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Lots of people are really emotionally attached to this issue, and kind of ignore this simple fact. "Net neutrality" has never been a thing and it has never prev

Lots of people are really emotionally attached to this issue, and kind of ignore this simple fact. "Net neutrality" has never been a thing and it has never prevented any of the nefarious nonsense people are imagining.

elago 9y ago
Do you think the internet is the same as it ever was? I think the internet, it's uses, and the ISPs, have all changed and that it's worth revisiting regulations applied. There are valid arguments, but the fact that we were fine without regulations previously does not mean we will continue to be as companies grow to the point where they can't be competed with anymore.
coffee9 9y ago
Much like the uproar over that ISP privacy law that was never in effect, I feel like this battle was lost 10 years ago and nobody cared until Trump did something.
moduspol 9y ago
It just makes all of this self-righteous outrage worth keeping in mind in a few years when the issue comes back up again. If the world is still spinning, perhaps we can all re-evaluate whether future doomsday predictions are worth taking seriously.
- nitrogen 9y ago
  The world always keeps spinning. Just in one future you have Star Trek, and in the other, Blade Runner. Once dystopia becomes fait accompli, the beneficiaries of the status quo also benefit from the difficulty of arguing for counterfactual histories without access to a world with those histories. But that doesn't mean nothing was lost, or that some huge chunk of human potential wasn't sacrificed. In that regard, for the people who see how things could have been, the predictions of doom were accurate.
  - moduspol 9y ago
    Well no--proponents are making very falsifiable claims about what will happen without Net Neutrality. Freedom of speech on the net is at stake! Tiered Internet access! Slower speeds for small business web sites. Those will be easily verifiable. For the rest, you're right. It's just like how we can't calculate the "huge chunk of human potential" we missed out on as a result of decreased competition and investment since the regulation was created in 2015. All we can do is guess. Who knows--maybe we would have had the Enterprise! Do you have any other colorful ways of "crying wolf?"
    - gfodor 9y ago
      Friendly reminder: it was just a couple of weeks ago when 3-4 lawyers could go to congress and talk with serious faces about what they should do to control speech posted on the internet without being laughed out of the room due to the absurdity of the proposition. We're already one foot in the dystopia, I'm afraid. Decentralization of these services can't come fast enough.

elago 9y ago

Do you think the internet is the same as it ever was? I think the internet, it's uses, and the ISPs, have all changed and that it's worth revisiting regulations applied. There are valid arguments, but the fact that we were fine without regulations previously does not mean we will continue to be as companies grow to the point where they can't be competed with anymore.

coffee9 9y ago

Much like the uproar over that ISP privacy law that was never in effect, I feel like this battle was lost 10 years ago and nobody cared until Trump did something.

moduspol 9y ago

It just makes all of this self-righteous outrage worth keeping in mind in a few years when the issue comes back up again. If the world is still spinning, perhaps we can all re-evaluate whether future doomsday predictions are worth taking seriously.

nitrogen 9y ago
The world always keeps spinning. Just in one future you have Star Trek, and in the other, Blade Runner. Once dystopia becomes fait accompli, the beneficiaries of the status quo also benefit from the difficulty of arguing for counterfactual histories without access to a world with those histories. But that doesn't mean nothing was lost, or that some huge chunk of human potential wasn't sacrificed. In that regard, for the people who see how things could have been, the predictions of doom were accurate.
- moduspol 9y ago
  Well no--proponents are making very falsifiable claims about what will happen without Net Neutrality. Freedom of speech on the net is at stake! Tiered Internet access! Slower speeds for small business web sites. Those will be easily verifiable. For the rest, you're right. It's just like how we can't calculate the "huge chunk of human potential" we missed out on as a result of decreased competition and investment since the regulation was created in 2015. All we can do is guess. Who knows--maybe we would have had the Enterprise! Do you have any other colorful ways of "crying wolf?"
  - gfodor 9y ago
    Friendly reminder: it was just a couple of weeks ago when 3-4 lawyers could go to congress and talk with serious faces about what they should do to control speech posted on the internet without being laughed out of the room due to the absurdity of the proposition. We're already one foot in the dystopia, I'm afraid. Decentralization of these services can't come fast enough.