwriter 9y ago
      So? Desires about what the legal context should be and business was strategy given what the legal context is are separate issues.
      - jhasse 9y ago
        German government regulation agency (Bundesnetzargentur) and the EU have their doubts that StreamOn is legal even in the current context. So by participating they are setting a statement. It's like a vegetarian eating meat from factory farming every day.
- chrischen 9y ago
  Or he's subtly pointing out that Netflix wouldn't have been started if it wasn't for net neutrality. > It's an issue that would have been more important to "the Netflix of 10 years ago," he said.
mediocrejoker 9y ago
What is the actual reason they shouldn't? This is a highly politicized topic but it's hard to find rational discussion. If I built a network I would expect to be able to charge whatever I wanted to whomever I wanted in exchange for the use of my network. Is the answer that taxpayers helped fund the network so now feel they deserve not to pay twice? How much of the current internet infrastructure is paid for by taxpayers vs private corporations? Any good sources you'd suggest reading on the pros and cons of each side of the argument?
- shanusmagnus 9y ago
  1) Do you think it would be okay for a hardware store to price a shovel differently depending on what the customer wanted to dig? 2) The telcos never seem to reflect on the fact that the only reason people want broadband at all is because there are services that they want to access. So just by existing they're already getting their cut. It would be just as reasonable for Amazon and Netflix to ask Comcast for a cut of their revenue, since they're providing these attractive services that Comcast isn't paying a dime to provide.
  - mediocrejoker 9y ago
    I think hardware stores are maybe not the best comparison because if a hardware store was doing that then it would be pretty easy for a competitor to open a hardware store across the street and undercut the first on shovels and steal all the business. I think this might be a better solution than a law that specifically mandates the price at which a hardware store can sell shovels, since I think that law would only address a very specific problem caused by a larger underlying issue. I think the shovel case at least, when the market can sort something out then it's "better" to let it do so. For Amazon/Netflix, at least on the surface, I would say that the ISP and the content provider can ask for whatever they want and whether or not they get it will be a function of how much each one needs the other. Perhaps ironically a very similar system to how internet peering currently works (the little guy pays the bigger guy for transit).
    - NegativeLatency 9y ago
woodrowbarlow 9y ago
the big companies will happily pay. for their money they are getting a promise that any potential competitor will have to climb over a wall before entering the ring. the big companies just don't want to be the _only_ ones paying.

rhino369 9y ago

It doesn't really make sense to go after small fry start ups. They don't have money and it would be an administrative nightmare. But Netflix is already getting a better deal than start ups at many ISPs. Netflix gets free rackspace for their CDN servers. No start up gets that. There is already a "fast lane" in many ISPs and Netflix gets it for free.

Brotkrumen 9y ago

We had a glimpse of the future with Telekom. They looked at startups and offered them faster cheaper access in return for equity. Now imagine that model with the threat of throttling that startup if they dont comply.

api 9y ago

Don't forget about the cloud oligopolies... "Amazon EC2 and S3 now include prioritized traffic to the network edge through Amazon's deals with over a hundred local and regional ISPs. Just add traffic priority to any elastic IP or S3 bucket and for only $0.04/gb outgoing your traffic will take the fast lane to your customers!" How will Digital Ocean, Vultr, ARP Networks, Linode, etc. compete with that? What we're seeing here is the closing of the digital frontier. That being said my personal preference is not for net neutrality but for changes to state and local regulation to allow for a lot more ISP competition. But due to the patchwork nature of state and local regs that's a brutal slog in the trenches. So we need net neutrality in lieu of more ISP competition. Either that or we need to somehow overrule state and local regs at the Federal level to allow municipal and small startup broadband. That's tough given the fact that the Fed doesn't necessarily have any authority there. They'd have to argue it's interstate commerce.

LocalH 9y ago
Arguably, the Internet is a lot closer to being interstate commerce than a lot of the things the Fed has already stretched interstate commerce to cover.
fjsolwmv 9y ago
Paying for faster bits doesn't violate NN at all. That's just QoS. Paying more for Amazon bits than Google bits violates NN.

unclesaamm 9y ago

> This is just another nail in the oligarchy coffin we are actively sealing ourselves in. Or rather, that we're being sealed into, since this can hardly be called democracy.

jstarfish 9y ago
This administration was voluntarily voted in.

zerostar07 9y ago

> it will also allow ISP's to control and block content if someone pays them to do so. Content is controlled and blocked by advertisers in the application layer already. E.g. youtube

elihu 9y ago

> But any new services that threaten existing ones will be hard-pressed to compete. That's the sad part: the new services that fail will fail quietly and we'll never know what we lost.