13 ms·

Is anyone actually against net neutrality? I don't think I've ever seen a con argument.

tonyztan 9y ago
ISP-funded lobbyists seem to have a lot of sway. Ajit Pai's FCC is against net neutrality as a result. The fact that Pai was Verizon's top lawyer doesn't help, either.
mlamat 9y ago
I'm not convinced. Why am I supposed to take sides in a fight between two industries?
- zackelan 9y ago
  If you're unconvinced, you should default to supporting net neutrality. It's the status quo, the null hypothesis. The burden of proof is on the people wishing to make this fundamental change to the structure of the internet.
  - adventured 9y ago
    Net neutrality has only existed in actual law for an extremely short amount of time. Or put another way, for about 90%+ of the Web-Internet combo's active existence in the US consumer market, net neutrality has not been law.
    - pritambaral 9y ago
      Even when it wasn't the law, Net Neutrality existed in practice, and there was little interest shown by then ISPs to break that. Now there is a lot of interest by current ISPs to not be neutral, which makes it necessary for Net Neutrality to be the law.
  - creaghpatr 9y ago
    It's not the null hypothesis the rules were implemented in 2015. The fact that some people assumed net neutrality when it did not legally exist makes NN the exact opposite of the null hypothesis, unless you discard the entire internet prior to 2014/2015
- tonyztan 9y ago
  Because the ISPs control your Internet access. They don't compete with each other. Without net neutrality, they can prioritize, slow down, or block any site or content they want to. Many people cannot simply switch away. They have only one ISP to choose from. You can switch away from Facebook whenever you wish.
  - adventured 9y ago
    Next logical question: net neutrality has existed for a very short amount of time. The Internet & Web did extremely well before net neutrality, with few instances of abusive carrier restriction over the prior decades. What is the very strong supporting evidence to demonstrate your scenario is the likely outcome? If you want to regulate something so important on the premise you're suggesting, you need to present equally significant proof of harm.
    - gt_ 9y ago
      The very strong inevitability of industries, relationships and societies to develop, change and adapt over time, and in such a way that lessons learned in the past inform strategies used in the future. Those prior decades were the infancy of the internet. When children go 16 years without wrecking a car, it doesn’t mean they are perfect drivers.
    - memeCrasher 9y ago
      As far as I'm aware, net neutrality was assumed to apply up until a court ruling that went in Verizon's favor. So it's not a case of "It only came into law 3 years ago!" but rather "We put it back into law after being considered law for 30 years because of a court case that demanded clarification".
    - Goronmon 9y ago
      What is the very strong supporting evidence to demonstrate your scenario is the likely outcome? https://www.cnet.com/news/fcc-formally-rules-comcasts-throttling-of-bittorrent-was-illegal/ https://www.cnet.com/news/fcc-formally-rules-comcasts-thrott... That's effectively what lead to the situation we are in now. FCC said it's illegal, appeal ruled FCC doesn't have the authority to regulate at the time, FCC makes attempts at making "net neutrality" a thing they can control, and now we are on the verge of having them roll it back. Basically, ISPs starting pushing the boundaries and a war directly against the concept of net neutrality and that fight is the one we are currently talking about right now, this is just the latest battle.
- memeCrasher 9y ago
  What makes you think you're taking sides between two industries? The way I see it, and probably why Google et al don't seem to be throwing up a recent fuss anymore, is that the big tech companies and industry giants can cut deals with the major ISP's to avoid throttling or provide services/expertise to the ISP's. So the end result is turning Google et al into their OWN monopolies. (e.g. Comcast partners with Youtube to deliver streaming video!) Now you get telecom monopolies AND service/content monopolies. Truly the best of both worlds.
tabeth 9y ago
One could argue that without net neutrality, internet providers could provide substantially cheaper internet services -- e.g. just Facebook for $1 a month. However that breaks down once you consider the fact that it's not practical at all. Not to mention that providers would have no reason to offer such cheap offerings, either.
- adventured 9y ago
  > Not to mention that providers would have no reason to offer such cheap offerings, either. Sure they might. Large companies with deep pockets subsidize the premise to their own benefit (whatever that happens to be). In your example, let's say instead it's $3 per month for just Facebook services (FB, Instagram, WhatsApp, etc). Comcast partners with Facebook on the effort, in which Facebook pays a few dollars per month to subsidize the user plan. Facebook currently derives something close to $9 per month from US & Canadian members. They hit 45.6% net income margins last quarter, which is extraordinary. They're set to become the greatest pound for pound profit machine in world history, they can afford to use some of that margin to further lock in their monopoly by purchasing preferential access treatment in numerous ways.
  - nnneuter 9y ago
    A subsidized Internet connection is just wishful thinking. Online services (Google, Facebook, ...) make just a few bucks per user. This is peanuts compared to what broadband costs. The fixed costs alone are tens of dollars per month.
- gt_ 9y ago
  Is anyone arguing that? Links?
  - trendia 9y ago
    Facebook tried such a system in India [0]. "Called Free Basics, it provided only limited access to the Internet through a suite of websites and services that, unsurprisingly, included Facebook" https://www.cnet.com/news/why-india-doesnt-want-free-basics/ https://www.cnet.com/news/why-india-doesnt-want-free-basics/
KaoruAoiShiho 9y ago
I'm against net neutrality. It's essentially a wealth transfer from the infrastructure industry to the ad industry. It's pretty dumb imo.
- TimTheTinker 9y ago
  What makes you think ending net neutrality would negatively affect the ad industry? They'll keep right on making their money, only they'll have one more venue -- ISPs injecting ads into other people's (non-HTTPS) pages. ISPs are a natural monopoly and therefore must be carefully and thoroughly regulated, just like any other utility. Their job ought to be to provide a regulated standard of service at a regulated price, no more & no less -- just like your water and electric utilities.
- foota 9y ago
  How?
- tonyztan 9y ago
  ISPs are free to compete with Google, Facebook, etc by offering competitive web services. Instead, ISPs want to leverage their almost-exclusive control of Internet access to unfairly crush competition. Users can choose not the use Facebook. Many users cannot choose not to use Comcast, because Comcast is the only ISP in the area. Lack of competition among ISPs make them different from web companies.
  - KaoruAoiShiho 9y ago
    > ISPs are free to compete with Google, Facebook, etc by offering competitive web services. By definition you're devaluing the infrastructure. This is saying, infrastructure does not deserve to make money, only ads deserve to make money. I'd rather ISPs not compete in web services and instead make money providing the pipes as it's an important job in its own right. Your logic leads to bad incentives for ISPs, leading to long-term degradation in a important industry. Letting ISPs make more money will introduce more incentives to compete with them too. Why did Google Fiber fail? At least partially because there's no incentive for Google to fully invest in a 10% profit margin service while it's ad business has 60% profit margin. End net neutrality, let ISPs charge internet companies fees, and we'll suddenly have ton more money in the industry, competition in the market and we'll see an end this era of shitty internet.
martin1975 9y ago
Well, Ajit Pai says it stifles investments. Apparently investments fell by 5% or so over a period of time since the Title II classification. While I love NN, I also hate no viable competition to cable/ISP monopolies. I don't think NN would be an issue if everyone had at least 3 viable choices of broadband providers. That's the right (tm) way to address it, or should I say market-based, by fostering competition via policy.
- xbmcuser 9y ago
  I think the free market proponents are harming US infrastructure and in the future competitiveness. Like roads and bridges etc are built with taxes. The internet infrastructure needs to be built or at least controled by the government federal, state or city. I like what Singapore did got bids and fixed prices for fiber deployment. Now all the isp's have to compete for providing services and the fiber deployer is paid the same by all of them. That is probably the best and cheapest way to build infrastructure. Currently in the US you have 2-3 companies doing their own fiber deployment in the same areas at 2-3 times the cost.
  - bduerst 9y ago
    Precisely. Communications infrastructure is a natural monopoly that should be regulated like roads, electricity, water, sewer, etc. The fact that it was privatized early on the U.S. means we've open pandora's box of lobbying, so it would be difficult to close it again. The federal government could foreseeably take back some of that infrastructure by building it itself. The last mile is the most expensive part, so why not build a fiber backbone to every public school, and then let the municipal government's decide if/when/how they cover the last mile implementation?
- tonyztan 9y ago
  Lack of competition is because: 1) ISPs agree not to compete; and 2) It is expensive for new entrants to build infrastructure. It would be ideal to solve NN with free market. But the ISPs have monopolies that prevent competition. Making net neutrality necessary today.
rtx 9y ago
Yes, because it looks like government overreach and against natural justice. I think US government should buy the wires from these companies and allow anyone to use them as ISP. Then there is a second lot who use peering agreements and CDNs.
thomastjeffery 9y ago
There really isn't a sound argument against net neutrality. Many do argue that the FCC shouldn't have the authority to regulate the internet, and often argue that idea to subtly change the subject. If someone argues to abolish something, they should either argue in favor of a replacement, or argue that that thing should not exist at all. Unfortunately, I haven't heard even a flawed version of either argument. Another faux argument I hear is the classic, "I am libertarian, and therefore must be against regulation of any form, and you can't change my mind." Obviously, that isn't an argument at all, and abusing libertarian ideology to look like an argument like that is seriously disappointing to any serious thoughtful libertarian, such as myself. This problem isn't specific to libertarianism either, but it is very popular in that community. The core tenet to every position (not argument) I have heard against net neutrality is simply a position against regulation. The problem is that in the United States, we need to regulate ISPs, for several reasons: 1. There isn't enough competition: There are 6 ISPs in the US that control the majority of the market, and the majority of Americans are left with only one choice for >20mbit internet. 2. Net Neutrality is necessary to cultivate a free market of businesses that use the internet. Without net neutrality, the already centralized market of ISPs would cultivate centralized markets for each type of business that uses the internet. TL;DR It is totally reasonable to be wary of regulation, or of the implementation of regulation. It may even be reasonable to consider net neutrality to be worthless or unnecessary in a truly free market, that has real competition between ISPs, but that isn't today's reality, so we would need to tackle that problem first.
- rtx 9y ago
  If we want something for the public good, it should be publically funded.
  - cmurf 9y ago
    It pretty much was: ARPANET. And the instigator for all computers was the need to more quickly compute nuclear warhead trajectories, in real time, to make it possible, as well as efficient, to murder as many fellow humans as possible while also defending against the same by an opponent. But yeah it might be nice to make it just work well, without any respect for and to whom or what. All that matter is how. It should work well, how do we do that? Some cities are deciding to build their own infra. Good. Now if only they'd explicitly adopt their surrounding rural areas and include them in the program. Because this same FCC is dropping the subsidies for rural internet and telephone.
ben940830298432 9y ago
We have had the internet for a long time without net neutrality why do we all of sudden need it?
- sandmansandine 9y ago
  This is horrible argument. We had cars before seat belt laws why do we all of sudden need it? We had cars before airbags why do we all of sudden need it? We've has guns before gun control so why do we all of sudden need it? Edit: People have been giving birth for a long time without doctors so why do we all of sudden need it?
  - shard972 9y ago
    These are horrible counter arguments. The only two that even remotely relevant are seatbelt laws and gun laws, the other two are not even laws. For seat belt laws, there was evidence that such laws increased pedestrian injury rates and severity. Whos to say that outweighs the benefits of forcing a few people to wear seat belts that are already in their cars? For gun control, to say this in american context is weird. The US barely has gun control so to say it like its absolutely needed is odd.
    - Larrikin 9y ago
      I assume the gun control law comment was a facetious point since America does not have it in any meaningful way and the US ranks consistently in the top for gun deaths.
  - ben940830298432 9y ago
    Well look at the other things you think the government needs their hands in, health and education and both have been slower to change and more expensive since. So the best way to get less access to the internet is by adding a bunch of government regulation. Great Idea! Net Neutrality will just make it even harder for new players to compete because they will have large regulations to meet. The only way to improve is to make it easier at a local level for more companies to compete.
dllu 9y ago
Some organizations such as the Wikimedia Foundation, Google, and Facebook believe that their services are more important than others. As such, they consider themselves deserving of cheaper, free, or the "fast lane" internet, especially in less developed areas without sufficient infrastructure to serve all websites. The rationale is that providing a limited set of websites for free is better than if those areas have no access to internet at all. Note: The views of the mentioned organizations do not necessarily reflect my own views. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Basics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Basics [1] https://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/08/01/wikipedia-zero-and-net-neutrality-protecting-the-internet/ https://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/08/01/wikipedia-zero-and-net...
- komali2 9y ago
  I want to understand this better, but I can't grasp the concept of a "fast lane" in anything but an artificial sense - how can an ISP create a "fast lane" for a website - can't they only create "slow lanes" for everything BUT "fast laned" websites?
  - amake 9y ago
    Yes.
  - grahamburger 9y ago
    Kind of. Say an ISP cuts a deal with Google to make all Google's traffic higher priority than other traffic. When customers are using less than the network's full capacity nothing changes - all traffic goes through at full line speed. But as soon as any buffer starts to fill up on any device on the ISP network (because of network congestion) the network devices will pull Google's packets from the buffer more often than other traffic until the buffer is empty. Then it's back to line speed for everything.
  - wanderingbort 9y ago
    The internet is not a single "connection" for an ISP that fans out to all the customers, unless your ISP is only able to get transport from a single peer/provider. The big ones back-haul to a major hub and then enter in to several peering agreements. Depending on what service/site you use the "best" path will be over one of those peers. However, this means that there is usually a middle-man-network in between you and the service you want and neither you, your ISP, nor the service can directly control the quality or speed of that network. If Netflix, Hulu and Google all end up with a "best" path on a single peer its going to be bad during prime time even though other services connected on other peers may operate normally. One version of a "fast lane" (like the one that Comcast and Netflix negotiated) is to remove that middle man and directly peer with the service. This is only available to large services because they need a presence in these major hubs as it usually requires a direct physical connection between edge routers. Now, no matter how congested their peers get, the "fast lane" service is working well. They have probably also agreed not to charge the actual "market" rate on that link's bandwidth as it is mutually beneficial and the ISP should pass those savings to its users by not counting the service against any data caps etc. From the outside, this looks like extortion. The reality though is that both sides pursue these kinds of deals all the time because it benefits their customers and therefore their bottom-lines. ISPs push harder for them because services, like Netflix, are incentivized to find the lowest cost transport peer which is usually not the highest quality. When that peering link is bad, customers blame the ISPs not Netflix. Netflix used to brag about how cheap and cut-rate their cost per gigabyte was. How do you think they got such a good deal? It wasn't by purchasing the best connection to their customers. It was become some sales exec at a tier 1/2 internet transport provider oversold their poor service. We should be just as upset with the overselling of transport over peers as we are about ISPs throttling but, most of the internet citizens don't understand how that works. Another note, most of the times when people use VPNs to "prove" that their ISP is throttling network capacity for a service, they are simply routing over a different peer (the one that connects to their VPN). In ideal circumstances this is traveling over a sub-optimal path and should suffer a little bit. However, in times of heavy congestion it is like being routed around a traffic jam. It is "very hard" with current routing protocols on the backbone to do this kind of "flow around" for congested paths in real-time for everyone. Single users are manually implementing it by hitting VPNs.
seibelj 9y ago
I’m against net neutrality if you are allowed to choose your ISP. Where I live (Boston) I only have Comcast. Trees even block satellite. If we allowed any ISP to lease the line from Comcast and let me choose service, it would be different. As I only have Comcast, it is a monopoly and I’m opposed. But with true competition, I could choose from a range of ISP’s, even theoretically free broadband that would be ad supported.
- steanne 9y ago
  that only works as long as they actually compete on neutrality rather than collude.
  - cmurf 9y ago
    The evidence is they do the same thing as insurance* companies. The conglomerate/merge regionally. So they buy up all the small competitors, while excluding any meaningful competition amongs the big players. Are they colluding? Maybe not explicitly over lunch, but they know what they need to do and direct competition, as if they're commodities, would be bad for their shareholders. * health care pre-payment with no residual value plan
19guid 9y ago
I've posted this comment before in another thread: I oppose net neutrality regulation. In principle, I don't think there's anything wrong with an ISP prioritizing certain kinds of traffic over others, so long as it does not have an anti-competitive effect. For example, I don't see how Netflix paying Comcast to zero-rate Netflix traffic is fundamentally different from Amazon contracting with mail carriers to subsidize the cost of shipping for Amazon purchases, or even -- to use an example another commenter made -- an appliance manufacturer contracting with electrical utilities to subsidize the cost of electricity used by their appliances. So long as Comcast makes its zero-rating program available to all content providers -- including their own -- on reasonable and non-discriminatory terms, I don't think there are any competition issues. I've heard people argue that zero-rating makes it harder for smaller content providers to compete, since they won't have the resources to subsidize their customers' traffic. As I said in another comment, that's just the nature of business. Being big affords you certain advantages, like economies of scale. This makes it easier to compete on price. Smaller companies have to compete in other ways. In my view, the real problem with the telecom industry in the United States is a lack of competition [0], a problem caused at least in part by municipal [1] and state [2] governments. With more competition, net neutrality would be a non-issue. Consumers would just stop using ISPs that unfairly discriminate between traffic. [0] http://www.nationalreview.com/article/410353/net-neutrality-already-obsolete-michael-hendrix http://www.nationalreview.com/article/410353/net-neutrality-... [1] https://www.wired.com/2013/07/we-need-to-stop-focusing-on-just-cable-companies-and-blame-local-government-for-dismal-broadband-competition/ https://www.wired.com/2013/07/we-need-to-stop-focusing-on-ju... [2] http://broadbandnow.com/report/municipal-broadband-roadblocks-by-state/ http://broadbandnow.com/report/municipal-broadband-roadblock...
- linkregister 9y ago
  The reason why I and some other HN commenters (and L3 Communications) find this argument bizarre is because of the concept of transit traffic charges being applied to the last mile, which previously was not an industry practice. Comcast's customers are requesting the data; if Comcast were a second tier backbone, or an AS between two others, then it would make sense to charge for traffic, as it doesn't benefit. But the traffic going to Comcast is there to benefit its subscribers, without which, Comcast doesn't make enough money. The most bizarre thing is that if the customers were to upload the same amount of data back to the sites, then they wouldn't be charged, as the data was symmetrical! Why would an ISP be able to charge other AS's for sending traffic to its own customers? If there were even a single competitor in that region, this dynamic would change completely.
darklajid 9y ago
Actually I've just stumbled across a very(!) active HN poster that seems to be against it on a popular micro blogging platform.. The common counter argument seems to be that "Regulation is bad for the open market" and that "Better options would come up if an ISP starts doing weird shit, if the market demands it". It's interesting to me that the very same people seem to be pro Freedom of Press/Freedom of Speech (as a German, the US Freedom of Speech is something I'm not used to, something that doesn't align with my culture/upbringing), but feel different about this subject because it involves a "market"?
- piokoch 9y ago
  "Regulation is bad for the open market" - that's the root of the problem here. If it weren't for various "licences", "concessions", "permits" to become mobile operator or be allowed to install your cables then we will not need a discussion about net neutrality. Definitely the bar to become ISP is too high, lower it and the problem will be gone. I don't belive that people don't want to become ISP just like that - something is wrong here. On the other hand I have to say that sane regulations make sense, for instance mobile operators in Poland who own hardware infrastructure are obliged by law to sell bandwith to virtual operators when requested. That indeed lowered prices and provided better serivces including mobile internet. However, to have a full picture, I need to say that at the down of mobile telephony in Poland, initial investment and infrastructure was build by companies owned or controlled by the state, so, to some extent, infrastructure was payed from public money and later sold to 100% private entities.
  - nnneuter 9y ago
    That's some wishful thinking. The real reason we have few ISPs is that building facilities require large amounts of capital, returns are low and the incumbents have already built out the profitable markets. Regulation is not the root of the problem. Sure, lessening the burden would help, but not solve the problem.
    - jasonx1e 9y ago
      But I can't see why regulation must be necessary to maintain net neutrality; of course it's a good thing, I'm just not sure the government necessarily needs to mandate it. Documented abuses of net neutrality were few and far between and there really wasn't a precedent for the 2010 Act in the first place. Mobile phone carriers are not subject to the same net neutrality rules, yet I haven't heard of any of the 4 major providers deliberately throttling internet service.
trymas 9y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality#Arguments_against https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality#Arguments_again...
zaarn 9y ago
Yes. Some people I know argue that they'd rather wait-and-see rather than just flatout deny it, quote, "Because I've been screwed other by Internet Companies and Cable Companies have been rather nice so far. I think I'd rather pay less for my Internet to only use Facebook tbqf"
Cthulhu_ 9y ago
The arguments against net neutrality often focus on crappy connections; on 3G networks and early DSL it was common to have rate limits, which made people be very careful with how much internet they used, and/or additional fees above a certain bandwidth usage - similar to utilities like electricity and water (although IDK why there was never really much pay-per-megabyte internet, usually it's a flat fee). The arguments against net neutrality are related to that; instead of limiting how much people use to keep the pipes open and fast enough so to speak, it's giving certain services preferential treatment, so that in the case of limited bandwidth those aren't disrupted. Of course, it's a silly thing; most landlines, especially in the cities, will have fiber connections at least up until a local distributor box, and in some cases to the door. This has many gigabits of capacity, which should be enough for everyone. The thing is that apparently, investments in bandwidth aren't being done enough. Google gave it a good try with their fiber service, but had to give up - probably underestimating how expensive it is, or they were blocked by the existing ISPs that didn't tolerate competition. TL;DR, I think the problem isn't available bandwidth or whatever, it's competition, or the lack thereof, and investments, or the lack thereof.
- cr0sh 9y ago
  > Google gave it a good try with their fiber service, but had to give up - probably underestimating how expensive it is, or they were blocked by the existing ISPs that didn't tolerate competition. Google gave up partly thanks to ALEC lobbying and laws, probably lobbied for via the incumbent regional ISPs.
m333t 9y ago
It's a made up issue. "Net neutrality" doesn't mean a free internet. It means a free internet regulated by the FCC. Almost nobody is against a free internet. A lot of people such as myself are against the FCC being in charge of regulating it. Competition and the FTC's anti-trust authority have kept the internet free for decades and will continue to do so in the future. The people pushing "net neutrality" want to transfer power to the FCC because the FCC will go beyond maintaining fair access to the internet. They'll next move into regulating content as they have done with television and radio. That's the real goal.
- anthony_romeo 9y ago
  You are deliberately being deceptive to fool people into agreeing with you. Net Neutrality is a mandate that ISPs cannot prioritize data from one website over another. It's a regulation to ensure that Comcast cannot effectively censor websites it doesn't like by hiding it behind a slow lane of sorts. We know that ISPs have attempted to throttle Netflix's content, which is what prompted the recent regulatory changes in 2015. What evidence do you have that net neutrality will necessarily lead to government censorship of the Internet? Why is net neutrality an essential component for the government to censor content?
  - TDL 9y ago
    net neutrality isn't an essential component, the invocation of Title II is. This is what I think the comment you are replying is trying to say. I don't know what the intent of net neutrality advocates is, but the invocation of Title II puts far too much power in the hands of a historically corrupt & repressive agency. Personally I am ambivalent about net neutrality. I, however, am deeply opposed to the existence of Title II, let alone it being used to regulate the internet. If advocates want net neutrality to be the governing policy of the internet why don't they advocate for specific legislation that does only that and doesn't give the FCC the ability to become a heavy handed regulator of ISPs?
    - anthony_romeo 9y ago
      > If advocates want net neutrality to be the governing policy of the internet why don't they advocate for specific legislation that does only that and doesn't give the FCC the ability to become a heavy handed regulator of ISPs? Do you have evidence that they are not advocating for proper legislation, or are you just saying this to baselessly discredit advocates of net neutrality? If I recall correctly, the invocation of Title II was a reaction to an unfavorable supreme court case. Perhaps this is not the most ideal solution, but if one believes that net neutrality is important to protect, it appears to be the only solution in the absence of such legislation from a do-nothing Congress. Also, if you believe that the FCC is historically corrupt and regressive, why do you seem to trust the FCC to make the correct decision right now? Do you have evidence that corruption in the FCC has vanished?
paul7986 9y ago
What these comments are against net neutrality and are appearing on Hacker News? We are innovators that without neutrality us little guys/girls will suffer. Are all these comments fake/propaganda? I wouldn’t be surprised!
- arca_vorago 9y ago
  Cue discussion of sockpuppetry as a service (not joking, this is a real issue), given the FCC website comment drama, I wouldn't be surprised if the ISPs and the FCC have hired a "persona management" company to forum slide.
  - paul7986 9y ago
    I mean look at how foreign governments are using social media to influence elections across the world. Fake news to fake comments to spread one's agenda. Edit .. see this top story now on the homepage here about the New York states attorney investigating iNternet fakery https://medium.com/@AGSchneiderman/an-open-letter-to-the-fcc-b867a763850a https://medium.com/@AGSchneiderman/an-open-letter-to-the-fcc... I still do not see why there isnt the same uproar as there was previously that stopped SOPA. What's different this time?
    - arca_vorago 9y ago
      This is out of the CIA playbook, and they are likely to be the largest users of this tactic. Stop buying into their deep state Russia villification program. The Brits are probably second, with Israel tied, and Russia and China in third place. In the IC, operations against the US match the above as well. Everyone loves to rail on Russia, but they are peanuts compared to the collusion that is AIPAC... Now you didn't say the Russians, so correct me if I am misinterpreting. My point is that operation mockingbird just changed names after the Church committee. WaPo is part of it, as are numerous others. Our own deep state (in the Peter Dale Scott sense of the term) is the most active in deception and manipulation of the American people, and it's high time they realized it. I could go further, but it delves into "conspiracy theory" territory that most people don't like to hear.
Shivetya 9y ago
it depends on what we mean about "net neutrality". Too many just assume what it means and does. considering how well we did before the agency changed the rules in 2014 I fail to see how it was all going to implode. Oh, forgot about the big money players who want to exploit it for their own purposes and thus portray anything which interferes with it as end of the world; namely google and similar service providers. throw in big money investors like Soros and the Knight group and you can see this is being played just like politics, people putting their money where the biggest return is. The biggest return is having super large companies free reign to use the net how they want regardless how it impacts smaller providers and smaller ISPs. Which side was I on? Can you tell? That is the issue. People are assuming too much. oh, since 2014 broad band deployment has dropped. odd how that works.
em3rgent0rdr 9y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality#Arguments_against https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality#Arguments_again... Also since you're curious, Pai recently gave his views: http://reason.com/blog/2017/11/21/ajit-pai-net-neutrality-podcast http://reason.com/blog/2017/11/21/ajit-pai-net-neutrality-po...
ythn 9y ago
The best argument I've heard is that Telecomms have spent X billion dollars of their own money building out infrastructure and NN makes their infrastructure public utility lines that they won't get compensated for.

ISP-funded lobbyists seem to have a lot of sway. Ajit Pai's FCC is against net neutrality as a result. The fact that Pai was Verizon's top lawyer doesn't help, either.

mlamat 9y ago

I'm not convinced. Why am I supposed to take sides in a fight between two industries?

zackelan 9y ago
If you're unconvinced, you should default to supporting net neutrality. It's the status quo, the null hypothesis. The burden of proof is on the people wishing to make this fundamental change to the structure of the internet.
- adventured 9y ago
  Net neutrality has only existed in actual law for an extremely short amount of time. Or put another way, for about 90%+ of the Web-Internet combo's active existence in the US consumer market, net neutrality has not been law.
  - pritambaral 9y ago
    Even when it wasn't the law, Net Neutrality existed in practice, and there was little interest shown by then ISPs to break that. Now there is a lot of interest by current ISPs to not be neutral, which makes it necessary for Net Neutrality to be the law.
- creaghpatr 9y ago
  It's not the null hypothesis the rules were implemented in 2015. The fact that some people assumed net neutrality when it did not legally exist makes NN the exact opposite of the null hypothesis, unless you discard the entire internet prior to 2014/2015
tonyztan 9y ago
Because the ISPs control your Internet access. They don't compete with each other. Without net neutrality, they can prioritize, slow down, or block any site or content they want to. Many people cannot simply switch away. They have only one ISP to choose from. You can switch away from Facebook whenever you wish.
- adventured 9y ago
  Next logical question: net neutrality has existed for a very short amount of time. The Internet & Web did extremely well before net neutrality, with few instances of abusive carrier restriction over the prior decades. What is the very strong supporting evidence to demonstrate your scenario is the likely outcome? If you want to regulate something so important on the premise you're suggesting, you need to present equally significant proof of harm.
  - gt_ 9y ago
    The very strong inevitability of industries, relationships and societies to develop, change and adapt over time, and in such a way that lessons learned in the past inform strategies used in the future. Those prior decades were the infancy of the internet. When children go 16 years without wrecking a car, it doesn’t mean they are perfect drivers.
  - memeCrasher 9y ago
    As far as I'm aware, net neutrality was assumed to apply up until a court ruling that went in Verizon's favor. So it's not a case of "It only came into law 3 years ago!" but rather "We put it back into law after being considered law for 30 years because of a court case that demanded clarification".
  - Goronmon 9y ago
    What is the very strong supporting evidence to demonstrate your scenario is the likely outcome? https://www.cnet.com/news/fcc-formally-rules-comcasts-throttling-of-bittorrent-was-illegal/ https://www.cnet.com/news/fcc-formally-rules-comcasts-thrott... That's effectively what lead to the situation we are in now. FCC said it's illegal, appeal ruled FCC doesn't have the authority to regulate at the time, FCC makes attempts at making "net neutrality" a thing they can control, and now we are on the verge of having them roll it back. Basically, ISPs starting pushing the boundaries and a war directly against the concept of net neutrality and that fight is the one we are currently talking about right now, this is just the latest battle.
memeCrasher 9y ago
What makes you think you're taking sides between two industries? The way I see it, and probably why Google et al don't seem to be throwing up a recent fuss anymore, is that the big tech companies and industry giants can cut deals with the major ISP's to avoid throttling or provide services/expertise to the ISP's. So the end result is turning Google et al into their OWN monopolies. (e.g. Comcast partners with Youtube to deliver streaming video!) Now you get telecom monopolies AND service/content monopolies. Truly the best of both worlds.

tabeth 9y ago

One could argue that without net neutrality, internet providers could provide substantially cheaper internet services -- e.g. just Facebook for $1 a month. However that breaks down once you consider the fact that it's not practical at all. Not to mention that providers would have no reason to offer such cheap offerings, either.

adventured 9y ago
> Not to mention that providers would have no reason to offer such cheap offerings, either. Sure they might. Large companies with deep pockets subsidize the premise to their own benefit (whatever that happens to be). In your example, let's say instead it's $3 per month for just Facebook services (FB, Instagram, WhatsApp, etc). Comcast partners with Facebook on the effort, in which Facebook pays a few dollars per month to subsidize the user plan. Facebook currently derives something close to $9 per month from US & Canadian members. They hit 45.6% net income margins last quarter, which is extraordinary. They're set to become the greatest pound for pound profit machine in world history, they can afford to use some of that margin to further lock in their monopoly by purchasing preferential access treatment in numerous ways.
- nnneuter 9y ago
  A subsidized Internet connection is just wishful thinking. Online services (Google, Facebook, ...) make just a few bucks per user. This is peanuts compared to what broadband costs. The fixed costs alone are tens of dollars per month.
gt_ 9y ago
Is anyone arguing that? Links?
- trendia 9y ago
  Facebook tried such a system in India [0]. "Called Free Basics, it provided only limited access to the Internet through a suite of websites and services that, unsurprisingly, included Facebook" https://www.cnet.com/news/why-india-doesnt-want-free-basics/ https://www.cnet.com/news/why-india-doesnt-want-free-basics/

KaoruAoiShiho 9y ago

I'm against net neutrality. It's essentially a wealth transfer from the infrastructure industry to the ad industry. It's pretty dumb imo.

TimTheTinker 9y ago
What makes you think ending net neutrality would negatively affect the ad industry? They'll keep right on making their money, only they'll have one more venue -- ISPs injecting ads into other people's (non-HTTPS) pages. ISPs are a natural monopoly and therefore must be carefully and thoroughly regulated, just like any other utility. Their job ought to be to provide a regulated standard of service at a regulated price, no more & no less -- just like your water and electric utilities.
foota 9y ago
How?
tonyztan 9y ago
ISPs are free to compete with Google, Facebook, etc by offering competitive web services. Instead, ISPs want to leverage their almost-exclusive control of Internet access to unfairly crush competition. Users can choose not the use Facebook. Many users cannot choose not to use Comcast, because Comcast is the only ISP in the area. Lack of competition among ISPs make them different from web companies.
- KaoruAoiShiho 9y ago
  > ISPs are free to compete with Google, Facebook, etc by offering competitive web services. By definition you're devaluing the infrastructure. This is saying, infrastructure does not deserve to make money, only ads deserve to make money. I'd rather ISPs not compete in web services and instead make money providing the pipes as it's an important job in its own right. Your logic leads to bad incentives for ISPs, leading to long-term degradation in a important industry. Letting ISPs make more money will introduce more incentives to compete with them too. Why did Google Fiber fail? At least partially because there's no incentive for Google to fully invest in a 10% profit margin service while it's ad business has 60% profit margin. End net neutrality, let ISPs charge internet companies fees, and we'll suddenly have ton more money in the industry, competition in the market and we'll see an end this era of shitty internet.

martin1975 9y ago

Well, Ajit Pai says it stifles investments. Apparently investments fell by 5% or so over a period of time since the Title II classification. While I love NN, I also hate no viable competition to cable/ISP monopolies. I don't think NN would be an issue if everyone had at least 3 viable choices of broadband providers. That's the right (tm) way to address it, or should I say market-based, by fostering competition via policy.

xbmcuser 9y ago
I think the free market proponents are harming US infrastructure and in the future competitiveness. Like roads and bridges etc are built with taxes. The internet infrastructure needs to be built or at least controled by the government federal, state or city. I like what Singapore did got bids and fixed prices for fiber deployment. Now all the isp's have to compete for providing services and the fiber deployer is paid the same by all of them. That is probably the best and cheapest way to build infrastructure. Currently in the US you have 2-3 companies doing their own fiber deployment in the same areas at 2-3 times the cost.
- bduerst 9y ago
  Precisely. Communications infrastructure is a natural monopoly that should be regulated like roads, electricity, water, sewer, etc. The fact that it was privatized early on the U.S. means we've open pandora's box of lobbying, so it would be difficult to close it again. The federal government could foreseeably take back some of that infrastructure by building it itself. The last mile is the most expensive part, so why not build a fiber backbone to every public school, and then let the municipal government's decide if/when/how they cover the last mile implementation?
tonyztan 9y ago
Lack of competition is because: 1) ISPs agree not to compete; and 2) It is expensive for new entrants to build infrastructure. It would be ideal to solve NN with free market. But the ISPs have monopolies that prevent competition. Making net neutrality necessary today.

rtx 9y ago

Yes, because it looks like government overreach and against natural justice. I think US government should buy the wires from these companies and allow anyone to use them as ISP. Then there is a second lot who use peering agreements and CDNs.

thomastjeffery 9y ago

There really isn't a sound argument against net neutrality. Many do argue that the FCC shouldn't have the authority to regulate the internet, and often argue that idea to subtly change the subject. If someone argues to abolish something, they should either argue in favor of a replacement, or argue that that thing should not exist at all. Unfortunately, I haven't heard even a flawed version of either argument. Another faux argument I hear is the classic, "I am libertarian, and therefore must be against regulation of any form, and you can't change my mind." Obviously, that isn't an argument at all, and abusing libertarian ideology to look like an argument like that is seriously disappointing to any serious thoughtful libertarian, such as myself. This problem isn't specific to libertarianism either, but it is very popular in that community. The core tenet to every position (not argument) I have heard against net neutrality is simply a position against regulation. The problem is that in the United States, we need to regulate ISPs, for several reasons: 1. There isn't enough competition: There are 6 ISPs in the US that control the majority of the market, and the majority of Americans are left with only one choice for >20mbit internet. 2. Net Neutrality is necessary to cultivate a free market of businesses that use the internet. Without net neutrality, the already centralized market of ISPs would cultivate centralized markets for each type of business that uses the internet. TL;DR It is totally reasonable to be wary of regulation, or of the implementation of regulation. It may even be reasonable to consider net neutrality to be worthless or unnecessary in a truly free market, that has real competition between ISPs, but that isn't today's reality, so we would need to tackle that problem first.

rtx 9y ago
If we want something for the public good, it should be publically funded.
- cmurf 9y ago
  It pretty much was: ARPANET. And the instigator for all computers was the need to more quickly compute nuclear warhead trajectories, in real time, to make it possible, as well as efficient, to murder as many fellow humans as possible while also defending against the same by an opponent. But yeah it might be nice to make it just work well, without any respect for and to whom or what. All that matter is how. It should work well, how do we do that? Some cities are deciding to build their own infra. Good. Now if only they'd explicitly adopt their surrounding rural areas and include them in the program. Because this same FCC is dropping the subsidies for rural internet and telephone.

ben940830298432 9y ago

We have had the internet for a long time without net neutrality why do we all of sudden need it?

sandmansandine 9y ago
This is horrible argument. We had cars before seat belt laws why do we all of sudden need it? We had cars before airbags why do we all of sudden need it? We've has guns before gun control so why do we all of sudden need it? Edit: People have been giving birth for a long time without doctors so why do we all of sudden need it?
- shard972 9y ago
  These are horrible counter arguments. The only two that even remotely relevant are seatbelt laws and gun laws, the other two are not even laws. For seat belt laws, there was evidence that such laws increased pedestrian injury rates and severity. Whos to say that outweighs the benefits of forcing a few people to wear seat belts that are already in their cars? For gun control, to say this in american context is weird. The US barely has gun control so to say it like its absolutely needed is odd.
  - Larrikin 9y ago
    I assume the gun control law comment was a facetious point since America does not have it in any meaningful way and the US ranks consistently in the top for gun deaths.
- ben940830298432 9y ago
  Well look at the other things you think the government needs their hands in, health and education and both have been slower to change and more expensive since. So the best way to get less access to the internet is by adding a bunch of government regulation. Great Idea! Net Neutrality will just make it even harder for new players to compete because they will have large regulations to meet. The only way to improve is to make it easier at a local level for more companies to compete.

dllu 9y ago

Some organizations such as the Wikimedia Foundation, Google, and Facebook believe that their services are more important than others. As such, they consider themselves deserving of cheaper, free, or the "fast lane" internet, especially in less developed areas without sufficient infrastructure to serve all websites. The rationale is that providing a limited set of websites for free is better than if those areas have no access to internet at all. Note: The views of the mentioned organizations do not necessarily reflect my own views. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Basics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Basics [1] https://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/08/01/wikipedia-zero-and-net-neutrality-protecting-the-internet/ https://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/08/01/wikipedia-zero-and-net...

komali2 9y ago
I want to understand this better, but I can't grasp the concept of a "fast lane" in anything but an artificial sense - how can an ISP create a "fast lane" for a website - can't they only create "slow lanes" for everything BUT "fast laned" websites?
- amake 9y ago
  Yes.
- grahamburger 9y ago
  Kind of. Say an ISP cuts a deal with Google to make all Google's traffic higher priority than other traffic. When customers are using less than the network's full capacity nothing changes - all traffic goes through at full line speed. But as soon as any buffer starts to fill up on any device on the ISP network (because of network congestion) the network devices will pull Google's packets from the buffer more often than other traffic until the buffer is empty. Then it's back to line speed for everything.
- wanderingbort 9y ago
  The internet is not a single "connection" for an ISP that fans out to all the customers, unless your ISP is only able to get transport from a single peer/provider. The big ones back-haul to a major hub and then enter in to several peering agreements. Depending on what service/site you use the "best" path will be over one of those peers. However, this means that there is usually a middle-man-network in between you and the service you want and neither you, your ISP, nor the service can directly control the quality or speed of that network. If Netflix, Hulu and Google all end up with a "best" path on a single peer its going to be bad during prime time even though other services connected on other peers may operate normally. One version of a "fast lane" (like the one that Comcast and Netflix negotiated) is to remove that middle man and directly peer with the service. This is only available to large services because they need a presence in these major hubs as it usually requires a direct physical connection between edge routers. Now, no matter how congested their peers get, the "fast lane" service is working well. They have probably also agreed not to charge the actual "market" rate on that link's bandwidth as it is mutually beneficial and the ISP should pass those savings to its users by not counting the service against any data caps etc. From the outside, this looks like extortion. The reality though is that both sides pursue these kinds of deals all the time because it benefits their customers and therefore their bottom-lines. ISPs push harder for them because services, like Netflix, are incentivized to find the lowest cost transport peer which is usually not the highest quality. When that peering link is bad, customers blame the ISPs not Netflix. Netflix used to brag about how cheap and cut-rate their cost per gigabyte was. How do you think they got such a good deal? It wasn't by purchasing the best connection to their customers. It was become some sales exec at a tier 1/2 internet transport provider oversold their poor service. We should be just as upset with the overselling of transport over peers as we are about ISPs throttling but, most of the internet citizens don't understand how that works. Another note, most of the times when people use VPNs to "prove" that their ISP is throttling network capacity for a service, they are simply routing over a different peer (the one that connects to their VPN). In ideal circumstances this is traveling over a sub-optimal path and should suffer a little bit. However, in times of heavy congestion it is like being routed around a traffic jam. It is "very hard" with current routing protocols on the backbone to do this kind of "flow around" for congested paths in real-time for everyone. Single users are manually implementing it by hitting VPNs.

seibelj 9y ago

I’m against net neutrality if you are allowed to choose your ISP. Where I live (Boston) I only have Comcast. Trees even block satellite. If we allowed any ISP to lease the line from Comcast and let me choose service, it would be different. As I only have Comcast, it is a monopoly and I’m opposed. But with true competition, I could choose from a range of ISP’s, even theoretically free broadband that would be ad supported.

steanne 9y ago
that only works as long as they actually compete on neutrality rather than collude.
- cmurf 9y ago
  The evidence is they do the same thing as insurance* companies. The conglomerate/merge regionally. So they buy up all the small competitors, while excluding any meaningful competition amongs the big players. Are they colluding? Maybe not explicitly over lunch, but they know what they need to do and direct competition, as if they're commodities, would be bad for their shareholders. * health care pre-payment with no residual value plan

19guid 9y ago

I've posted this comment before in another thread: I oppose net neutrality regulation. In principle, I don't think there's anything wrong with an ISP prioritizing certain kinds of traffic over others, so long as it does not have an anti-competitive effect. For example, I don't see how Netflix paying Comcast to zero-rate Netflix traffic is fundamentally different from Amazon contracting with mail carriers to subsidize the cost of shipping for Amazon purchases, or even -- to use an example another commenter made -- an appliance manufacturer contracting with electrical utilities to subsidize the cost of electricity used by their appliances. So long as Comcast makes its zero-rating program available to all content providers -- including their own -- on reasonable and non-discriminatory terms, I don't think there are any competition issues. I've heard people argue that zero-rating makes it harder for smaller content providers to compete, since they won't have the resources to subsidize their customers' traffic. As I said in another comment, that's just the nature of business. Being big affords you certain advantages, like economies of scale. This makes it easier to compete on price. Smaller companies have to compete in other ways. In my view, the real problem with the telecom industry in the United States is a lack of competition [0], a problem caused at least in part by municipal [1] and state [2] governments. With more competition, net neutrality would be a non-issue. Consumers would just stop using ISPs that unfairly discriminate between traffic. [0] http://www.nationalreview.com/article/410353/net-neutrality-already-obsolete-michael-hendrix http://www.nationalreview.com/article/410353/net-neutrality-... [1] https://www.wired.com/2013/07/we-need-to-stop-focusing-on-just-cable-companies-and-blame-local-government-for-dismal-broadband-competition/ https://www.wired.com/2013/07/we-need-to-stop-focusing-on-ju... [2] http://broadbandnow.com/report/municipal-broadband-roadblocks-by-state/ http://broadbandnow.com/report/municipal-broadband-roadblock...

linkregister 9y ago
The reason why I and some other HN commenters (and L3 Communications) find this argument bizarre is because of the concept of transit traffic charges being applied to the last mile, which previously was not an industry practice. Comcast's customers are requesting the data; if Comcast were a second tier backbone, or an AS between two others, then it would make sense to charge for traffic, as it doesn't benefit. But the traffic going to Comcast is there to benefit its subscribers, without which, Comcast doesn't make enough money. The most bizarre thing is that if the customers were to upload the same amount of data back to the sites, then they wouldn't be charged, as the data was symmetrical! Why would an ISP be able to charge other AS's for sending traffic to its own customers? If there were even a single competitor in that region, this dynamic would change completely.

darklajid 9y ago

Actually I've just stumbled across a very(!) active HN poster that seems to be against it on a popular micro blogging platform.. The common counter argument seems to be that "Regulation is bad for the open market" and that "Better options would come up if an ISP starts doing weird shit, if the market demands it". It's interesting to me that the very same people seem to be pro Freedom of Press/Freedom of Speech (as a German, the US Freedom of Speech is something I'm not used to, something that doesn't align with my culture/upbringing), but feel different about this subject because it involves a "market"?

piokoch 9y ago
"Regulation is bad for the open market" - that's the root of the problem here. If it weren't for various "licences", "concessions", "permits" to become mobile operator or be allowed to install your cables then we will not need a discussion about net neutrality. Definitely the bar to become ISP is too high, lower it and the problem will be gone. I don't belive that people don't want to become ISP just like that - something is wrong here. On the other hand I have to say that sane regulations make sense, for instance mobile operators in Poland who own hardware infrastructure are obliged by law to sell bandwith to virtual operators when requested. That indeed lowered prices and provided better serivces including mobile internet. However, to have a full picture, I need to say that at the down of mobile telephony in Poland, initial investment and infrastructure was build by companies owned or controlled by the state, so, to some extent, infrastructure was payed from public money and later sold to 100% private entities.
- nnneuter 9y ago
  That's some wishful thinking. The real reason we have few ISPs is that building facilities require large amounts of capital, returns are low and the incumbents have already built out the profitable markets. Regulation is not the root of the problem. Sure, lessening the burden would help, but not solve the problem.
  - jasonx1e 9y ago
    But I can't see why regulation must be necessary to maintain net neutrality; of course it's a good thing, I'm just not sure the government necessarily needs to mandate it. Documented abuses of net neutrality were few and far between and there really wasn't a precedent for the 2010 Act in the first place. Mobile phone carriers are not subject to the same net neutrality rules, yet I haven't heard of any of the 4 major providers deliberately throttling internet service.

trymas 9y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality#Arguments_against https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality#Arguments_again...

zaarn 9y ago

Yes. Some people I know argue that they'd rather wait-and-see rather than just flatout deny it, quote, "Because I've been screwed other by Internet Companies and Cable Companies have been rather nice so far. I think I'd rather pay less for my Internet to only use Facebook tbqf"

Cthulhu_ 9y ago

The arguments against net neutrality often focus on crappy connections; on 3G networks and early DSL it was common to have rate limits, which made people be very careful with how much internet they used, and/or additional fees above a certain bandwidth usage - similar to utilities like electricity and water (although IDK why there was never really much pay-per-megabyte internet, usually it's a flat fee). The arguments against net neutrality are related to that; instead of limiting how much people use to keep the pipes open and fast enough so to speak, it's giving certain services preferential treatment, so that in the case of limited bandwidth those aren't disrupted. Of course, it's a silly thing; most landlines, especially in the cities, will have fiber connections at least up until a local distributor box, and in some cases to the door. This has many gigabits of capacity, which should be enough for everyone. The thing is that apparently, investments in bandwidth aren't being done enough. Google gave it a good try with their fiber service, but had to give up - probably underestimating how expensive it is, or they were blocked by the existing ISPs that didn't tolerate competition. TL;DR, I think the problem isn't available bandwidth or whatever, it's competition, or the lack thereof, and investments, or the lack thereof.

cr0sh 9y ago
> Google gave it a good try with their fiber service, but had to give up - probably underestimating how expensive it is, or they were blocked by the existing ISPs that didn't tolerate competition. Google gave up partly thanks to ALEC lobbying and laws, probably lobbied for via the incumbent regional ISPs.

m333t 9y ago

It's a made up issue. "Net neutrality" doesn't mean a free internet. It means a free internet regulated by the FCC. Almost nobody is against a free internet. A lot of people such as myself are against the FCC being in charge of regulating it. Competition and the FTC's anti-trust authority have kept the internet free for decades and will continue to do so in the future. The people pushing "net neutrality" want to transfer power to the FCC because the FCC will go beyond maintaining fair access to the internet. They'll next move into regulating content as they have done with television and radio. That's the real goal.

anthony_romeo 9y ago
You are deliberately being deceptive to fool people into agreeing with you. Net Neutrality is a mandate that ISPs cannot prioritize data from one website over another. It's a regulation to ensure that Comcast cannot effectively censor websites it doesn't like by hiding it behind a slow lane of sorts. We know that ISPs have attempted to throttle Netflix's content, which is what prompted the recent regulatory changes in 2015. What evidence do you have that net neutrality will necessarily lead to government censorship of the Internet? Why is net neutrality an essential component for the government to censor content?
- TDL 9y ago
  net neutrality isn't an essential component, the invocation of Title II is. This is what I think the comment you are replying is trying to say. I don't know what the intent of net neutrality advocates is, but the invocation of Title II puts far too much power in the hands of a historically corrupt & repressive agency. Personally I am ambivalent about net neutrality. I, however, am deeply opposed to the existence of Title II, let alone it being used to regulate the internet. If advocates want net neutrality to be the governing policy of the internet why don't they advocate for specific legislation that does only that and doesn't give the FCC the ability to become a heavy handed regulator of ISPs?
  - anthony_romeo 9y ago
    > If advocates want net neutrality to be the governing policy of the internet why don't they advocate for specific legislation that does only that and doesn't give the FCC the ability to become a heavy handed regulator of ISPs? Do you have evidence that they are not advocating for proper legislation, or are you just saying this to baselessly discredit advocates of net neutrality? If I recall correctly, the invocation of Title II was a reaction to an unfavorable supreme court case. Perhaps this is not the most ideal solution, but if one believes that net neutrality is important to protect, it appears to be the only solution in the absence of such legislation from a do-nothing Congress. Also, if you believe that the FCC is historically corrupt and regressive, why do you seem to trust the FCC to make the correct decision right now? Do you have evidence that corruption in the FCC has vanished?

paul7986 9y ago

What these comments are against net neutrality and are appearing on Hacker News? We are innovators that without neutrality us little guys/girls will suffer. Are all these comments fake/propaganda? I wouldn’t be surprised!

arca_vorago 9y ago
Cue discussion of sockpuppetry as a service (not joking, this is a real issue), given the FCC website comment drama, I wouldn't be surprised if the ISPs and the FCC have hired a "persona management" company to forum slide.
- paul7986 9y ago
  I mean look at how foreign governments are using social media to influence elections across the world. Fake news to fake comments to spread one's agenda. Edit .. see this top story now on the homepage here about the New York states attorney investigating iNternet fakery https://medium.com/@AGSchneiderman/an-open-letter-to-the-fcc-b867a763850a https://medium.com/@AGSchneiderman/an-open-letter-to-the-fcc... I still do not see why there isnt the same uproar as there was previously that stopped SOPA. What's different this time?
  - arca_vorago 9y ago
    This is out of the CIA playbook, and they are likely to be the largest users of this tactic. Stop buying into their deep state Russia villification program. The Brits are probably second, with Israel tied, and Russia and China in third place. In the IC, operations against the US match the above as well. Everyone loves to rail on Russia, but they are peanuts compared to the collusion that is AIPAC... Now you didn't say the Russians, so correct me if I am misinterpreting. My point is that operation mockingbird just changed names after the Church committee. WaPo is part of it, as are numerous others. Our own deep state (in the Peter Dale Scott sense of the term) is the most active in deception and manipulation of the American people, and it's high time they realized it. I could go further, but it delves into "conspiracy theory" territory that most people don't like to hear.

Shivetya 9y ago

it depends on what we mean about "net neutrality". Too many just assume what it means and does. considering how well we did before the agency changed the rules in 2014 I fail to see how it was all going to implode. Oh, forgot about the big money players who want to exploit it for their own purposes and thus portray anything which interferes with it as end of the world; namely google and similar service providers. throw in big money investors like Soros and the Knight group and you can see this is being played just like politics, people putting their money where the biggest return is. The biggest return is having super large companies free reign to use the net how they want regardless how it impacts smaller providers and smaller ISPs. Which side was I on? Can you tell? That is the issue. People are assuming too much. oh, since 2014 broad band deployment has dropped. odd how that works.

em3rgent0rdr 9y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality#Arguments_against https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality#Arguments_again... Also since you're curious, Pai recently gave his views: http://reason.com/blog/2017/11/21/ajit-pai-net-neutrality-podcast http://reason.com/blog/2017/11/21/ajit-pai-net-neutrality-po...

ythn 9y ago

The best argument I've heard is that Telecomms have spent X billion dollars of their own money building out infrastructure and NN makes their infrastructure public utility lines that they won't get compensated for.