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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,
by 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 agoDid 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 agoYou'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 agoOnce 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.
- thehardsphere 9y agoOkay, how did it change?
- zbruhnke 9y agoThe thing you missed is that internet providers started to realize they may be able to squeeze more money out of both consumers and large corporates a few years back and that began to change their thoughts about how to make more money with a largely unregulated industry and Net Neutrality was put in place to preserve the internet's ability to innovate. Let's not forget Ajit Pai was just a few years ago a corporate attorney working for ... wait for it ... a large ISP - And its very likely he will be again when his term at the FCC ends
- thehardsphere 9y agoHow did they "realize" that, suddenly a couple years ago? I am not doubting you, I am genuinely confused. I mean, human greed is a constant, and the rules didn’t change from 1996-2015, yet during the same period you said that Wal-Mart would have paid to destroyed Amazon, Amazon became one of the most wealthy and powerful companies in the world. So... it must be something more than the rules, right? Greedy companies were just unimaginative with their greed until a few years ago? To put it another way: If Wal-Mart simply didn’t realize some trick in those days, what information would the Walton family need to take with them in their time machine to destroy Amazon from 1996-2015?
- disp1 9y agoI recall that L3 was shaking down netflix in that that time period. This is what I was able to find quickly... https://www.wsj.com/articles/netflix-agrees-to-pay-comcast-to-improve-its-streaming-1393175346 https://www.wsj.com/articles/netflix-agrees-to-pay-comcast-t... Sorry for the paywall. there are many sites that refer to the episode, but they may not all be qualified as journalism.
- 0xfeba 9y ago> If Wal-Mart simply didn’t realize some trick in those days, what information would the Walton family need to take with them in their time machine to destroy Amazon from 1996-2015 That this internet thing will really take off.
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- s73ver_ 9y agoThe world that was going away, and as such, we needed to enact the rules to preserve it. If one wants things to stay the way they were back then, they would want these rules to stay in place, to ensure that. Without these rules, there is absolutely nothing to stop that from going away. In fact, Comcast has already started planning for paid prioritization lanes. If the ISPs had no intention of violating NN, they would not be lobbying so hard for the repeal of NN.
- dd36 9y agoVerizon sued to destroy the prior regulatory scheme leaving Title II - per the courts - as the only workable regulatory scheme for NN. Pai so happens to have been a Verizon lawyer. Surely no coincidence. Edit: I’m not sure why I’m being downvoted: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verizon_Communications_Inc._v._FCC_(2014) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verizon_Communications_Inc._...
- thehardsphere 9y agoMr. Pai's personal entanglements with Verizon aside, didn't the previous regulatory scheme only exist from 2010 on? Or was there prior regulation that the "FCC Open Internet Order of 2010" superceded? I'm asking because some comments seem to suggest the answer is "Yes, we already had this in another form before 2010" but there's scant mention of it on Wikipedia.
- cptskippy 9y agoThe fundamental flaw in your argument is that you're failing to ask one very important question. Why was the rule put in place in 2015? Most regulations, like laws, are reactive in nature. If our existing laws and regulations were good enough then why would we need to elect new law makers? Why would we even need them at all? The fact is that people are constantly finding new and creative ways to exploit others and or ever evolving laws and regulations are a response to this exploitation.
- nickpp 9y agoFor the same reason most regulations are made: to increase the government's power while pretending to protect you, but in fact increasing your dependence of said government.
- berbec 9y agoI find the government regulating the ISPs to stop them from killing competing businesses is not increasing my dependence on the government. I do depend on the government to stop corporations from forcing me to depend on their products while stopping competitors from entering the market. [1] Isn't a free market with competition what everyone wants? 1: http://money.cnn.com/2011/12/06/technology/verizon_blocks_google_wallet/index.htm http://money.cnn.com/2011/12/06/technology/verizon_blocks_go...
- 0xfeba 9y agoYes, damned that FDA and NHTSA for not letting me drink my raw milk while driving in a car without airbags. Clearly a power grab.
- stinky613 9y agoHe wants to undo a rule from 2015 that forces broadband ISPs to be regulated the same way that dial-up ISPs were in the 90s. The rule from 2015 made broadband ISPs regulated under Title II of the Communications Act of 1934. ISPs that operate over phone lines already were regulated under Title II. The notion that internet providers were unregulated in the 90s is outright false.
- jack9 9y ago2015 is a misleading goalpost. The problems that were tied up in the courts and led to a FINAL decision in 2015, started a decade earlier.
- dragonwriter 9y ago> It is my understanding that "The rules Ajit Pai wants in place" were in place from sometime during the ninties or earlier, until 2015. No. I mean, I guess the complete absence of general broadband rules prior to 2004 might be what Pai wants to return to; but 2004-2010 had a pro-neutrality approach at FCC that he courts stopped in 2010, and 2010-2014 had an approach that the courts stopped in 2014, pointing to Title II as he available basis for the sort of regulation that the FCC had pursued. 2015 saw the FCC follow the court’s guidance and base regulations in Title II. Most of the history of the commercially-significant, publicly-used internet have been under FCC neutrality enforcement, for which the only viable basis in the wake of 2010 and 2014 court decisions is Title II, which Pai wishes to abandon.
- Sumaso 9y ago> 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. Isn't this covered by anti-trust laws?
- 1_2__4 9y agoNo. Why would you think it is? Could you point to post-1980 precedent?
- throwaway23497 9y agoIt doesn't follow that because there haven't been any large trust-busting actions since 1980's that the laws don't still cover the behavior.
- jakelarkin 9y agoonly if walmart and ISPs are a monopoly, which by very technical legal arguments, they're not. having to pay off ISPs to the tune of millions for network access to e-commerce customers, prevents Amazon from ever getting started selling books in the 90s
- masklinn 9y ago> only if walmart and ISPs are a monopoly, which by very technical legal arguments, they're not. And if the regulatory climate of the US was to enforce this sort of regs, which it isn't.
- hammock 9y ago>only if walmart and ISPs are a monopoly This is false. Under US antitrust law, /monopolistic behavior/ (that is, behavior that tends to create monopolies), e.g. predatory pricing and very large mergers, is what's generally regulated. It's not actually illegal to be a monopoly per se, and you don't have to be a monopoly to fall afoul of antitrust law.
- ryanwaggoner 9y agoEDIT: deleted
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- api 9y ago20 years ago it was a different world. The Internet was new. ISPs were new and there were more of them, with many being local and regional businesses. Technology for deep packet inspection and micro-prioritization of IP flows was non-existent or very inconvenient to deploy. Today ISPs have already deployed technology to allow them to micro-prioritize and inspect all Internet traffic and are chomping at the bit to use it, and significantly more money is on the line. Today if ISPs are allowed to use this technology to pick winners and tax Internet companies they will do it. My real long term concern is that this could lead to the effective blocking of peer-to-peer network capability on the consumer Internet. It would no longer even be possible for an edge to reach another edge with good performance.
- nindalf 9y agoWalmart couldn't have done this 20 years ago because they didn't realise how big or important the web could be at that time. Very few people did.
- Shivetya 9y agoprior to the rule change in 2014 did we have such a problem? I recall the days of my choices in a highly regulated environment of being ISDN or T1. Provided I could even get either at my home. The issue I have is one of perception. People are magically convinced that NN will grant them all sorts of benefits but no one seems to agree with what they are. I can almost guarantee one thing, continue as is and the rate broad band deployment will keep decreasing which it has been been sine 14. why even put up new higher speeds when you are limited in how you can sell access? where is the incentive? the real outcome is you will get what is legislated and no more. what if an upstart wants to sell a service that requires a higher level of bandwidth and latency than is normally available. would you even be able to get providers under the current rules? plus once they do regulate what the ISPs can do they will certainly regulate what they cannot. What if they decide in the name of "piracy" to forbid ISPs from passing some traffic. With the powers being handed to them it will be nearly impossible to prevent it. plus I am a firm believer that unlimited is not warranted unless I pay for it. why should anyone invest money in delivering me content or access if they cannot sell it at rates the want? Surely if they are overpriced someone will step up and undercut them. you want proof of that, go look at what happened to the long distance market, airfares, or other services, that long all had high prices and lack of service. NN sounds good but it only sounds good because we only see possibly benefits and all other cases are ignored.
- dd36 9y agoWe’ve had NN since beginning. People don’t want the internet to become cable TV. There is nothing magical about it. People know what the ISPs want to do and they prefer the pipes remain pipes and not become toll filters. There’s a lot of money for the ISPs in this rent seeking. Hence the never ending push to undermine NN.
- stinky613 9y agoI recall the days of dial-up & DSL internet, where I had multiple national ISPs to choose from, as well as several local ISPs... all of which operated over phone lines... which meant they were covered by Title II. This notion that everything was unregulated until two years ago is counterfactual.
- zaksoup 9y agoI’m a weekly listener of Ben Thompson’s (the author) podcast, exponent, and it’s bizarre that he’s making this argument. Many of the last few episodes have made the point that over-burdensome regulation on Facebook would have the affect of harming small businesses’ abilities to advertise themselves along side large incumbents. It’s strange to see him make what appears to be the opposite argument here. Your point is well made and well taken!
- throwaway23497 9y agoBut he's making the same argument that you say he was making on his podcast. Regulation has a cost. The article literally states: "To believe that Chairman Pai is right is not to be against net neutrality; rather, it is to believe that the FCC’s 2015 approach was mistaken." The FCC doesn't have the authority to regulate ISP's as the law is written. To get around this in 2015 they "reclassified" ISP's from information services to telecommunications services. This allowed them expansive authority over ISP's. It also applies a bunch of archaic rules that were meant for ma-bell and in no way apply to modern internet services. If network neutrality is important to you then call your congressmen and tell them to pass a law that actually codifies it. If you think your ISP is being a bad actor, then send a report to the FTC. You know the agency that's tasked with preventing and punishing anti-competitive behavior....
- zaksoup 9y agoDid you create an account specifically to throw FUD around in this thread? Why not sign your name to your milquetoast opinions on net neutrality?
- dd36 9y agoThe FCC is exempting the ISPs from those archaic rules. Who is going to challenge the FCC on that? So this guy is arguing that NN is bad under Title II so we should pass a different law to regulate it? So new regulations without a long history of case law? And that’s less burdensome?
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- dominotw 9y agoHope I don't immediately get downvoted for this comment. Wouldn't the right "fix" for the issue be encouraging more competition and figuring out why we only have 1 or 2 providers . That way we won't need an extra govt rule to protect neutrality and the market will solve this issue on its own? I live in a mid size indian city and we have about 8-10 providers ( not sure if they are just subcontractors or what).
- disantlor 9y agothat's a good and totally fair point, but which should come first?
- dominotw 9y agoMaybe net neutrality 'rule' that expires in X yrs ? Review why comcast is the only game in town.
- Shank 9y ago> Wouldn't the right "fix" for the issue be encouraging more competition and figuring out why we only have 1 or 2 providers This is a USA-based response. The answer largely comes down to how much infrastructure is required to move a new provider in and how there's little incentive to do so. If you want to look at real world examples of how providers get choked out, look at the Google Fiber deployment in Nashville. Google pays contractors to move lines on poles so they can install their lines. The contractors are usually the same contractors that move lines for other companies, but they all require every other company to make adjustments to their own poles before Google can. There are thousands of poles and the incumbent providers have been intentionally dragging their feet to complete their end of the deal. What happened? Nashville passed "One Touch Make Ready." This let Google just do all of the moving in one go, but it was recently shot down due to a lawsuit from the incumbent ISPs. The current incumbent providers in many areas will fight tooth and nail to prevent anyone from moving in "the easy way," which means the only way to let a competitor move in is through building out expensive networks on their own dollar. Since the margins aren't that great, nobody is incentivized to actually go through with tearing up streets or building new systems for delivery.
- eksu 9y agoI feel like there isn’t much ‘clash’ (debate term) between what you’re saying and Ben Thompson’s article. Ben isn’t attacking the concept of Net Neutrality, he’s instead attacking Title II classification. Ben puts forward a few arguments. First, he starts off with an offensive piece of matter, that regulatory burden from the 2015 Title II classification has a cost, and that cost is felt innovators who want to enter the market and by everyone who’s deprived of those potential services. This directly removes small businesses chance to WIN — the ‘entire point of net neutrality’ as you put it. Secondly, Ben attacks the notion that things in our pre-2015 status quo were bad enough to warrant Title II classification and the regulatory harms he outlined. He does this by showing that no significant harm existed before 2015, and by showing that the regulation has no solvency. Ben shows three examples of net neutrality issues resolving themselves in the free market before these regulations were in place, showing that these harms were already in check. Then, even better than just a listicle of past cases, he gives you a mechanism that disincentives companies from violating net neutrality. Because of their fixed costs, they’re not in the market of alienating users. Small businesses still don’t have the chance to WIN — the ‘entire point of net neutrality’ — in 2015 regulation because more harm is caused by zero rating, which isn’t affected by the 2015 classification. You make a claim that ‘the rules Ajit Pai wants in place’ would allow Walmart to buy out Amazon at the ISP level. Again, this is an example of something that the status quo wouldn’t have allowed to happened. You’re ‘postulating about future harms and foregone opportunities’ and then creating policy, but we already have a robust system to stop this behavior. FCC complaints like Vonage & Madison River solve, anti-trust solves, and our media ready-and-willing to raise a ruckus solves again. I should also add that Ajit Pai isn’t proposing rules, he’s proposing removing rules, and going back to pre-2015 internet days. If the worst example you can come up with is a hypothetical Amazon vs Walmart, instead of a literal example, even though we lived in that world for 25 years, I think that speaks volumes.
- CodeWriter23 9y agoWe’ll just ignore the fact that every data communications expert refers to data services from the telco as “telecommunications”...When cable companies sell phone service over coax, there is no twisting of facts that can define that as anything but “Telecommuncations”, and they are therefore subject to Title II, and incumbents need to lease their last mile to competitors, just like the phone company. Period.
- pbreit 9y agoIsn't Pai just advocating going back to the pre-2015 regulatory structure? Was the internet really so bad prior to 2015?
- masklinn 9y agoHe's very specifically advocating going back to the structure between 2005 and 2015. And there were lots of issues despite likely way less emboldened ISPs: https://np.reddit.com/r/KeepOurNetFree/comments/7ej1nd/fcc_unveils_its_plan_to_repeal_net_neutrality/dq5hlwd/?sh=45a33b81&st=JAA62V5F https://np.reddit.com/r/KeepOurNetFree/comments/7ej1nd/fcc_u... The 2015 move was actually because the FCC had been repeatedly challenged by bolder and bolder ISPs over its rules, and the courts ultimately stated that the FCC didn't have the authority to stop ISP shenanigans and enforce its Neutrality rules under Title I in 2014, hence the reclassification under Title II. So yes, the internet was quickly getting worse prior to 2015, and it was not a "steady state" as it had started from much more stringent regulations (than the 2015 regime) back in 2005, things had progressively gotten worse over a decade before coming to a head.
- dragonwriter 9y ago> He's very specifically advocating going back to the structure between 2005 and 2015. The courts struck down the 2005-2010 structure in 2010, and the 2010-2014 structure in 2014. 2014-2015 was unregulated, but all actors knew that the FCC was going to come out with some new neutrality regulation, so no big player was going to put effort into exploiting the unregulated state and build an unsustainable business model around it. It is impossible to return to any of the three states of neutrality enforcement that existed between 2005 and 2015. And Ajit Pai knows that, so if he's calling for that it is intensely dishonest.
- libertyEQ 9y agoIn this very subthread, we have seasoned HNers, all of whom I've agreed with over the years of reading comments from all 3 of you. I believe you all have a sound grasp of logic, and I think there is some common ground you could all agree on. It does worry me that you all aren't having a productive discussion, and are seemingly talking past each other. If such reasonable and knowledgeable people (as evidenced by HN history) are unwilling to drill down and establish an agreed set of fact and principles, what hope do we have at a national level?
- takeda 9y agoThere's even bigger problem that many people aren't talking about than net neutrality. Look what Telus in Canada did[1] when employees were organizing a labor strike. There won't be anything to prevent this action anymore. Imagine if this would be used for affecting public for political gain. Internet is the last place where we can still find both sides to every story. Once those protections are gone, it won't be any better then traditional media. [1] http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/telus-cuts-subscriber-access-to-pro-union-website-1.531166 http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/telus-cuts-subscriber-access-t...
- npsimons 9y ago> if you believe in dreaming and creating something larger than yourself Even if people don't give two shits about making themselves or the world a better place, most people do care about convenience, lower prices and whizbang new things, three things that would almost be guaranteed to disappear without NN. I can't even begin to imagine what the world would look like without NN, mostly because every website/webservice was small at one point. Try to imagine a world without Netflix, Amazon, Facebook, etc, etc, etc. And those are just the high profile ones that come to mind first. Need we even point out how things like the FCC comments page would probably be "too slow to use" without NN in place? What if you had to pay a "power user" surcharge every time you Googled a solution to a technical problem and it popped up on Stack?
- 013a 9y agoAnd you've entirely missed the point that there is always sacrifice; you glimpsed the green pastures on the other side and are convinced the only bad in this world is on your side of the fence, somewhere distant over the horizon. You're asking for an umbrella on a clear day, for the fear that its raining somewhere in this world and the water would be your end.
- AmIFirstToThink 9y agoWhy should the society pay for your dream to have a chance to be reality? Startups with few heads have taken down companies that had employed hundreds gainfully for life, only to be folded into another behemoth with all the evil intentions. Whatsapp acquisition by Facebook where they decided to look into messages for profiling comes to mind. Countless examples of startups being open to being bought only to leave the customers hanging dry for options. Do you agree to keep cost of shipping same no matter the size of your account (shipping one container vs. shipping thousands a month) so that some dreamer logistics graduate can compete? Would you pay to keep it fair? How about a pharma grad and keeping things equal against big pharma? Should you be taxed to pay for FDA approval process of every drug that a pharma student comes up with? I am for Net Neutrality because doing otherwise turns paying customers into a product, and that goes against the contract. As an ISP customer, I am not willing to be made inaccessible by someone that I want to talk to, specifically when I am paying for that access. At this point I am more concerned about Facebook/Twitter/Reddit/Google's ability to discriminate against people, than Comcast/TimeWarner/Verizon/AT&T's ability to discriminate against my packets. The later is hypothetical, the former is an everyday reality. Freedom of expression is more important than cost imposed on buying the paper to write your expressions on. Net Neutrality is fighting over ability to write what you want on the paper you bought without the paper manufacturer consenting to your writing. Doesn't happen with paper, doesn't happen with packets. But the ability to show your writing on the paper to other people, their ability to read what you have written is being undermined, tampered with without repercussions, daily, every second of the day by Facebook/Twitter/Google/Reddit. Net Neutrality is not the fight of the day, the battle cry is Freedom of Expression, fight against censorship imposed by Facebook/Google/Twitter/Reddit/YouTube.