4 ms·

Economics is not the only relevant domain for public policy. Just because someone is confident in their opinion doesn't mean they're knowledgable, surely you s

Economics is not the only relevant domain for public policy. Just because someone is confident in their opinion doesn't mean they're knowledgable, surely you see that regularly online. Economists are not especially self-aware or more humble than other people. Here's an ignorant comment: "Net neutrality is a fiction. Hire Akamai (et al.) to mirror your servers worldwide to speed content to your users." Using Akamai isn't going to do shit if Comcast decides your videos are hurting their cable TV business and start dropping packets, or set a data cap that counts your traffic while they zero rate their own competing product. Another one: "If all qualities sell at the same price, markets cannot allocate quality efficiently. Works for soap, wine, and haircuts; why not Internet?" ISPs do not operate in a market, consumers have little to no choice amongst providers. ISPs provide a service, not a good like soap or wine; haircuts are a service but have nothing in common with Internet access, you can cut your own hair but you can't make your own Internet.

ikeboy 9y ago
>if Comcast decides your videos are hurting their cable TV business and start dropping packets That's already illegal under existing anti trust law. Zero rating is a different issue but doesn't count as paid prioritization which is what they're asking about.
- extra88 9y ago
  > That's already illegal under existing anti trust law. Comcast and others have already done exactly that and it was the FCC that went after them, not the FTC. And how does anti-trust apply when it's the actions of a single company? There's no collusion between businesses to drop packets, one business just does it and other businesses may decide to do it also, they don't have to all agree to do it for it to be effective (from their perspective). It's true that the question posed in the survey was specifically about content providers paying ISPs for access (or better access) to us, the people ISPs think belong to them. But the article and the overall debate is about far more.
  - ikeboy 9y ago
    If a company uses a monopoly in one industry to benefit them in another industry that can be an anti trust violation. No collusion is required. The famous Microsoft anti trust case wasn't about collusion, but about using OS dominance to create browser dominance.
    - extra88 9y ago
      Thank you for the correction. Monopoly cases are extremely difficult to prove and rarely brought, regardless of which party is in power. With ISPs, if consumers can choose Verizon or Comcast, neither is a monopoly but both could still be acting against competitors (or simply people who didn't pay their extortion) to the detriment of their customers.
ikeboy 9y ago
>ISPs do not operate in a market, consumers have little to no choice amongst providers The market being discussed is between companies and ISPs, where companies can pay more for priority.
- extra88 9y ago
  I don't think that's clear from how the comment is written. I just realized the presumption embedded in the original question, "Considering both distributional effects and changes in efficiency, it is a good idea to let companies that send video or other content to consumers pay more to Internet service providers for the right to send that traffic using faster or higher quality service." It assumes companies paying ISPs to reach consumers is normal. It's not. So even the people asking the question don't understand the subject.
  - ikeboy 9y ago
    It is asking whether paid prioritization should be allowed. Companies usually pay some ISP to send them traffic, maybe not the same ISP as the last mile but "paying more" does seem appropriate wording.
    - extra88 9y ago
      > It is asking whether paid prioritization should be allowed. Yes, but they're assuming that some payment is already the norm when it is not. It's like the punchline to the apocryphal story that goes like, "Madam, we've already determined you're a whore, now we're just dickering over the price." The subject at hand has nothing to do with how much companies pay their own ISPs, of course they pay more for using more. This is about whether those companies should also have to pay my ISP if I want to access their content without that content being treated unequally by my ISP.

ikeboy 9y ago

>if Comcast decides your videos are hurting their cable TV business and start dropping packets That's already illegal under existing anti trust law. Zero rating is a different issue but doesn't count as paid prioritization which is what they're asking about.

extra88 9y ago
> That's already illegal under existing anti trust law. Comcast and others have already done exactly that and it was the FCC that went after them, not the FTC. And how does anti-trust apply when it's the actions of a single company? There's no collusion between businesses to drop packets, one business just does it and other businesses may decide to do it also, they don't have to all agree to do it for it to be effective (from their perspective). It's true that the question posed in the survey was specifically about content providers paying ISPs for access (or better access) to us, the people ISPs think belong to them. But the article and the overall debate is about far more.
- ikeboy 9y ago
  If a company uses a monopoly in one industry to benefit them in another industry that can be an anti trust violation. No collusion is required. The famous Microsoft anti trust case wasn't about collusion, but about using OS dominance to create browser dominance.
  - extra88 9y ago
    Thank you for the correction. Monopoly cases are extremely difficult to prove and rarely brought, regardless of which party is in power. With ISPs, if consumers can choose Verizon or Comcast, neither is a monopoly but both could still be acting against competitors (or simply people who didn't pay their extortion) to the detriment of their customers.

ikeboy 9y ago

>ISPs do not operate in a market, consumers have little to no choice amongst providers The market being discussed is between companies and ISPs, where companies can pay more for priority.

extra88 9y ago
I don't think that's clear from how the comment is written. I just realized the presumption embedded in the original question, "Considering both distributional effects and changes in efficiency, it is a good idea to let companies that send video or other content to consumers pay more to Internet service providers for the right to send that traffic using faster or higher quality service." It assumes companies paying ISPs to reach consumers is normal. It's not. So even the people asking the question don't understand the subject.
- ikeboy 9y ago
  It is asking whether paid prioritization should be allowed. Companies usually pay some ISP to send them traffic, maybe not the same ISP as the last mile but "paying more" does seem appropriate wording.
  - extra88 9y ago
    > It is asking whether paid prioritization should be allowed. Yes, but they're assuming that some payment is already the norm when it is not. It's like the punchline to the apocryphal story that goes like, "Madam, we've already determined you're a whore, now we're just dickering over the price." The subject at hand has nothing to do with how much companies pay their own ISPs, of course they pay more for using more. This is about whether those companies should also have to pay my ISP if I want to access their content without that content being treated unequally by my ISP.