14 ms·

Ajit Pai is right

• adamnemecek 9y ago
  > There is no evidence of systemic abuse by ISPs governed under Title I, which means there are not immediate benefits to regulation, only theoretical ones False. They've tried in the past I believe. There was something with AT&T and iPhone users around 2010 (IIRC it was about Facetime)? There were more. Also the thing about Portugal and Euros. Yeah that graphic has been circulating for a while now, it predates this discussion. It's an illustrative graphic, not like a screen shot. Kinda like when you post a MFW picture but it's not actually your face when. Also, as a side note, what's stratechery.com? I've seen it posted a lot. I read the wiki, but idk why I should care about this guy's opinion.
  • dd36 9y ago
    If it’s no longer illegal, would it even be called abuse? Verizon sued to destroy the prior weak regulatory scheme. That’s why Title II was the remedy. Edit: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verizon_Communications_Inc._v._FCC_(2014) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verizon_Communications_Inc._...
  • dijit 9y ago
    Others include netflix which is why netflix started fast.com as a way of measuring speed to netflix. By making fast.com faster the ISPs would be making netflix faster which was what they were avoiding. Smart move by netflix. https://fast.com/ https://fast.com/
  • libeclipse 9y ago
    Yeah, and there was the thing where Comcast slowed down Netflix until they bent over and signed a deal with them. In the UK, Virgin Media have a deal with Twitter and don't charge for internet traffic to Twitter. Three do the same with Netflix and a bunch of others. Net neutrality is already breaking.
  • friggingee 9y ago
    Absolutely right. There is a reddit thread which links to a fairly large list of incidents from before and during the Title II regulations which clearly shows attempts and successful implementation of "fast lanes".
  • s73ver_ 9y ago
    There has been plenty of documented abuse. It's a big reason why there was a push for Title II in the first place. And, besides that, why would that matter? If there's no abuse, then the regulation should not be causing any burden. If ISPs don't want to do things like paid prioritization, and other uncompetitive things, then why are they pushing to remove the regulation?
    • doke01 9y ago
      So true. Title II was pushed for to resolve known issues and concerns. It didn't occur in a vacuum by people that were out to just have a little fun.
  • cbsmith 9y ago
    The article discusses this stuff. That said: guess what? The wireless carrier world currently has exemptions from net neutrality. It's the wired world where these rules apply.
    • adamnemecek 9y ago
      What's your point?
    • ska 9y ago
      Are you suggesting that the desired effect is that the wired world becomes more like the wireless? I suppose it depends on your geographic location, but I suspect many North Americans would say: no thanks.
      • mr_spothawk 9y ago
        > Are you suggesting that the desired effect is that the wired world becomes more like the wireless? not at all... parent is merely pointing out that NetNeut doesn't apply to wireless.
        • apple4ever 9y ago
          And in fact Title II also provides a huge out for wired providers to ignore NN. NN supporters really should read up on Title II, because they would be opposed to it.
    • api 9y ago
      Yes, and we want to do everything we can to keep the wired world from being as shitty as the wireless world.
  • RexM 9y ago
    I found this list https://www.freepress.net/blog/2017/04/25/net-neutrality-violations-brief-history https://www.freepress.net/blog/2017/04/25/net-neutrality-vio... MADISON RIVER: In 2005, North Carolina ISP Madison River Communications blocked the voice-over-internet protocol (VOIP) service Vonage. Vonage filed a complaint with the FCC after receiving a slew of customer complaints. The FCC stepped in to sanction Madison River and prevent further blocking, but it lacks the authority to stop this kind of abuse today. COMCAST: In 2005, the nation’s largest ISP, Comcast, began secretly blocking peer-to-peer technologies that its customers were using over its network. Users of services like BitTorrent and Gnutella were unable to connect to these services. 2007 investigations from the Associated Press, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and others confirmed that Comcast was indeed blocking or slowing file-sharing applications without disclosing this fact to its customers. TELUS: In 2005, Canada's second-largest telecommunications company, Telus, began blocking access to a server that hosted a website supporting a labor strike against the company. Researchers at Harvard and the University of Toronto found that this action resulted in Telus blocking an additional 766 unrelated sites. AT&T: From 2007–2009, AT&T forced Apple to block Skype and other competing VOIP phone services on the iPhone. The wireless provider wanted to prevent iPhone users from using any application that would allow them to make calls on such "over-the-top" voice services. The Google Voice app received similar treatment from carriers like AT&T when it came on the scene in 2009. WINDSTREAM: In 2010, Windstream Communications, a DSL provider with more than 1 million customers at the time, copped to hijacking user-search queries made using the Google toolbar within Firefox. Users who believed they had set the browser to the search engine of their choice were redirected to Windstream's own search portal and results. MetroPCS: In 2011, MetroPCS, at the time one of the top-five U.S. wireless carriers, announced plans to block streaming video over its 4G network from all sources except YouTube. MetroPCS then threw its weight behind Verizon's court challenge against the FCC's 2010 open internet ruling, hoping that rejection of the agency's authority would allow the company to continue its anti-consumer practices. PAXFIRE: In 2011, the Electronic Frontier Foundation found that several small ISPs were redirecting search queries via the vendor Paxfire. The ISPs identified in the initial Electronic Frontier Foundation report included Cavalier, Cogent, Frontier, Fuse, DirecPC, RCN and Wide Open West. Paxfire would intercept a person's search request at Bing and Yahoo and redirect it to another page. By skipping over the search service's results, the participating ISPs would collect referral fees for delivering users to select websites. AT&T, SPRINT and VERIZON: From 2011–2013, AT&T, Sprint and Verizon blocked Google Wallet, a mobile-payment system that competed with a similar service called Isis, which all three companies had a stake in developing. EUROPE: A 2012 report from the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications found that violations of Net Neutrality affected at least one in five users in Europe. The report found that blocked or slowed connections to services like VOIP, peer-to-peer technologies, gaming applications and email were commonplace. VERIZON: In 2012, the FCC caught Verizon Wireless blocking people from using tethering applications on their phones. Verizon had asked Google to remove 11 free tethering applications from the Android marketplace. These applications allowed users to circumvent Verizon's $20 tethering fee and turn their smartphones into Wi-Fi hot spots. By blocking those applications, Verizon violated a Net Neutrality pledge it made to the FCC as a condition of the 2008 airwaves auction. AT&T: In 2012, AT&T announced that it would disable the FaceTime video-calling app on its customers' iPhones unless they subscribed to a more expensive text-and-voice plan. AT&T had one goal in mind: separating customers from more of their money by blocking alternatives to AT&T’s own products. VERIZON: During oral arguments in Verizon v. FCC in 2013, judges asked whether the phone giant would favor some preferred services, content or sites over others if the court overruled the agency's existing open internet rules. Verizon counsel Helgi Walker had this to say: "I'm authorized to state from my client today that but for these rules we would be exploring those types of arrangements." Walker's admission might have gone unnoticed had she not repeated it on at least five separate occasions during arguments.
  • JCummings01 9y ago
    Redditor Lists All The Times ISP's Have Illegally Broken Net Neutrality Laws https://www.reddit.com/r/bestof/comments/7elqw7/redditor_lists_all_the_times_ipss_have_illegally/ https://www.reddit.com/r/bestof/comments/7elqw7/redditor_lis... Edit: added title
• giacaglia 9y ago
  Is this right given that ISPs have local monopolies?
  • zwerdlds 9y ago
    Yeah, the whole comparison to T-Mobile is baseless.
  • kin 9y ago
    Seriously, couple that with the fact that ISPs are now trying to own content as well.
• UseStrict 9y ago
  Sure, except just about every example of companies doing the right thing had the flame of regulatory action and fines burning underneath them. If there was no risk of severe financial backlash, they'd keep pushing harder. Not to mention the huge swaths of the US where there is either effectively or actually only one carrier. These companies don't act nationally - they will target their efforts to desperate areas where their customers will have no choice but to accept their terms. What incentive would they have to "innovate" or "improve service?" None.
• zbruhnke 9y ago
  This person misses the entire point of the argument for Net Neutrality - Yes it can be convenient if you know ALL of the apps and or services you'd like to use, however the entire internet being visible means putting small companies you have not yet heard of on nearly equal footing - giving them the chance to compete against the giants of commerce and sometimes (yes, sometimes it happens) WIN! The beauty of the internet has been the ability for new things to pop up and create a real impact on the world economy starting with just a website. If the rules Ajit Pai wants in place were to be in place when Amazon got started its likely Wal-Mart could have paid to simply make them disappear for most internet providers by "buying" the right to e-commerce traffic. That's not a world I want to live in - and its not one you should want to live in either if you believe in dreaming and creating something larger than yourself
  • thehardsphere 9y ago
    Did I miss some new proposal that Ajit Pai has put forward? It is my understanding that "The rules Ajit Pai wants in place" were in place from sometime during the ninties or earlier, until 2015. That is, Ajit Pai merely wishes to undo a rule that was only in force from 2015 to the present. Am I mistaken? Because I think the world you say you don't want to live in is the one we actually did live in for most of the history of the Internet, unless I'm missing something.
    • burkaman 9y ago
      You're right that the rules have only been in place since 2015, but you're wrong that we live the the same world we always have. The world has changed, and the rules should change along with it.
      • doke01 9y ago
        Once you have clarified 'regulations', the parties involved will take advantage of them. This change is a clarification the other way that would explicitly allow activities that in the past were not encouraged.
      • 9y ago
• mrgreenfur 9y ago
  His restaurant examples of the burden of regulations aren't exactly swaying me here. Where are the examples of the burden the ISPs have had these last few years? It seems like knee-jerk anti-regulation without any concern for the specifics of the industry. In fact, these regulations should make it so burdensome to start new ISPs, but instead they have entirely separate legislation to prevent them.
• orf 9y ago
  "We promise we won't systematically abuse this, we double promise with a cherry on top. But we need to be able to, for reasons. But we won't. Swear down. But the option is nice, you know?"
  • eksu 9y ago
    I can’t tell if you’re talking about the FCC promising Forbearance with Title II classification, or if you’re talking about ISPs.
    • metalliqaz 9y ago
      He's talking about the ISPs.
  • stinky613 9y ago
    Mr Fox promises he'll behave in the hen house
• lordCarbonFiber 9y ago
  An article completly broken by it's fundamental assumption; a NN internet is some how more expensive than a non NN one. What impossible regulatory burden is the FCC really applying to the poor ISPs? The reason NN has been the default for all these decades is it's more work to manually inspect packets to provide these artificial tiers of service and the ISP gravy train is way too good as it is to risk exposing their monopolies to consumer outrage. The internet is a utility as much as electricity, and yet you don't see the power companies saying it's important for ~competition~ to charge variable rates for your power delivery (though, recent advances means this is possible so, once NN is killed expect Grid Neutrality to be next). Sacrifice the internet for profit for all I care, just don't fucking try to say it's a good thing for consumers.
• tcd 9y ago
  You post this when india just got the toughest laws on Net Neutrality in the world [1]. This guy is clearly fishing for clicks (outrageous headline!) and wants to invite the trolls to comment pages. He's not right, he never has been, and never will be. And the idiots that upvoted this are also idiots. [1]: https://redd.it/7g3aaq https://redd.it/7g3aaq
• just_steve_h 9y ago
  His restaurant example actually undercuts his argument: despite the "burdensome" licensing and safety requirements imposed by San Francisco, the city is flooded with restaurants.
  • deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
• j2kun 9y ago
  > It is worth noting, by the way, that BitTorrent users were free-loaders, using massively more bandwidth than the vast majority of Comcast’s customers. I don't think that's how a service agreement works. If I'm paying for a certain bandwidth and latency, I should get that (to within reasonably improbable outages) if I use it 100% of the time or 1% of the time. If the ISP can't keep up, they should be penalized for it or change the labels on the thing they're selling. You don't see a cloud storage provider saying "you get 100 Gb of storage, but only if you don't use 99 Gb of it."
  • cbsmith 9y ago
    There's also the reality that the problem is peak bandwidth, not total bytes moved. It turns out... BitTorrent users use less bandwidth during peak and bandwidth caps discourage people from pulling down data they might not use in advance and instead grabbing it just in time during peak bandwidth periods.
    • cannonedhamster 9y ago
      There's also the reality that there's miles and miles of taxpayer funded black fiber that they choose not to light up so that they can claim a bandwidth shortage.
      • majos 9y ago
        Can you expand on this?
        • cannonedhamster 9y ago
          It's part of this whole thing which is a rabbit hole unto itself: https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6c5e97/eli5_how_were_isps_able_to_pocket_the_200_billion/ https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6c5e97/e... tldr version: There were very large subsidies paid to expand broadband as well as the Universal Service Fund. The companies actually built out broadband lines to a lot of areas with minimal coverage and then didn't build the last mile because it was expensive and provided "separate but equal" services such as WiMax, UVerse, or other less equitable services.
• gormo2 9y ago
  Ajit Pai did nothing wrong and shouldn't be attacked with as much personal vitriol as we're seeing.
  • cbsmith 9y ago
    The personal vitriol is just stupid. However, when you make policy, you totally deserve to have your policy moves criticized.
  • s73ver_ 9y ago
    Yes, he did. He rigged the comment period for this, and then basically said that public sentiment, which is overwhelmingly in favor of NN, doesn't matter, because he's going to do what the ISPs tell him to do. He then goes on to insult the intelligence of every single American out there with his "defenses" that do not make any logical sense, and do not actually address the problem. He is an example of the worst kind of regulator, and he deserves to be publicly shamed from now until eternity.
  • dd36 9y ago
    He’s on the verge of turning the internet into cable TV. That necessitates significant attack. And he seems to be doing so for personal gain. His supposed justifications are demonstrably false.
  • deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  • Chardok 9y ago
    Well what else are they going to do? Send comments to the FCC? How did that work for them? Ajit is absolutely ignoring the majority message and there is absolutely nothing your average citizen can do about it. They can't vote on it, and the 3/5 Republicans have already made up their mind a long time ago. Just to be clear, I think the personal attacks are wrong and uncivilized, but I understand that when there is no civilized outlet for people, they are going to act out.
• princetontiger 9y ago
  Isn't the final evolution of the Web supposed to resemble this? Looks normal to me. This happened to radio and television. As long as Amazon/Target/Walmart fulfill my shopping needs, and as long as YouTUbe fulfills my video needs, I'm happy. I don't need to worry about other, lesser services. Frankly, white listing websites might make the Web much safer.
• burkaman 9y ago
  The only argument here is "it might not be necessary, so it's not worth the costs." Can anyone think of any actual costs? Unfortunately there is no substance in the "THE COST OF REGULATION" section.
  • emiliobumachar 9y ago
    New ISPs will have to, from day one and on top of all other laws and regulations they need to follow, comply, and be able to demonstrate compliance, with net neutrality. People with more of a network background will please chip in whether this is easy? Also, more speculatory: Free-you're-the-product services are dominant in large swaths of the internet. Free-and-you-don't-pay-for-the-bits-you're-still-the-product could be up-and-coming, but Net Neutrality regulation would kill it off as obviously evil. Who knows, it could be an essential stepping stone towards people being paid for all the data they feed tech companies. Maybe Net Neutrality will lock in free-you're-the-product indefinitely.
    • timthelion 9y ago
      Obviously complying with net neutrality, unless the law is stupidly written, is trivial. Compliance simply means blindly passing on tcp/ip packets without looking at to whom and where they are going. The only way to fail to comply is if you actively stop a packet and say "hey there, pay a toll to go through". There is negative cost to compliance, failure to comply requires an extra layer of technology.
• croon 9y ago
  > Equally difficult to measure is the inevitable rent-seeking that accompanies regulation, as incumbents find it easier to lobby regulators to foreclose competition instead of winning customers in an open market. Yeah, really strong move by Pai, going against all ISPs wishes to keep Net Neutrality. This story does not compute in its own logic.
• kodablah 9y ago
  Arg. I feel like articles like this are calling me stupid with some statements. Like this doozy: "T-Mobile treats all data the same, some data just doesn’t cost money" I guess I'm too stupid to understand what "same" means. Or: "Zero-rating [...] Customers loved it" That's not enough. The argument is about small providers conforming to T-Mobile. What customers think is irrelevant I'm afraid. Then the author goes on to explain how it lowered prices. It's like arguing the FDA shouldn't regulate food at all, customers love unhealthy food, and the prices are lower on unhealthy food, so everything's perfect right? I will say I somewhat agree on the earlier part of the article. I don't generally prefer premature regulations. But instead of asking "why do we need these when ISPs are mostly self-regulating?" since that cat is out of the bag we should be asking "why do we need to repeal these if they aren't harming the situation?" Of course the latter question won't be answered truthfully. The real answer, "so we can violate net neutrality" (or the "spirit of" or whatever). It's strange to see someone argue against being prematurely reactionary whilst arguing for being reactionary in the other direction for something already on the books. Want a different approach w/ the FTC or congress or something? Then do that first, and then repeal the rules. Otherwise, leave well enough alone unless, as I suspect, the true motive is that the rules are preventing things ISPs want to do.
  • zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 9y ago
    > "Zero-rating [...] Customers loved it" Which is also disingeneous because it's obviously a rhetorical trick to get uninformed customers to form an opinion. If customers correctly compared the zero-rating offer with a hypothetical package at the same price with ten times the traffic included, but not limited to a bunch of selected services, I very much doubt that many people would still prefer the zero rating. The suggestion that the ISP is giving you traffic for free is simply a lie to get people on their side.
  • dgreensp 9y ago
    Exactly. This is like listening to Trump talk about Obamacare. Oh, he agrees with the principles — more than the next guy! — but we’ve taken a massive step in the wrong direction and need to repeal it. I lost track of all the slimy rhetorical techniques in this article. FUD about the “cost of regulations” by talking about restaurants in SF. Saying that T-Mobile’s rise was good for competition, so I guess zero-rating is a good thing after all (without arguing that it was specifically zero-rating that led to T-Mobile’s rise). Saying the “only future we have to fear” is one where these regulations stay... really?? Just because he has a hand-wavy argument they might be bad, or at least unnecessary? Oh, let’s not forget, the argument that regulations as written don’t eliminate all possible ways to violate the spirit of the law, so they don’t do any good at all. Law can be updated. If there was a legal loophole that let people murder each other, would we say the laws against murder are pointless? Zero-rating is not aligned with net neutrality, even if it’s currently allowed by a loophole, and if it benefits some customer or some company in some way. Hemming and hawing about it is just kicking up smoke. The author wants to drive a wedge between the positions of “net neutrality” and “ISPs are telecommunication carriers,” and I don’t see it. Or he wants them to be neutral carriers but not have it be legally enforced. Or first repeal the current enforcement, and then talk about enforcing it some other way. Slimy, slimy, slimy.
• rubyn00bie 9y ago
  Ajit Pai is wrong and so is the author. He’s confusing safety and soundness regulation with economic regulation, and incorrectly asserting they’re equal. They are not. Net neutrality is about the safety and soundness of the internet. What he’s saying is “hey it has been okay so regulation is bad until we have to have it. Because all regulation is bad.” That’s a pretty fucked and ignorant way of looking at regulation in my opinion. It’s quite sad to see this getting upvotes.
  • sctb 9y ago
    > It’s quite sad to see this getting upvotes. Upvotes don't necessarily mean agreement, it means that the community is interested in discussing the contents of the article. And including jabs like this does nothing but worsen that discussion.
    • kodablah 9y ago
      I'm afraid the "flag" feature has been abused to mean disagreement in this case sadly. Hopefully the article becomes unflagged. EDIT: no longer flagged, yay.
      • grzm 9y ago
        Without asking the members who clicked "flag", it's hard to know why they did so. I can think of at least three other reasons why users may have flagged it besides disagreement: there have been quite a few submissions on the topic already and they've had enough of the topic for now; whether or not they agree with the topic or think it needs to be discussed, they don't think HN is a constructive place for such a discussion; they don't think the given submission has anything to add to what's already been discussed. Please note that I'm not saying that any of these are why members flagged it. I'm just suggesting it's not useful to jump to a particular conclusion without more information. In this case, I don't think it's possible to know definitively given the information at hand.
  • deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
• deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
• metalliqaz 9y ago
  Comcast and Verizon are out here shilling hard.
  • doke01 9y ago
    Yeah, this post feels like there was some planning around it and the responses to it.
  • sctb 9y ago
    > Don't accuse others of astroturfing or shillage. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
• matthew349hall 9y ago
  This article sucks.
• zaksoup 9y ago
  Re: food safety... > Ayn Rand and Ron Paul walk into a bar. The bartender serves them tainted alcohol. They die. The market reacts and the bar closes because nobody goes there anymore. Ayn Rand and Ron Paul are still dead.
  • m00g00 9y ago
    Ayn Rand and Ron Paul don't walk into a bar because a bar needs 30 permits that costs tens of thousands of dollars to apply for and months to issue. Instead they go to Applebee's because only big established players can put up with all that crap. The food sucks, they go home unhappy. The next day a local pub is shut down and replaced by another Applebee's and two Subways. Hooray for endless regulations.
  • mullen 9y ago
    Actually, it is really: > Ayn Rand and Ron Paul walk into a bar. The bartender serves them tainted alcohol. They die. The bar stays open because it pays Yelp to remove critical reviews, buys off the local newspaper, pays the local ISP to block websites criticizing the bar and runs a drink specials that people just can't pass up. Ayn Rand and Ron Paul are still dead.
  • nickpp 9y ago
    The bar has some stairs where you could fall and break your neck. Do you need a government regulation outlawing stairs in bars? Bar furniture could break and impale you. Should the bar have a furniture-owning license where they need to learn how to maintain their chairs? And absurd made up examples can go on...
    • zaksoup 9y ago
      https://www.osha.gov/pls/oshaweb/owadisp.show_document?p_table=interpretations&p_id=24960 https://www.osha.gov/pls/oshaweb/owadisp.show_document?p_tab... Well... Also, let’s be clear that regulations about the bar for food quality you will commercially sell to others and what you do in your own home (the furniture example) is obviously a false comparison. Besides the OSHA case for handrails there is, in fact, rules and regulations around the quality of, for instance, mattresses and their potential for catching fire. Ultimately my point is that there is a clear and fundamental difference between regulating what you can sell commercially and what you do in your own home. In addition there is plenty of precedent (and good reason) for regulation that you used as some sort of straw man but in fact actively reduces injury and makes businesses more accessible and available to more customers.
• uiri 9y ago
  So the author is saying "look at this thing which people say violates net neutrality but not the net neutrality regulations as written" and uses that as an argument to get rid of the net neutrality regulations altogether? Does this make sense to anyone else? Zero rating is equivalent to charging more for non-zero-rated bandwidth.
• doke01 9y ago
  "...it wasn’t a net neutrality issue at all: it was an early prototype of what is known as “zero-rating.”" Zero-rating is a net neutrality issue. It gives preference to one service over others.
• FascinatedBox 9y ago
  I really hate what seems to me a new trend of co-opting terms to muddy the waters and confuse the issues. This guy is not in support of NN. That's it. Ideally we'd have so much ISP competition that NN wouldn't need be as necessary because the first company to propose splitting up the net would be laughed out of business. But we've screwed that up, because there's hardly any ISP competition in America. NN makes sure they don't split up the net. Because we've seen before that they don't really care about the end consumer.
• whowouldathunk 9y ago
  You need electricity to power everything you do online. I don't think anyone would support being charged different rates based on what you plug into a power outlet.
  • djrogers 9y ago
    And yet here we are - https://www.pge.com/en_US/residential/rate-plans/rate-plan-options/electric-vehicle-base-plan/electric-vehicle-base-plan.page https://www.pge.com/en_US/residential/rate-plans/rate-plan-o...
    • whowouldathunk 9y ago
      Wow. And this: https://www.pge.com/en_US/residential/save-energy-money/help-paying-your-bill/longer-term-assistance/medical-condition-related/medical-baseline-allowance/medical-baseline-allowance.page https://www.pge.com/en_US/residential/save-energy-money/help... I really don't want utilities making value judgements for me.
• deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
• r3bl 9y ago
  1. QZ (nor Tim Wu) never claimed that the screenshot in their article is from Portugal. That false premise alone takes a significant amount of introduction to the article. In fact, QZ's article even explains the same thing that this article does (see my second point). 2. I completely agree with the author that the Portugal example is a bad one. That example shows zero rating, not "pay $5 to access certain websites", as most people assume once it circulates through the NN debate. Still problematic, but not as quite as those who share it make it seem. "Pay $5 to use social media" and "pay $5 to use your data plan for anything you want and have additional data specifically for social media" is not the same. 3. I disagree with the overall premise of the article (that Pai is right) and there was nothing in this article to prove me otherwise. It puts into a question the FCC decision from 2015. Okay, understood. But I fail to see what the author thinks is the appropriate action after the 2015 decision gets reverted. As such, my belief that the 2015 decision shouldn't get reverted is still going strong.
  • deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
• deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
• blntechie 9y ago
  > In other words, it wasn’t a net neutrality issue at all: it was an early prototype of what is known as “zero-rating.” I read and agree with most of what Ben writes but he is grossly wrong here. How is 'zero rating' not a net neutrality issue? He justifies it by saying 1) It is common across the world and 2) It helped mobile carrier industry to be competitive. On #1, some countries have banned 'zero rating'(e.g. India) under net neutrality laws. On #2, it was not only zero rating which helped T-Mobile and the industry to be competitive. It was primarily because of BYOD and getting rid of contracts when buying a new phone.
• ryanwaggoner 9y ago
  EDIT: deleted
  • s73ver_ 9y ago
    Yes, competition would be nice. And you won't find a single NN proponent who would be opposed to increasing competition. But you know what? That's a completely orthogonal argument. Because we do not currently live in a world with that level of competition, and repealing NN would do absolutely nothing to change that. Not an iota. The world we currently live in, is one where the vast majority of Americans have access to maybe one or two broadband providers. There is no competition. You can argue why that is, but in reality, it doesn't matter. There is not competition, and there won't be for quite some time. So if you repeal NN now, you repeal NN in that anti-competitive environment. There is nothing preventing the things that you claim won't happen, but have absolutely nothing but the "good faith" of the ISPs to go on. You want to increase competition. We all do. But please don't make the mistake of repealing NN before that happens. It will do nothing but strengthen the incumbent ISPs, making it that much harder to compete with them. Instead, work for policies like Local Loop Unbundling, or municipal broadband. Then, after we've created a competitive market, then look at NN.
• crankylinuxuser 9y ago
  Yawn. Another libertarian who believes "The Market will Regulate itself." No matter how much proof you have to the contrary, you'll still have those claiming less regulations are better. Companies exist to make money. "Social Good" they claim are facades. Because at the end of the day, if "Illegal_fine*percentage_caught < Illegal Gains", they're going to do it. And we have not much further to look than Google/Amazon/Microsoft/Apple/Facebook about that. And wouldn't ya know, those are the big players on the Internet, the least regulated thing across the world.
  • ryanwaggoner 9y ago
    EDIT: deleted
    • crankylinuxuser 9y ago
      Right now, they already do. With NN gone, you could have Facebook not just paying to zero-rate traffic, but to actively "double-rate" or "elimi-nate" traffic to competitors. Hard to get in if your traffic's killed weeks or months in. And it makes acquisition nice and cheap - "Well, nobody's using your services, I'll give you $50k".
      • cookiecaper 9y ago
        This is already how it is de-facto. Anyone who has done web promotion knows that if Google decides you shouldn't get traffic anymore, you don't get traffic anymore. Platform control is at the center of every tech company's goal because it makes them the kingmakers, and if there's a killer new feature from an up-and-coming startup, they can and will shamelessly copy it into their platform and neuter the startup in the next release. Getting "Netscaped" is just routine business in tech now.
        • crankylinuxuser 9y ago
          Yep. And its treated as a "Rights issue" with the respective companies whom do this. Of course, only the behemoths' rights are protected. "Google's not required to index your site." "Facebook isn't required to allow you to talk to people." "Microsoft doesn't have to allow your website to exist on Azure." "Amazon disagreed with your business plan as it competes with them. You're kicked off AWS." Sure, they have the "right" to maintain their business. The problem is, when they run as Kingmaker, they should be held to a higher standard of law. We already have this jurisprudence, known as Tortuous Interference. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tortious_interference https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tortious_interference . Lets start enforcing it, when they do things like "Interfere/Clone/Absorb" or "Embrace/Enhance/Extinguish". Getting "Netscaped" should qualify under Tortious Interference, and should bring swift remedies. Because when the big players provide a stable interface and set of service, without discrimination, that levels the playing field for more players to get in and do cool things. With their Axe hanging over others heads, why bother playing the game?
• lovehashbrowns 9y ago
  I don't want an ISP to push ANY apps that won't count against your data cap. How does that serve to promote competition? How is any company going to win over Facebook/Spotify/Youtube/etc. when every single ISP offers an internet plan that doesn't count data when used with those apps? That's outrageous, on top of the obvious fact that ISPs will tend to push their own services over others, or price-gouge apps to be promoted. More importantly, I don't want this to be left up to good faith between ISPs, antitrust regulation, and the media. I'd rather take away their ability to be shitty right now as opposed to waiting until Comcast/Cox/Verizon/AT&T decide they've had enough and that they need to implement slow/fast lanes and whatever crappy things they want to do. It's not like they've ever proven to be kind and trustworthiness. Please. The fact that people are still trying to spin this around in their favor is pure insanity. There's ABSOLUTELY NO chance that these companies are lobbying to get rid of net neutrality THIS HARD and be doing it for the good of anyone. Garbage companies, garbage intentions.
  • ryanwaggoner 9y ago
    EDIT: deleted
    • lovehashbrowns 9y ago
      Maybe in a vacuum it's a bad argument, but this is within the context of Comcast & Friends. Nor is it my only argument. You're also misrepresenting it with your quote. I don't mistrust them because I don't like them. I mistrust them because of things these companies have done in the past. There's absolutely no good faith in their actions, as shown previously.
      • deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
  • treis 9y ago
    How is any company going to win over Amazon with Prime free shipping and 2 hour delivery? Being a big incumbent comes with advantages in every market. Even with Net Neutrality and no zero rating, how are you going to come in and beat Netflix, Google, or Amazon with their thousands of edge servers and exclusive content?
• TomMckenny 9y ago
  > There is no evidence of systemic abuse by ISPs governed under Title I, which means there are not immediate benefits to regulation, only theoretical ones No, there are many cases including blocking peer-to-peer, hijacking search queries, blocking video streaming, blocking mobile payment, blocking tethering, numerous cases of blocking voip and even blocking a union website they disliked. https://www.freepress.net/blog/2017/04/25/net-neutrality-violations-brief-history https://www.freepress.net/blog/2017/04/25/net-neutrality-vio...
• mtgx 9y ago
  So many things wrong in that article, I don't know where to begin. I will begin with the part where he contradicts himself in the article, implying the Portugal style zero-rating is no big deal in the first half of the article, and then saying zero-rating could potentially be the biggest threat in the second half. The second stuff he's wrong about is he conflates (poor) European country prices with the U.S. prices, so from his point of view it looks like the Portuguse have sort of a "first world problem" when they complain that the next 10GB costs only 5 euro if they buy an app package. His mistake here is that he's not putting things into the local context. Many European countries have 1Gbps cable internet that costs somewhere around 15-30 euro. To Americans that looks "dirt cheap". But to the people in those countries it's just regular prices. It's not cheap for them, which is why most have stuck on the "much slower" 100 Mbps lines and such. So saying that Portuguese don't have anything to whine about because their internet is already "cheap" or whatever, is just wrong. Another thing is that today's 1GB data plan is tomorrow's 10GB data plan on mobile devices. Data usage is exploding. Without net neutrality (and strong competition), ISPs could leave everyone on the 1GB plan 5 years later, even though they now need 10GB of data for their daily needs, while overcharging them for "app packages". This way, carriers could move us from a world of "I can visit 100% of the internet on my data plan" to "I can visit only 10% of the internet on my data plan..for the other 90% I will have to buy various data packages, where the internet is split into groups of services." And again, competition IS the ultimately solution. But net neutrality is there to ensure things don't go terrible when there isn't any competition. If the US wants to get rid of net neutrality, then it should first try to foster much stronger competition at a local level. Then we can begin discussing the repeal of net neutrality, if still necessary. Also, Ben must have a short memory. Before the previous FCC started arguing for net neutrality, Comcast, AT&T, and Verizon started slowing down Netflix and Youtube. I was constantly seeing people on Reddit complaining that their 50 Mbps Comcast connections can't seem to handle the 3Mbps Netflix traffic. https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/02/netflix-performance-on-verizon-and-comcast-has-been-dropping-for-months/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/02/netfl... But seriously, do we really need to spell out why the U.S. ISPs want to get rid of net neutrality? Does Ben actually believe that the ISPs are doing this because the rules have been "oh so hard on them"? Or is it because they want to screw the consumers nine ways to heaven, and having no rules in place, just like when they repealed the privacy framework recently banning them from collecting user data, will help them do that?
• metalliqaz 9y ago
  Ajit Pai isn't right, but here's why it doesn't even matter: he's ignoring the will of the people. Under his chairmanship the FCC has (1)intentionally made it more difficult to comment on proceedings, (2) ignored the blatant and illegal automated responses that flooded the comment system without the knowledge of the people whose names were used, (3) tried to suppress participation by faking a DDOS, (4) obstructed investigations into both #2 and #3, (5) used debunked claims with debunked data to justify a rules change, and (6) come right out said that comments would be ignored because they didn't contradict the debunked data. They are lying, and the ISP-backed pundits that write articles like this are lying too. The one and only remedy to Net Neutrality is robust competition, but we waved bye-bye to that long ago. ISPs have government-granted monopolies (or duopolies), and they are vertically integrated. We need the protection of NN, it's the only thing keeping the entrepreneurial spirit alive in this country.
  • deadmetheny 9y ago
    >We need the protection of NN, it's the only thing keeping the entrepreneurial spirit alive in this country Maybe in startup land, but this is blatantly untrue. The entrepreneurial spirit is doing just fine, it's just that people are starting unsexy sustainable small businesses and not SV-style startups. Losing NN isn't going to be an existential crisis for a lot of businesses like that, although it would most likely still be painful. No disagreements on your larger points regarding the FCC and NN. It's disgusting that there's so much widespread dislike among the populace for the ISP-centric direction everything is going.
  • jack6e 9y ago
    > The one and only remedy to Net Neutrality is robust competition Are you saying NN is a bad thing that needs to be healed by competition? Because that is exactly what the article is arguing. More regulation generally burdens potential start-ups, creates barriers to market entry, and disproportionately favors large incumbents? That is even when the regulation is supposed to limit harm caused by large incumbents, such as post-Great Recession banking regulation that only had the effect of destroying nearly all small/regional banks and causing a massive consolidation into what were supposedly already "too-big-to-fail" banks - making them only much bigger. If we really believe that competition is good, then we should oppose arbitrary regulatory limitations and allow market competition to create alternatives to the theoretical harms we fear from undoing the re-classification of ISPs to Title II companies. That is only if we actually think competition provides better products and services for consumers than heavy-handed regulation.
• vxxzy 9y ago
  Really the argument is what type of service do these companies provide? It should forever be just a "dumb data pipe". Many interests are attempting to bastardize this and call the Service something else to eek out more profit. I as a consumer should simply be able to purchase "access". That is, I should be able to purchase a pre-defined pipe from my provider. I should be allowed to pass as much traffic in and out that pipe as much as possible to any destination without discrimination. If the ISP sells me a pipe @10Mbps then I should be able to fully utilize it (save for latency/jitter/loss to destinations, etc..). I am paying to pass _data_. It is akin to my power company, I am paying for electricty (say 200 Amp service). My ISP should only look at it as _data_ and nothing more. The moment they put their fingers into my _data_ they are not supplying me a service I paid for.
  • djrogers 9y ago
    That's a pipe dream - there are no services built this way, not even the electric grid you referenced. If everyone in your neighborhood fully utilized their 200A service, guess what happens? Yeah, you all lose power. ISPs are built the same way - resources are built out to provide service levels acceptable to most customers most of the time, but they can't be built so everyone gets all of their bandwidth all of the time and still be sold at consumer prices.
• NickGerleman 9y ago
  I find it alarming, and somewhat ironic, this article was removed from HN temporarily for it being repeatedly flagged. I don't fully agree with the article, but using a mechanism to prevent abuse to hide an opinion that you disagree with is akin to the forms of censorship net neutrality is meant to prevent.
  • thehardsphere 9y ago
    Welcome to the HN echo chamber.
• michaelbuckbee 9y ago
  What worries me is that this is the easy to notice stuff that is brought up (AT&T blocking Skype, etc.) what is really pernicious are things like network "optimization" where there is a huge potential for abuse. Want to influence the next election? Delay requests for a particular party's website by 10s each. Want to promote your new streaming service? Make competing ones timeout on every 10th request. Concerned about journalists writing bad articles about your company and your abusive practices? Make their site take twice as long to load. ISPs are in a position of immense power and in the US there is inadequate competition for a pure market solution/consumer choice. This is something that needs government protection.
  • cookiecaper 9y ago
    With you all the way until your last sentence, which seems to contradict the rest. When there is an immense concentration of power and concern about shady figures subtly influencing and corrupting things, the emphasis should be on diffusing that power out over a variety of diverse vessels instead of centralizing and condensing it further. Governmental apparatuses are just as, if not more, susceptible to corruption and influence than commercial ones, and I suspect the symbiotic relationship of regulatory capture and "government oversight" plays a major role in the interest in maintaining the status quo. The best answer to our telco issues is to use government influence to make sure that the power is evenly dispersed among the people. Babysitting the 5-6 major entrenched players is a stopgap at best and probably just a waste of time. Have to change the market circumstances so that the natural fluid, self-healing, and self-monitoring rhythm of the free market is in full swing.
    • michaelbuckbee 9y ago
      So, I'm in agreement, but I'm not sure how to get from here to there. I think I'd rather a stopgap solution than one that would put me in a bad spot for the next decade+ while deep infrastructure issues are addressed. What I really wish is that Internet was just another boring utility like electric or gas.
  • chasing 9y ago
    You wouldn't even have to be sneaky: Get control of Comcast (for example) and simply block everything you don't want people to see. And block places where people would complain about it. "The New York Times doesn't load for you? Too bad." A handful of companies have a chokehold on the media environment. Net neutrality helps prevent them from exploiting it. And, right, maybe most wouldn't. But one of these companies deciding it wants to be a propaganda machine would create an enormous problem for the concept of an American democracy based upon an informed public. (Something we're already having troubles with...)
• popcornarsonist 9y ago
  > Remember that ISPs bear massive fixed costs, which means they are motivated to maximize the number of end users. That means not cutting off sites and apps those customers want. Moreover, even in the worst case scenario where ISPs did decide to charge Google and Netflix and whatnot, they could price discriminate and charge the Netflix competitor nothing at all! I don't really get this argument. If the ISPs are able to get another revenue stream from content providers, such as Netflix, etc, then this doesn't really follow. There could even be a world where they care more about content providers than consumer! Also: they're not necessarily going to "cut off" these other apps, they could simply throttle them, making that app seem to work poorly. So, the consumer just stays with Netflix, who is paying the ISP.
• EGreg 9y ago
  "So to recount: one Portugal story is made up, and the other declared that a 10GB family plan with an extra 10GB for a collection of apps of your choosing for €25/month ($30/month) is a future to be feared;" So, to recount: this author doesn't understand the concept of phasing something in, and thinks that if something doesn't appear all at once then it will never appear.
• Grue3 9y ago
  Just a single look at the governments who actually do regulate their Internet will lead you to the same conclusion. You don't want your Internet to be like Portugal? Is China or Russia more of your taste? As someone who lives in Russia, I would never trust the government to regulate the Internet. It's obvious what this control will end up being used for. You should be thankful that Trump of all people doesn't want to control your Internet.
  • zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 9y ago
    So your argument is essentially that, given the way Russia enforces laws, you rather wouldn't want governments enforcing laws?
    • Grue3 9y ago
      Do you think Russia enforces its laws in any special way or what? No, there are just more laws to enforce. First make everything illegal, then put anyone you don't like behind bars. Don't give your government more tools to oppress you, is what would be my advice.
      • zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 9y ago
        > Do you think Russia enforces its laws in any special way or what? Yes, very much so. > No, there are just more laws to enforce. First make everything illegal, then put anyone you don't like behind bars. Which already is telling you that it's not the rule of law. Selective enforcement is not a thing that should exist under the rule of law, and it exists to a much lesser extent in other countries. > Don't give your government more tools to oppress you, is what would be my advice. Well, that's fine. But the solution is not to therefore have a powerless government. Because if your government is powerless, others will take over and oppress you instead. Power doesn't care whether it is exercised by what is nominally your government or any other entity that can in fact exercise power. The solution to oppression is to keep power distributed, and government absolutely can be a very helpful entity in keeping a healthy power balance. In this case, ISPs want to use the power they have due to their monopolistic position to oppress their customers and internet companies, which is a case where balancing that power of the ISPs with power from the government is a pretty good idea. Also, I think you might be confusing network neutrality regulation with network content regulation, which are two very different things, if not polar opposites. If you don't have network neutrality, that creates an environment where ISPs can in fact just implement content regulation at will, be it for their own uses, for advertisers, or also as a service they can sell to the government. Network neutrality, on the other hand, is what allows one or two branches of the government to stop anyone else from doing any of that, including the other branches of the government.
• shmerl 9y ago
  > Again, zero-rating is not explicitly a net-neutrality issue: T-Mobile treats all data the same, some data just doesn’t cost money. False. Some data is not capped, while other is. So data is not treated the same. Q.E.D. Net neutrality means - either don't cap it, or cap it all. No preferential treatment. India for instance explicitly bans zero rating as part of Net neutrality laws. > There is evidence that pre-existing regulation and antitrust law, along with media pressure, are effective at policing bad behavior There is also tons of evidence of existing anti-trust laws doing nothing to stop monopolistic abuse. Data caps you brought above is an example in itself (mostly in case of Comcast and the like). Despite complaints and bad PR, Comcast pushes data caps on users, because they are monopolists and users have little choice but to comply. Where was anti-trust law to stop that?
• abvdasker 9y ago
  This guy is not in favor of Net Neutrality. This piece is striking for it's clever dishonesty. He says he believes in NN while arguing in favor of zero-rating, which is by definition contrary to NN. Dude totally ignores the fact that during the growth phase of the internet ISPs like Comcast and Time Warner did not also own major internet content and therefore had little incentive to be anticompetitive (HBO and Hulu).
• Chardok 9y ago
  Honestly I would have no issues with this if we actually had competition. My state forbids local municipalities from forming internet companies, so I am left with a single speed from cable company or a single speed, half of the cable companies, from ATT with data caps. I can guarantee the cable company will all of a sudden charge more, for the same service, by tacking on tiered plans, while doing nothing to upgrade reliability, bandwidth, or really anything. Why would they? Where can one go, when ATT will do the exact same thing. Ajit is wrong, based on the assumption that the free market will correct this issue.
• zzzeek 9y ago
  > Then you read about how San Francisco requires 14 permits that take 9 months to issue (plus a separate alcohol permit) and you wonder why anyone opens a restaurant at all (compounded by the fact that already-permitted restaurants have a vested interest in making the process more onerous over time). Multiply that burden by all of the restaurants that never get created and the cost is very large indeed. so...either San Francisco has no restaurants at all, or this argument is complete garbage. > This argument certainly applies to net neutrality in a far more profound way: the Internet has been the single most important driver of not just economic growth but overall consumer welfare for the last two decades. Two decades where Comcast did not own Universal did not own NBC, Time Warner Cable did not own Warner, HBO, Turner, CNN, AT&T did not own them, and people watched TV on about 50 cable channels and not at all on the internet, rented DVDs/VHS from the video store and not at all on the internet. Cord cutting as a viable thing for not just movies but also TV has only begun in the last couple of years. [edit]: the conflicts of interest in modern ISPs, being that they now produce and own huge slices of the content itself that they serve, in fierce competition with just a few other giants, are orders of magnitude greater than they were even five years ago. > Given that all of that dynamism has been achieved with minimal regulatory oversight, the default position of anyone concerned about future growth should be maintaining a light touch. A hand-wavy "regulations! killing business!" argument. Regulations have a purpose and you will notice it every time you notice buildings having working fire exits and your dairy product at the supermarket not killing you. > I’ll say it again — who can be against net neutrality? Comcast, who has tried to block certain services already.
  • TurbineSeaplane 9y ago
    Great post - I normally enjoy Ben's stuff, but he's really reaching here and I'm wondering where his mind is drifting with his articles these days.
  • ryanwaggoner 9y ago
    so...either San Francisco has no restaurants at all, or this argument is complete garbage. Or maybe you only get rich people and already successful chains opening new restaurants. Maybe you don't get a lot of first-time small business owners and innovative concepts because the barriers to entry are too high.
• exabrial 9y ago
  > "And, I’d add, if neutrality and foreclosed competition are the issue net neutrality proponents say they are, then Google and Facebook are even bigger concerns than ISPs: both are super-aggregators with unprecedented power and the deepest moats ever seen in technology, and an increasing willingness to not be neutral." I've advocated this is a much larger threat
• clairity 9y ago
  this is a bit off-topic, but... ben makes a good point when he says regulations is about trade-offs, but the kind of knee-jerk "i hate regualations" sentiment in this article is a real turn off. case in point: > "A classic example of this phenomenon is restaurants: who could possibly be against food safety? Then you read about how San Francisco requires 14 permits that take 9 months to issue (plus a separate alcohol permit) and you wonder why anyone opens a restaurant at all (compounded by the fact that already-permitted restaurants have a vested interest in making the process more onerous over time). Multiply that burden by all of the restaurants that never get created and the cost is very large indeed." yes, regulatory capture sucks, but y'know, just kinda maybe, most of those restaurants that would have been created in a lax regluatory environment are exactly the ones you don't want? the kind that don't care about structural integrity or food safety or having a bathroom? he's focusing only on the costs, not the benefits, to justify his argument that regulations are bad. trade-offs have 2 sides: costs and benefits. the problem isn't the 14 permits (which represent the things we want) but the 9 months it takes the bureaucracy to issue them. that 9 months, representing pure negative cash flow, is the onerous bit. make regulatory agencies issue/deny permits within 2 business days (so maybe it takes a month to get all your permits in place) and we won't see this kind of misplaced hate for regulations.
• TurbineSeaplane 9y ago
  Well, at least it's a nice break from the incessant talk about Facebook from Ben. I think his newsletter could be renamed "facebookanalysis.com"
• bshur 9y ago
  no he's fucking not
• bo1024 9y ago
  I'm surprised this is getting so many upvotes, there are a lot of problems with the statements and arguments in the article. It almost entirely rests on a bogeyman of high "costs of regulation", with no argument or evidence that these costs under NN are actually high. NN is trivial to comply with and we've had two years under it but no evidence presented that it is burdensome. Then, many of the arguments boil down to "Net neutrality is good, but regulation is too costly so let's hope the free market enforces net neutrality on its own without regulations." This is backed up by a claim that there have not been systematic violations of net neutrality, but this does not match the facts and has been addressed multiple times in this thread. Also, the author several times incorrectly claims that zero-rating does not violate net neutrality, but actually, it is one of the primary examples of a violation. Perhaps they are confused with the fact that cellular companies like T-Mobile are not classified as common carriers? But this refutes one of the main points: For companies like T-Mobile not subject to NN rules, we do see systematic violations of NN, for example, zero-rating.
• jklowden 9y ago
  The article attempts to make logical arguments from false premises. * What makes evaluating regulations so difficult is that the benefits are usually readily apparent ... but the costs are much more difficult to quantify Why should that be so? The actual costs of implementing and conforming to a regulation are easier to measure than the benefits. The benefit of NN is harder to quantify than the cost of enforced nondiscrimination. future innovations ... are far more difficult to calculate Predictions are hard, especially about the future. If some future innovations are difficult to predict consequent to a regulation, others are hard to predict in its absence. * regulation always has a cost far greater than what we can see at the moment it is enacted Why should that be so? Because we can't know the future? If that's the case, it's equally true for benefits: we can't know the full benefit of a regulation, either, because not all the behaviors it forestalls have been invented yet. It has been estimated that many EPA regulations have benefits worth 100 times their cost. Those benefits far exceed EPA's original estimates. A regulation is a law. We hear a lot about them as "bad" because corporations have the money and time to complain about them in the press and to congress. They say the problem is costs, but when it comes to intangible goods like banking and communications, the "problem" is often the regulator's interference with the corporation's ability to exploit imperfect information. If you don't think your phone company or credit card is two steps ahead of you, read your terms of agreement sometime. Good regulations squeeze out bad actors. Worldcom did significant damage to AT&T and their customers: by publishing fraudulent financials, it pushed AT&T to make deep cuts to services that -- by honest accounting -- were profitable and competitively priced. A good contemporary example is airline pricing. Not long ago, the price you paid for you ticket was the price for getting from A to B. Then the airlines started charging for drinks, then food, and now bags. The real price can be $100 more than the published price. When searching for fares, there's no way to look for an "all in" price, so all airlines are forced into this deceptive model. Only regulation could successfully return us to a normal system where the price is the price. The Internet exists because of taxpayer-sponsored research to create standards and place them in the public domain. Anyone who used MCI Mail or Compuserv or Prodigy knows what a privatized Internet would look like. The idea that the telephone company (or cable company) should be allowed to determine, in any way, how we use their service or what we use their service for has no analog in any other industry, which is why every supporting argument is specious or disingenuous or just false.
• manderson89 9y ago
  I have a few issues with his reasoning. > "The most famous example of an ISP acting badly was a company called Madison River Communication ... Vonage quickly complained to the FCC, which quickly obtained a consent decree that included a nominal fine and guarantee from Madison River Communications that they would not block such services again." Basically his defense of the old regulatory framework in this instance is that the FCC took action. I don't have much confidence that Ajit Pai would have the FCC take action if he were faced with this same scenario. > "Another popularly cited case is Comcast’s attempted throttling of BitTorrent in 2007 ... The FCC ordered Comcast to stop in 2008" Once again his defense of the old framework is that the FCC will take action should this scenario recur. Chairman Pai doesn't exactly engender confidence in his willingness to take on ISPs. > "if the furor over net neutrality has demonstrated anything, it is that the media is ready-and-willing to raise a ruckus if ISPs even attempt to do something untoward" So the author acknowledges that what the ISPs are trying to do with net neutrality is "untoward"? Not sure why he's written this article then... But even so, what good has that furor caused? It has become clear that the ISPs are going to succeed regardless of the ruckus. So this doesn't really support the idea that the media can successfully regulate ISPs. > "it is an acknowledgment that ISPs can and will self-regulate." The author may be right that they can and HAVE self-regulated in the past. That does not mean they WILL self regulate in the future. > "ISPs bear massive fixed costs, which means they are motivated to maximize the number of end users." Not exactly. They are motivated to maximize profits. Maximizing the number of end users is certainly part of the equation, but monopolies tend to engage in other profit maximizing practices such as price discrimination (which is mentioned shortly after this in the article). However the author seems to assume that ISPs will only engage in price discrimination with regards to companies, and not consumers ("they could price discriminate and charge the Netflix competitor nothing at all!"). I find that unlikely. It is not unreasonable to think that blocking user access to some sites unless the user purchases a certain "package" will be used in service of price discrimination. > "Ajit Pai is right to RETURN REGULATION [emphasis added] to the same light touch under which the Internet developed and broadband grew for two decades." In my opinion this is a false equivalency. Though it may nominally be the same regulatory framework, there are differences between the regulatory environment then and now; primarily the FCC's and Chairman Pai's willingness to take on ISPs and support the principles of Net Neutrality.
• AmIFirstToThink 9y ago
  Anyone on the NN bandwagon, who cheered Google/Facebook/Twitter/Reddit/YouTube censorship of right-wing conservative content, is a hypocrite. What if Comcast used deep packet inspection to keep you from seeing fake news? If google can offer that then so can Comcast. Let them compete. I refuse to be co-opted by the same mega-corps who discriminate all they want for their political purpose. I want Comcast to show a 404 for a product announcement by Google for Youtube-TV, or add jitters into Facebook messenger whereby people stop using it. That would be similar to what Google/Facebook has done, and are doing every day to this day, to conservative content online. If Google can kick out any Youtube video they don't like or hide it form the channel subscribers, then Comcast can kick out any packet they don't like from their wires. If you don't consider censorship of content that is happening today as a higher priority problem than possible future messing with packets, then you don't have your priorities straight. If you support online censorship by Google/Facebook/Twitter, then I would like nothing more than your NN dreams get shattered thousand times a second, or if you prefer at 1 Gbps.
• zeep 9y ago
  anyone with common sense know that this is false... it would break the internet if ISPs would take advantage of the absence of a net neutrality requirement. I think that whoever passed this law gave the ISPs a pretty bad idea (not that the law is bad).