8 ms·

And our mistake here is not finding a way to explain it that doesn't require reading a book.

shmerl 9y ago
John Oliver found a good way to explain it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpbOEoRrHyU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpbOEoRrHyU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92vuuZt7wak https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92vuuZt7wak The problem is that ISP shills that make these decisions don't care about public opposition. They aren't elected officials.
- dmix 9y ago
  > The problem is that ISP shills that make these decisions don't care about public opposition But they do care most about making money from the public and no one has convinced me that filtering internet packages by website makes any technical, marketing, or business model sense at all. This has proven to be incredibly unpopular idea with the public for over a decade as well, whenever it has come up in the press. It wouldn't take much market research to see it's a terrible idea. Plus the huge technical challenge of filtering at the ISP level... this would be a huge boon for encryption and VPNs as well. No American ISP for the ~20yr timeframe before the FTC regulation was passed a few years ago had ever offered such an arrangement. Not to mention no ISP in any other country has offered anything close to that either. Plenty of American ISPs have said they have zero intention of doing it either. This would be a boon to any ISP who DIDN'T do this. Competition, the technical hurdles, and obvious lack of business sense, etc has always been an adequate counter-balance to this idea. So I'm a bit confused why this is generating so much FUD over such a highly hypothetical and hand wavy scenario... as if the only thing stopping them from doing it was this three year old FTC regulation.
  - skywhopper 9y ago
    You're assuming that most people have access to more than one ISP (they don't), or that statements by ISPs about what they intend to do or not do are truthful (they aren't). Specifically statements promising they would never do anything that would break net neutrality rules, while arguing against the imposition of net neutrality rules, would not make sense. Why oppose something you have no intention of doing?
    - dmix 9y ago
      My counter point does not depend entirely on competition. That is merely one counter-balance available to much of the country who have more than one ISP available, of the many I mentioned (technical, marketing, business model). Why not create regulation in response to real scenarios that have actually happened instead of hypothetical ones that are already have plenty of other drawbacks?
      - outsidetheparty 9y ago
        Have you forgotten the whole controversy about Verizon throttling Netflix back in July? This is a real scenario that has actually happened. http://www.businessinsider.com/verizon-netflix-youtube-throttling-speeds-2017-7 http://www.businessinsider.com/verizon-netflix-youtube-throt... Your other points hold up equally poorly: there are no unsolved technical hurdles in throttling or blocking specific sites or services -- as evidenced by the fact that they can and have already done so. As for "marketing" and "business model" and it being an "unpopular idea", these again fall back to the issue of consumer choice: in an effective monopoly, it doesn't matter a whit whether the populace dislikes the idea. It's not like Comcast is winning any popularity contests as it is.
        dmix 9y ago
        That is different from the type of satellite-tv style packages ("Social media package, Facebook/Twitter, for only $9.99!") type of thing that people are talking about with net neutrality. And the current FTC regulations in question didn't do anything in regards to that issue you linked to?
        outsidetheparty 9y ago
        > That is different from the type of satellite-tv style packages ("Social media package, Facebook/Twitter, for only $9.99!") type of thing that people are talking about with net neutrality. It's the flip side of the same coin. Without net neutrality, ISPs will be able to charge content providers like Netflix a toll to not be throttled out of viablity -- who will then presumably pass the costs on to end consumers -- or the ISPs can directly charge end consumers an extra toll for access to the full internet. (Of course they'll do both, after some experimentation to find the best profit::outrage ratio.) > And the current FTC regulations in question didn't do anything in regards to that issue you linked to? ...they kinda did? In that Verizon had to back off and wait for net neutrality to be repealed before they could try again? (I assume you meant FCC, not FTC, in all of this. The FTC, of course, doesn't have any authority here until after the common carrier regulations are lifted. So, roughly a month from now.)
  - zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 9y ago
    Why exactly are ISPs opposing net neutrality if it's their intention anyway?
  - beagle3 9y ago
    Netflix was throttled, mostly By Comcast, Time Warner and Verizon, which all have businesses competing with Netflix outside the internet.
  - dave5104 9y ago
    > This would be a boon to any ISP who DIDN'T do this. Competition, and obvious lack of business sense, has always been a far larger counter-balance to this idea. Where I'm at, it's Comcast or nothing. Most of the US does not have any ISP competition. It's usually 1 ISP to choose from, or if you're lucky, 1 ISP with expected speeds and 1 ISP over DSL. I really wish I lived somewhere with multiple options, because if anything like this website bundle scenario did play out, I wouldn't have any choice in avoiding it.
    - jrnichols 9y ago
      sad that they point at HughesNet or something equally awful as "competition" too. :/
  - valine 9y ago
    But what if your only choice for ISP is Comcast? 50 million Americans only have access to one ISP. You can't just switch providers when you only have one provider to choose from. Comcast could do this very easily and millions of Americans would be stuck paying more money for worse service.
  - prions 9y ago
    What's different now is that we're seeing huge mergers between telecom companies and media companies. The internet is more vital to everyone now than compared to 15 years ago. Every year more and more people are choosing to eschew traditional cable for Netflix et al. With NN being repealed, it opens up ways for ISP's to promote their own content and shut out others like nothing that's happened before. This whole repeal smacks of anti-consumerism and pro corporate nonsense.
  - shmerl 9y ago
    > This would be a boon to any ISP who DIDN'T do this. Competition, and obvious lack of business sense, has always been a far larger counter-balance to this idea. Competition surely can help, but currently there is no competition in a lot of places. It's basically monopoly / oligopoly situation, with collusion and market division to boot. So increasing competition is a good goal, but it shouldn't block preventing monopolistic abuse with legal means. Monopolists also created a lot of blockers that prevent increasing competition. Such as local state laws that ban municipal networks which could solve this very problem.
    - webXL 9y ago
      > Competition surely can help, but currently there is no competition in a lot of places. Places with a lot of people? People who have been harmed by what NN is intending to fix? > Monopolists also created a lot of blockers that prevent increasing competition. Facilitated by government. If government was responsible in the first place, why not just undo what they did?
      - shmerl 9y ago
        > Places with a lot of people? It doesn't depend on numbers. Depends mostly whether there is some other ISPs besides the coax provider (which are the most widespread).
        webXL 9y ago
        So we should have a one-size-fits-all law? You're not that unimaginative, are you?
        msla 9y ago
        What specifically is wrong with one-size-fits-all?
        shmerl 9y ago
        Anti-trust laws are pretty much universal and we already have them. A lot of NN related abuse could be prevented if our legal system would have actually applied them, but it often doesn't.
  - CodeWriter23 9y ago
    You know what was different 15 years ago? It was before consumer broadband access was consolidated down to the point where a consumer 0 or 1 other choices other than their current provider.
  - milofeynman 9y ago
    I see your profile says "data scientist in training" I would love for you to use some of your training to supply your post with actual data or sources. Everything I see reported disagrees with so many of your assumptions. Like your unstated assumption of some sort of fair and competitive market where they will lose money if they don't treat their customers right. https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/06/50-million-us-homes-have-only-one-25mbps-internet-provider-or-none-at-all/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/06/50-mi... The internet is so vital to our modern world that it has become a human right in several countries. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_Internet_access#Ensuring_that_access_is_broadly_available_and_preventing_unreasonable_restrictions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_Internet_access#Ensur...
    - deusofnull 9y ago
      Wait but I thought the free market operated in good faith and not by brutally cutting corners on service, monopolizing, and lobbying government for preferential treatment?
      - irl_zebra 9y ago
        No, you got it wrong. The free market operates by brutally cutting corners on service, monopolizing, and lobbying government for preferential treatment.
        mindcrime 9y ago
        If there's a government regulating the market in such a way that a firm can "lobby government for preferential treatment" then it isn't a free market.
        wanderer2323 9y ago
        Well then free market is a useless theoretical concept that does not exist anywhere, has not existed anywhere and cannot exist in any non-trivial environment, and as such should not be discussed.
  - nitrogen 9y ago
    Not to mention no ISP in any other country has offered anything close to that either. Facebook. India. So-called free basics.
  - prklmn 9y ago
    >>But they do care most about making money from the public and no one has convinced me that filtering internet packages by website makes any technical, marketing, or business model sense at all. Charge internet companies for access to subscribers. Charge subscribers to access certain websites. It's a simple model. >>No ISP for the ~15yr timeframe before the FTC regulation was passed a few years ago had ever offered such an arrangement. Again, not true. https://www.theverge.com/2014/3/24/5541916/netflix-deal-with-the-devil-why-reed-hastings-violated-his-principles https://www.theverge.com/2014/3/24/5541916/netflix-deal-with... https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/21/16010766/verizon-netflix-throttling-statement-net-neutrality-title-ii https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/21/16010766/verizon-netflix-... >>Plenty of ISPs have repeatedly said they have zero intention of doing it either (including a few this year). Not to mention no ISP in any other country has offered anything close to that either. Why would you ever trust an ISP? If they were not going to take advantage of this new opportunity, then they should be fine with having the regulation stay in place. Also, wireless carriers which are in many ways analogous to ISPs already have started preying on consumers using this model https://imgur.com/yYobj7x https://imgur.com/yYobj7x >>This has proven to be incredibly unpopular idea with the public for over a decade as well, whenever it has come up in the press. It wouldn't take much market research to see it's a terrible idea. Market research and public opinion don't matter when you have no competition and have numerous state laws written for protection. >>This would be a boon to any ISP who DIDN'T do this. Competition, and obvious lack of business sense, has always been a far larger counter-balance to this idea. Plus the huge technical challenge of filtering at the ISP level... this would be a huge boon for encryption and VPNs as well. Again, there is little to no competition in most markets. >>So I'm a bit confused why this is generating so much FUD over such a highly hypothetical and hand wavy scenario... as if the only thing stopping them from doing it was this three year old regulation. It's not hypothetical at all, see above links. It's a big deal because it will ultimately be a huge wealth transfer away from consumers. You're not by chance Ajit Pai, are you?
  - ghrifter 9y ago
    Shh you are going against the hive mind of people that watch a fucking comedian and accept his word as gospel and that this removal of title 2 "hurts muh free speech" Internet companies didnt make fast lanes and shit for 20 years, removal of title 2 and suddenly they are? the fuck.
    - dragonwriter 9y ago
      > Internet companies didnt make fast lanes and shit for 20 years I assume you mean 1984-2004, the 20 years preceding both the FCC first adopting and first acting to enforce network neutrality rules (under the title “Network Freedom” principles, which later became “Open Internet”.) Since 2004 there've been all kinds of non-neutral action and an evolving approach to enforcing neutrality responding to court decisions closing off certain approaches until Title 2 was the only thing left.
      - Spivak 9y ago
        Are there any non-neutral actions that aren't behind the scenes peering disputes? Is there an example of an ISP using network policy to maliciously throttle or block traffic from their competitors?
    - s73ver_ 9y ago
      I honestly don't get your argument. You're saying that, because they didn't do it while they were under regulation, they're not going to do it in the future? If they're not going to do it, then why remove the regulation?
    - sctb 9y ago
      Could you please not do this and post civilly and substantively instead? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - JohnTHaller 9y ago
    The majority of Americans can't choose their broadband internet service provider. I live in NYC and have access to exactly one broadband provider. You don't think they'll come up with any reason they can to make up new service levels and add-ons to pad my bill?
    - isostatic 9y ago
      You have no 4G in NY?
      - JohnTHaller 9y ago
        You could get Verizon's connected home 4G service. It's $60 for 10GB. That would let you watch 3 movies on Netflix.
        isostatic 9y ago
        I assume your building owner doesn't want you to install a new fibre? saying will sell you a 1gbit service for $1600pcm in midtown. How much are you willing to pay and for what?
  - bluetwo 9y ago
    The ISPs definitely did do this up until the point they were classified as regulated. They just did it in subtle ways, seeing how far they could push it without causing a backlash. Like limiting Netflix and BitTorrent. Despite being careful, they got classified. Now, they explicitly are going to be unclassified, and we, the consumers, will be unprotected.
Mithaldu 9y ago
Explaining isn't the crucial part. Everyone who hears it understands "ISPs get to decide which websites you can see with the basic package and more cost upgrades". The hard part is giving people something useful and worthwhile to do about it.
CamperBob2 9y ago
Tell them the story of Almon Brown Strowger, the 19th-century undertaker whose business mysteriously took a nosedive when the local telephone company hired an operator who was related to a rival funeral director. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almon_Brown_Strowger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almon_Brown_Strowger I've always loved that (admittedly apocryphal) story. It's one of the vanishingly-rare cases where someone successfully solved a social problem through purely technical means. Even if there's not a word of truth to it, it's a completely realistic description of what consumers can expect in a world without net neutrality. It can be considered a modern-day Aesop fable. Once you've related the Strowger story, then you can speculate on how it might have unfolded if Ma Bell herself had owned the competing funeral home. That's basically where the Comcasts and Verizons of the world want to be.
- rtx 9y ago
  Would it be any different than YC promoting its companies here.
  - CamperBob2 9y ago
    No, because YC doesn't take government subsidies to act as a dumb pipe. They also aren't a de-facto monopoly in any way, shape, or form. All of the incumbent ISPs are charged with stewardship of public resources to one extent or another, if only because they require right-of-way access. The fact that many Americans have a grand total of one decent broadband provider to choose from is another factor that has to be considered, but often isn't. Basically, net neutrality isn't a gift to the public, it's half of a longstanding bargain. The Trump administration proposes to unilaterally alter that bargain on behalf of corporate lobbyists who do not have consumers' interests in mind.
    - rtx 9y ago
      If wires are public resources the government should buy it outright instead of giving subsidies. Public resources should be publically owned.

John Oliver found a good way to explain it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpbOEoRrHyU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpbOEoRrHyU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92vuuZt7wak https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92vuuZt7wak The problem is that ISP shills that make these decisions don't care about public opposition. They aren't elected officials.

dmix 9y ago
> The problem is that ISP shills that make these decisions don't care about public opposition But they do care most about making money from the public and no one has convinced me that filtering internet packages by website makes any technical, marketing, or business model sense at all. This has proven to be incredibly unpopular idea with the public for over a decade as well, whenever it has come up in the press. It wouldn't take much market research to see it's a terrible idea. Plus the huge technical challenge of filtering at the ISP level... this would be a huge boon for encryption and VPNs as well. No American ISP for the ~20yr timeframe before the FTC regulation was passed a few years ago had ever offered such an arrangement. Not to mention no ISP in any other country has offered anything close to that either. Plenty of American ISPs have said they have zero intention of doing it either. This would be a boon to any ISP who DIDN'T do this. Competition, the technical hurdles, and obvious lack of business sense, etc has always been an adequate counter-balance to this idea. So I'm a bit confused why this is generating so much FUD over such a highly hypothetical and hand wavy scenario... as if the only thing stopping them from doing it was this three year old FTC regulation.
- skywhopper 9y ago
  You're assuming that most people have access to more than one ISP (they don't), or that statements by ISPs about what they intend to do or not do are truthful (they aren't). Specifically statements promising they would never do anything that would break net neutrality rules, while arguing against the imposition of net neutrality rules, would not make sense. Why oppose something you have no intention of doing?
  - dmix 9y ago
    My counter point does not depend entirely on competition. That is merely one counter-balance available to much of the country who have more than one ISP available, of the many I mentioned (technical, marketing, business model). Why not create regulation in response to real scenarios that have actually happened instead of hypothetical ones that are already have plenty of other drawbacks?
    - outsidetheparty 9y ago
      Have you forgotten the whole controversy about Verizon throttling Netflix back in July? This is a real scenario that has actually happened. http://www.businessinsider.com/verizon-netflix-youtube-throttling-speeds-2017-7 http://www.businessinsider.com/verizon-netflix-youtube-throt... Your other points hold up equally poorly: there are no unsolved technical hurdles in throttling or blocking specific sites or services -- as evidenced by the fact that they can and have already done so. As for "marketing" and "business model" and it being an "unpopular idea", these again fall back to the issue of consumer choice: in an effective monopoly, it doesn't matter a whit whether the populace dislikes the idea. It's not like Comcast is winning any popularity contests as it is.
      - dmix 9y ago
        That is different from the type of satellite-tv style packages ("Social media package, Facebook/Twitter, for only $9.99!") type of thing that people are talking about with net neutrality. And the current FTC regulations in question didn't do anything in regards to that issue you linked to?
        outsidetheparty 9y ago
        > That is different from the type of satellite-tv style packages ("Social media package, Facebook/Twitter, for only $9.99!") type of thing that people are talking about with net neutrality. It's the flip side of the same coin. Without net neutrality, ISPs will be able to charge content providers like Netflix a toll to not be throttled out of viablity -- who will then presumably pass the costs on to end consumers -- or the ISPs can directly charge end consumers an extra toll for access to the full internet. (Of course they'll do both, after some experimentation to find the best profit::outrage ratio.) > And the current FTC regulations in question didn't do anything in regards to that issue you linked to? ...they kinda did? In that Verizon had to back off and wait for net neutrality to be repealed before they could try again? (I assume you meant FCC, not FTC, in all of this. The FTC, of course, doesn't have any authority here until after the common carrier regulations are lifted. So, roughly a month from now.)
- zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 9y ago
  Why exactly are ISPs opposing net neutrality if it's their intention anyway?
- beagle3 9y ago
  Netflix was throttled, mostly By Comcast, Time Warner and Verizon, which all have businesses competing with Netflix outside the internet.
- dave5104 9y ago
  > This would be a boon to any ISP who DIDN'T do this. Competition, and obvious lack of business sense, has always been a far larger counter-balance to this idea. Where I'm at, it's Comcast or nothing. Most of the US does not have any ISP competition. It's usually 1 ISP to choose from, or if you're lucky, 1 ISP with expected speeds and 1 ISP over DSL. I really wish I lived somewhere with multiple options, because if anything like this website bundle scenario did play out, I wouldn't have any choice in avoiding it.
  - jrnichols 9y ago
    sad that they point at HughesNet or something equally awful as "competition" too. :/
- valine 9y ago
  But what if your only choice for ISP is Comcast? 50 million Americans only have access to one ISP. You can't just switch providers when you only have one provider to choose from. Comcast could do this very easily and millions of Americans would be stuck paying more money for worse service.
- prions 9y ago
  What's different now is that we're seeing huge mergers between telecom companies and media companies. The internet is more vital to everyone now than compared to 15 years ago. Every year more and more people are choosing to eschew traditional cable for Netflix et al. With NN being repealed, it opens up ways for ISP's to promote their own content and shut out others like nothing that's happened before. This whole repeal smacks of anti-consumerism and pro corporate nonsense.
- shmerl 9y ago
  > This would be a boon to any ISP who DIDN'T do this. Competition, and obvious lack of business sense, has always been a far larger counter-balance to this idea. Competition surely can help, but currently there is no competition in a lot of places. It's basically monopoly / oligopoly situation, with collusion and market division to boot. So increasing competition is a good goal, but it shouldn't block preventing monopolistic abuse with legal means. Monopolists also created a lot of blockers that prevent increasing competition. Such as local state laws that ban municipal networks which could solve this very problem.
  - webXL 9y ago
    > Competition surely can help, but currently there is no competition in a lot of places. Places with a lot of people? People who have been harmed by what NN is intending to fix? > Monopolists also created a lot of blockers that prevent increasing competition. Facilitated by government. If government was responsible in the first place, why not just undo what they did?
    - shmerl 9y ago
      > Places with a lot of people? It doesn't depend on numbers. Depends mostly whether there is some other ISPs besides the coax provider (which are the most widespread).
      - webXL 9y ago
        So we should have a one-size-fits-all law? You're not that unimaginative, are you?
        msla 9y ago
        What specifically is wrong with one-size-fits-all?
        shmerl 9y ago
        Anti-trust laws are pretty much universal and we already have them. A lot of NN related abuse could be prevented if our legal system would have actually applied them, but it often doesn't.
- CodeWriter23 9y ago
  You know what was different 15 years ago? It was before consumer broadband access was consolidated down to the point where a consumer 0 or 1 other choices other than their current provider.
- milofeynman 9y ago
  I see your profile says "data scientist in training" I would love for you to use some of your training to supply your post with actual data or sources. Everything I see reported disagrees with so many of your assumptions. Like your unstated assumption of some sort of fair and competitive market where they will lose money if they don't treat their customers right. https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/06/50-million-us-homes-have-only-one-25mbps-internet-provider-or-none-at-all/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/06/50-mi... The internet is so vital to our modern world that it has become a human right in several countries. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_Internet_access#Ensuring_that_access_is_broadly_available_and_preventing_unreasonable_restrictions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_Internet_access#Ensur...
  - deusofnull 9y ago
    Wait but I thought the free market operated in good faith and not by brutally cutting corners on service, monopolizing, and lobbying government for preferential treatment?
    - irl_zebra 9y ago
      No, you got it wrong. The free market operates by brutally cutting corners on service, monopolizing, and lobbying government for preferential treatment.
      - mindcrime 9y ago
        If there's a government regulating the market in such a way that a firm can "lobby government for preferential treatment" then it isn't a free market.
        wanderer2323 9y ago
        Well then free market is a useless theoretical concept that does not exist anywhere, has not existed anywhere and cannot exist in any non-trivial environment, and as such should not be discussed.
- nitrogen 9y ago
  Not to mention no ISP in any other country has offered anything close to that either. Facebook. India. So-called free basics.
- prklmn 9y ago
  >>But they do care most about making money from the public and no one has convinced me that filtering internet packages by website makes any technical, marketing, or business model sense at all. Charge internet companies for access to subscribers. Charge subscribers to access certain websites. It's a simple model. >>No ISP for the ~15yr timeframe before the FTC regulation was passed a few years ago had ever offered such an arrangement. Again, not true. https://www.theverge.com/2014/3/24/5541916/netflix-deal-with-the-devil-why-reed-hastings-violated-his-principles https://www.theverge.com/2014/3/24/5541916/netflix-deal-with... https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/21/16010766/verizon-netflix-throttling-statement-net-neutrality-title-ii https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/21/16010766/verizon-netflix-... >>Plenty of ISPs have repeatedly said they have zero intention of doing it either (including a few this year). Not to mention no ISP in any other country has offered anything close to that either. Why would you ever trust an ISP? If they were not going to take advantage of this new opportunity, then they should be fine with having the regulation stay in place. Also, wireless carriers which are in many ways analogous to ISPs already have started preying on consumers using this model https://imgur.com/yYobj7x https://imgur.com/yYobj7x >>This has proven to be incredibly unpopular idea with the public for over a decade as well, whenever it has come up in the press. It wouldn't take much market research to see it's a terrible idea. Market research and public opinion don't matter when you have no competition and have numerous state laws written for protection. >>This would be a boon to any ISP who DIDN'T do this. Competition, and obvious lack of business sense, has always been a far larger counter-balance to this idea. Plus the huge technical challenge of filtering at the ISP level... this would be a huge boon for encryption and VPNs as well. Again, there is little to no competition in most markets. >>So I'm a bit confused why this is generating so much FUD over such a highly hypothetical and hand wavy scenario... as if the only thing stopping them from doing it was this three year old regulation. It's not hypothetical at all, see above links. It's a big deal because it will ultimately be a huge wealth transfer away from consumers. You're not by chance Ajit Pai, are you?
- ghrifter 9y ago
  Shh you are going against the hive mind of people that watch a fucking comedian and accept his word as gospel and that this removal of title 2 "hurts muh free speech" Internet companies didnt make fast lanes and shit for 20 years, removal of title 2 and suddenly they are? the fuck.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    > Internet companies didnt make fast lanes and shit for 20 years I assume you mean 1984-2004, the 20 years preceding both the FCC first adopting and first acting to enforce network neutrality rules (under the title “Network Freedom” principles, which later became “Open Internet”.) Since 2004 there've been all kinds of non-neutral action and an evolving approach to enforcing neutrality responding to court decisions closing off certain approaches until Title 2 was the only thing left.
    - Spivak 9y ago
      Are there any non-neutral actions that aren't behind the scenes peering disputes? Is there an example of an ISP using network policy to maliciously throttle or block traffic from their competitors?
  - s73ver_ 9y ago
    I honestly don't get your argument. You're saying that, because they didn't do it while they were under regulation, they're not going to do it in the future? If they're not going to do it, then why remove the regulation?
  - sctb 9y ago
    Could you please not do this and post civilly and substantively instead? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- JohnTHaller 9y ago
  The majority of Americans can't choose their broadband internet service provider. I live in NYC and have access to exactly one broadband provider. You don't think they'll come up with any reason they can to make up new service levels and add-ons to pad my bill?
  - isostatic 9y ago
    You have no 4G in NY?
    - JohnTHaller 9y ago
      You could get Verizon's connected home 4G service. It's $60 for 10GB. That would let you watch 3 movies on Netflix.
      - isostatic 9y ago
        I assume your building owner doesn't want you to install a new fibre? saying will sell you a 1gbit service for $1600pcm in midtown. How much are you willing to pay and for what?
- bluetwo 9y ago
  The ISPs definitely did do this up until the point they were classified as regulated. They just did it in subtle ways, seeing how far they could push it without causing a backlash. Like limiting Netflix and BitTorrent. Despite being careful, they got classified. Now, they explicitly are going to be unclassified, and we, the consumers, will be unprotected.

Mithaldu 9y ago

Explaining isn't the crucial part. Everyone who hears it understands "ISPs get to decide which websites you can see with the basic package and more cost upgrades". The hard part is giving people something useful and worthwhile to do about it.

CamperBob2 9y ago

Tell them the story of Almon Brown Strowger, the 19th-century undertaker whose business mysteriously took a nosedive when the local telephone company hired an operator who was related to a rival funeral director. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almon_Brown_Strowger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almon_Brown_Strowger I've always loved that (admittedly apocryphal) story. It's one of the vanishingly-rare cases where someone successfully solved a social problem through purely technical means. Even if there's not a word of truth to it, it's a completely realistic description of what consumers can expect in a world without net neutrality. It can be considered a modern-day Aesop fable. Once you've related the Strowger story, then you can speculate on how it might have unfolded if Ma Bell herself had owned the competing funeral home. That's basically where the Comcasts and Verizons of the world want to be.

rtx 9y ago
Would it be any different than YC promoting its companies here.
- CamperBob2 9y ago
  No, because YC doesn't take government subsidies to act as a dumb pipe. They also aren't a de-facto monopoly in any way, shape, or form. All of the incumbent ISPs are charged with stewardship of public resources to one extent or another, if only because they require right-of-way access. The fact that many Americans have a grand total of one decent broadband provider to choose from is another factor that has to be considered, but often isn't. Basically, net neutrality isn't a gift to the public, it's half of a longstanding bargain. The Trump administration proposes to unilaterally alter that bargain on behalf of corporate lobbyists who do not have consumers' interests in mind.
  - rtx 9y ago
    If wires are public resources the government should buy it outright instead of giving subsidies. Public resources should be publically owned.