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My half glass full nature tells me that we will be alright. The internet was born and thrived w/o explicit net neutrality laws for a long time (~20+ years). We

My half glass full nature tells me that we will be alright. The internet was born and thrived w/o explicit net neutrality laws for a long time (~20+ years). We have seen major technology players come out in support of net neutrality, and I believe that if any funny buisness is uncovered we will see a huge backlash vs. the companies that are playing favorites. All and all it says one major thing to me. We cannot rely on executive orders and pseudo-legislation to drive change. The reason why Trump has been able to roll back so many of Obama's legacy is that so much of it was executed via E.O; the one thing he cannot seem to roll back is Obamacare which was delivered via Congress. If we want net neutrality to become law we have to push for Congress to deliver it.

goialoq 9y ago
We didn't need net neutrality as long as non-neutrality was too complicated to implement.
acdha 9y ago
> The internet was born and thrived w/o explicit net neutrality laws for a long time (~20+ years). On the other hand, while the internet is approaching its 50th birthday for most of that time there was far less money involved and fewer players with monopoly status over it. In the 90s, we had dialup and DSL from hundreds of service providers because DSL was subject to a similar neutrality provision which meant that the phone company had to resell access to copper at cost. That's a pretty huge difference: had, say, PacBell tried to steer pets.com traffic to a partner, every single one of their customers had the option to switch ISPs immediately without any loss of service quality. Unfortunately that wasn't preserved for fiber and there has been massive consolidation in the industry, so most people have a choice between — if they're lucky — a massive cable company and a massive phone company. Many people live in buildings with exclusive contracts for only one company. In that environment, your choices are basically falling back to DSL if it's still available (increasingly not) or going without an increasingly vital utility. I would be very hesitant to say our past experience is a good source of prediction for the modern market.

goialoq 9y ago

We didn't need net neutrality as long as non-neutrality was too complicated to implement.

acdha 9y ago

> The internet was born and thrived w/o explicit net neutrality laws for a long time (~20+ years). On the other hand, while the internet is approaching its 50th birthday for most of that time there was far less money involved and fewer players with monopoly status over it. In the 90s, we had dialup and DSL from hundreds of service providers because DSL was subject to a similar neutrality provision which meant that the phone company had to resell access to copper at cost. That's a pretty huge difference: had, say, PacBell tried to steer pets.com traffic to a partner, every single one of their customers had the option to switch ISPs immediately without any loss of service quality. Unfortunately that wasn't preserved for fiber and there has been massive consolidation in the industry, so most people have a choice between — if they're lucky — a massive cable company and a massive phone company. Many people live in buildings with exclusive contracts for only one company. In that environment, your choices are basically falling back to DSL if it's still available (increasingly not) or going without an increasingly vital utility. I would be very hesitant to say our past experience is a good source of prediction for the modern market.