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FCC won’t delay vote, says net neutrality supporters are “desperate”

245 points by adidash 9y ago

grokas 9y ago
After reading about Pai, it seems like he was hand selected to be the figure head with which the ISPs would finally take down Net Neutrality. This whole situation sucks, and no matter how much noise we make and activism we take part in, if Pai has the legal footing to ruin the internet, he will.
- EGreg 9y ago
  That's what I said. Trump selected lots of people like that to head up agencies. They either have no experience, wanted to destroy the agency earlier, or will put their ideology before the will of the people every time.
  - arca_vorago 9y ago
    Let's be clear about something here. These are most likely not organic Trump picks. This is about the biggest donors getting their quid pro quo in the form of cabinet picks due to regulatory capture... and leaks of the Obama admin indicate the same thing happened with him, the same with Bush before him, and likely with presidents for a long time. With Obama it was citigroup who got most of the picks if I remember correctly, but with Trump it seems to be a bit more varied. (Eg Eric Princes sister for Education Secretary, etc) Edit: I'd appreciate dialogue instead of just down votes. To clarify, by saying Trumps picks were a bit more varied I wasn't saying it was any better than bankers picking almost all of them. The realpolitik response I usually hear is how only industry experts at a high level can fill these positions, but I simply no longer buy this argument.
    - FilterSweep 9y ago
      I didn't downvote you. I fail to see a Betsy Devos type character in either the Bush or Obama admin. She even wrote in a tax benefit to her neocon college in the Northeast.
      - arca_vorago 9y ago
        I disagree. She was appointed for two primary reasons that I see from my admittedly limited perspective. One, to shore up support of the evangelicals. Two, because of donations made by her brother and similar people. Once in office, abusing her position to give favors to those who get her appointed seems little different to me than bankers donating and getting bankers cabinet positions and then those people doing similar things. (For example, I can almost guarantee if I did some digging I could find similar tax break schemes for their base under each admin) I feel like just because the neocons are slightly easier to hate on than bankers it causes a bit of willful myopia on the subject.
        FilterSweep 9y ago
        well, between neocons and bankers there's only one group that actively wants certain Americans out of their own country.
      - monocasa 9y ago
        I mean, Pai was an Obama pick for FCC commissioner.
      - thehardsphere 9y ago
        Devos is actually a perfect pick if you assume the goal was to pursue her pet agenda at the expense of every other possible agenda that a Secretary of Education could have. Whether the skids were greased because of her rich brother or not, she still could have been picked by some hypothetical other Republican president. Usually, the completely crooked, bought-their-way-into-the-Cabinet appointment in any given administration is whoever becomes the Commerce Secretary. You don't usually remember who the Commerce Secretary is because they don't typically do anything, but they're almost always a big money donor. There's a bipartisan tradition of that which stretches back to when it was created at the turn of the century.
    - maxerickson 9y ago
      What would an organic Trump pick be if not based on some sort of quid pro quo?
      - redler 9y ago
        Exactly so. While he often adopts the mien of those for whom he is a vehicle, Trump himself has no real political philosophy; every pick is entirely transactional.
        arca_vorago 9y ago
        That's a good but saddening point. I guess its hella naive of me to imagine a lotus might someday make picks based off who actually is best qualified for the job.
  - maxxxxx 9y ago
    That really seems to be the case. See EPA or CFBP.
  - thehardsphere 9y ago
    Just a pedantic procedural point: The FCC is not an "agency", but a commission with 5 members. Once a commissioner is named, they cannot be removed by the President for any reason besides misconduct. The two of them besides Mr. Pai who are Republicans have been on for quite a while and their agreement is necessary for this scheme of his to work. He presumably has it, otherwise there would be no vote taking place, so it's not like this is merely a product of Trump’s unique intervention here.
    - binaryblitz 9y ago
      I feel like this happens with every president. People like to blame the person in charge when in reality, there are a LOT of other people doing nefarious things behind the scene. Not trying to let trump off the hook, more so trying to get the message across that we have more to focus on.
- LaneRendell 9y ago
  Your comment is much better than what I wanted to say: What a douche canoe.
  - rocketpastsix 9y ago
    Meh, yours is on point too.
  - jdc0589 9y ago
    http://douchecanoe.com http://douchecanoe.com
- slouch 9y ago
  We've only had the rules for two years, and this only shows that the next administration can also pull and about-face. The lawsuits might not even be settled by then.
  - api 9y ago
    That kind of regulatory uncertainty is bad for the industry. Congress really needs to act. ... hahaha ... congress ... act ... hahahahaha ... In all seriousness though: I think it's a mistake to focus on the FCC even now. That's obviously a lost cause. Focus on Congress and the next election cycle. Network neutrality needs to be law.
  - koolba 9y ago
    Not only that, I haven't seen any improvement to consumers in the two years that we've had FCC oversight on this. The only places I see improvement are in markets that have managed to create competition between providers. And that tends to only come from municipal players entering the market as the large ISPs (Comcast, Charter, ATT) generally avoid entering markets that have an established player as they'd actually have to compete.
    - bo1024 9y ago
      > Not only that, I haven't seen any improvement to consumers in the two years that we've had FCC oversight on this. That's because net neutrality was already the status quo (though enforced via other means than Title II classification up till 2014). The FCC oversight wasn't supposed to bring improvements -- it was supposed to prevent negative changes (I'm sure we'll see what kinds within the next six months). As for improvements in amount of service, and pricing, and infrastructure, these will require far more intervention.
  - murph-almighty 9y ago
    I highly doubt the next administration will do that, for a few reasons 1) Once the cat is out of the bag it's a pain in the ass to put back in. "Hey Comcast and Netflix, your fastlane agreement is now null and void". Tell that to every ISP and software company that made such an agreement. 2) It's hard to get the government to pay attention even when there are people sympathetic to your case. Getting Tom Wheeler to about-face was a huge effort. This isn't to say it CAN'T happen. I'd just prefer for NN to not be removed in the first place.
- Delmania 9y ago
  He doesn't. Ignoring the public comment period and making comments like demonstrate he's not acting in the interest of the consumer. There's a good chance a federal judge will strike this down.
  - omginternets 9y ago
    >There's a good chance a federal judge will strike this down. Is there any historical precedent for this? I'm trying to assess the resemblance between this case and such a hypothetical case. I want to believe...
    - Facemelters 9y ago
      Yes. The notice and comment period is intended to prevent arbitrary or capricious decisions by agencies.
      - paulmd 9y ago
        What makes this decision arbitrary or capricious? The administration and the FCC see a policy objective in deregulating the internet, just because you disagree with it doesn't make it arbitrary. It's going to have definite winners (telcoms) and losers (tech companies) but that is true of literally every type of regulation. There are respects in which, say, fracking is not the best thing for the public either (lighting your tap water on fire, etc). The party in charge gets to decide what the best interests of the public are, and what policies to use to achieve them.
        dragonwriter 9y ago
        > What makes this decision arbitrary or capricious? Disregard of the integrity of the legally-mandatory public comment process is, in and of itself, strong evidence that there is a violation of procedural rules governing regulation.
        paulmd 9y ago
- doubt_me 9y ago
  Its now December 2017. Everybody knew about his plan the day he was sworn in as chairman. Between the resources at Google/ Yahoo/ FB/ Ycombinator alone they have the money, lawyers, know how, and have had since November of last year to do something about this, anything. anything at all. Actually, any fortune 500 company. Not a single whisper from wall street. not a single whisper from the private sector. Obviously insane levels of fraud happening with the comments being written by russian bots, fake names, and missing real comments with all investigations going nowhere thanks to shit pai. We will probably loose it for good. it will most likely be a very slow process to make sure nobody is riled up enough to actually do anything about it. I can almost guarantee instead of fixing or trying to solve any issues. Verizon, comcast, At&T, Tmobile and sprint all have new plans ready to roll out will full marketing behind them. It is up to us state by state to dismantle the communication cartels once and for all. But naw, some bot will flag this post just like the other 500+ threads that have popped up since November of last year critical of the government in any way shape or form. Seriously HN get your shit together, absolutely pathetic that it has even come to this point. Ycombinator is who they are directly attacking, 12 gauge to the head, yet nobody around here seems to actually think they are worthy enough to live. Let alone get a fast, dependable, and cheap/ fair price on our own internet that the tax payers have paid for over and over again. If that is the case then maybe we all deserve to loose it. I kind of am hoping we do. I want a new internet with blackjack and hookers. only way possible to make it happen is if the entire country were to be pushed at once to move on beyond ISPs grasp and make our own mesh networks. This is that opportunity to build something new and fresh and in our own control, something that will most likely take years and years to accomplish but once its done and stable enough to handle the countries users there will literally be zero use for an ISP beyond a public utility. THEY ARE LITERALLY GIVING US THE KEYS TO THE FUTURE AND EVERYONE IS FUCKING MOPING AROUND LIKE YOU'VE NEVER SEEN THIS COMING. Communication cartels RIP was a good run guys. See you around when you crash the markets!
  - nrhk 9y ago
    It's fine, the real innovation moves on. Telecommunication is a history of openness followed by control, radio, tv, internet and whatever comes next. At least hopefully this isn't the end.
- adamnemecek 9y ago
  The problem with anti-Trump protests is that they will never get physical.
  - Clubber 9y ago
    Not sure why this is downvoted. It's an uncomfortable thought but very little change has been brought forth in the US (and the world, historically) with peaceful protest. Too easy to ignore when politicians get paid millions to ignore it. Think the abolitionist movement (pre-Civil War) was peaceful? Nope. Think women's suffrage was peaceful? Nope. Think Vietnam protests were peaceful? Nope. Think civil rights movement was peaceful? Nope. BLM peaceful? Nope. Was the Occupy Wall Street movement peaceful? Yup. Was the protests of NSA spying peaceful? Yup. Was the Iraq war protests peaceful? Yup. Was the US Patriot Act protests peaceful? Yup. Are the net neutrality protests peaceful? Yup. What's the difference between the peaceful and non-peaceful protests I listed?
    - castis 9y ago
      It probably got downvoted because people think violence is the absolute wrong way to go about things and assume getting to that level means you've lost a moral battle. I understand why, asking nicely and blocking some streets for a few hours has been so clearly effective throughout history /s.
      - logfromblammo 9y ago
        I happen to subscribe to a rather uncommon school of conflict. Once you have identified an existential threat to you, annihilate it utterly, and don't look back. But be absolutely certain before you start, because that's not a transaction you can easily roll back. And if you can't win, try not to lose for as long as possible. I'm about 98% of the way to certainty that the current crop of ruling elites present an existential threat to (mostly) peaceful human civilization. Thinking about Putin, Kim, and Trump--all with their fingers on their launch buttons--inspired me to think about possible strategies and tactics for 5th generation warfare, and I'm sorry to say that I believe a shockingly large number of innocents are going to die in this century. Your choice isn't going to be a matter of some people getting hurt and no one getting hurt. Your choice will be whether seven billion people die, or just a few hundred million, possibly including you and your whole family. All those "preppers" out there are very likely planning for the wrong kinds of disasters. This is not going to be a conflict whose outcome hinges on the number or quality of the guns, or the number of years of stored provisions. It will instead depend upon one's ability to discriminate friend from foe. It doesn't manner how many guns you have if the one in your hand is pointed at your own foot, particularly if you have psyops-induced agnosia. I'm not certain if I have the fortitude for war. And I'm not sure if I have the moxie for covert ops. I'm not even sure who would be in the smallest possible set of people that have to die in order for the least-bleak future to come about. My heart wants there to be a solution where no one has to die, but my head has already run too many thought experiments where passive acquiescence leads directly to ruin. There's no doubt in my mind that killing people and destroying property hurts one's own moral center, and that those who grow skilled at war become less suited to serve non-destructive roles in a world at peace. I think maybe I'm just too selfish to make a choice based on the proposition that a future might not exist unless I actively disqualify myself from being a part of it. I'm certainly not going to be the one that moves first. But I am thinking about the second and third moves.
- backtoyoujim 9y ago
  no offense ... but stick your "just the way it is" up your desk drawer and lock it real tight.
- jancsika 9y ago
  Are you writing this after having called the relevant representatives and senators for your state?
- paulmd 9y ago
  > After reading about Pai, it seems like he was hand selected to be the figure head with which the ISPs would finally take down Net Neutrality. He's not. He's a generic Republican, appointed by Obama (since the commission is obligated by Congress to have no more than a simple majority of appointees from any one party). The problem is, this is what all Republicans are like nowadays. Any other person that Obama could have appointed would be doing the exact same thing in these circumstances. And in fact, virtually every other regulatory agency and department is doing the exact same thing thanks to Trump appointees. They are un-interested in any semblance of reasonable governance, it's siphoning your money to their backers in the most direct and aggressive fashion, plain and simple. Elections have consequences. A lot of prominent Silicon Valley figures backed Trump figuring it would be an easy tax cut for them, and this is the result. What's that story Trump liked to tell around the campaign trail, the frog and the scorpion? Everyone fantasizes they'd be the ones to come out on top (Ayn Rand wrote a whole book about it!), but there is always a bigger fish. Welcome to laissez-faire capitalism, where buying the government is part of the game. Free Markets are not a stable social structure by themselves, they need government regulation to keep the playing field level. The truth is not in the middle, and not all viewpoints have equal merit. We have one reasonable party whose positions you may or may not like, and one batshit insane party that begins tearing everything down as soon as they're in power. Shame it takes a lesson like this for people to realize that. Sorry to be blunt, and sorry to bring politics into this forum. But that's the way it is.
  - timthelion 9y ago
    How do you determine which party an appointee belongs to? Why didn't Obama appoint someone from the green party?
    - dragonwriter 9y ago
      > Why didn't Obama appoint someone from the green party? Because aside from the law governing appointments, there is also the Senate confirmation process, and such a violation of both the spirit of the law and the established informal norms would both be unlikely to survive that process, and complicate other matters before the Senate, which was blocking more routine nominees.
shmerl 9y ago
His smug attitude of showing how he doesn't care about the public he is supposed to serve, will be his downfall in court.
- fotbr 9y ago
  No, it won't be. Anything involving this will be handled by gov't lawyers, not by him, and you can bet if he does end up in front of the court, his responses will be 100% coached by those lawyers.
  - SimbaOnSteroids 9y ago
    His attitude outside of court is admissible to court. It likely would be brought up to show that the agency did not represent the consumer in good faith.
  - pwinnski 9y ago
    Federal court cases have already been influenced by the current administration's actions (speeches, interviews, tweets) outside of court documents and statements by attorney. What Pai says now can indeed be referenced within court proceedings. Whether that will be effective or not is unclear.
    - craftyguy 9y ago
      The court system seems to be looking the other way with this current administration though, so I wouldn't get your hopes up too high that his actions would have any effect on any court case.
- crisdux 9y ago
  Bureaucrats don't serve the public. They serve their institution to implement policy. Policy which is ambiguous. If any lawmakers cared they would have clarified this through law.
falcolas 9y ago
Well, he's not wrong. We are desperate - desperate to keep our internet free from corporate greed.
- choward 9y ago
  Since when is being desperate a bad thing?
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- bo1024 9y ago
  Right? "Genocidal conqueror won't delay massacre, says civilians are 'desperate'"
- asdgkknio 9y ago
  We lost that battle a long time ago. The Internet is mostly corporate now and will be for the foreseeable future.
thrillgore 9y ago
I feel more helpless now than I did on November 9th, 2016.
- rocketpastsix 9y ago
  Make sure you are registered to vote if you are in the United States. And vote in every election. Even something that seems small like school board has more implications then we know.
  - StillBored 9y ago
    And if you live in a city, demand the election commission open more polling places/etc. Low turnout in urban areas is at least partially because people don't want to wait in lines for hours, while the poling places in rural areas have 0 wait times...
  - craftyguy 9y ago
    Give me candidates worth voting for first.
    - ConceptJunkie 9y ago
      This is the most important issue. The system is rigged in favor of the incumbents in many, many ways.
      - rocketpastsix 9y ago
        Nothing stopping you from running, even if it is to just push the conversation in a certain direction.
  - ghostly_s 9y ago
    Not enough.
  - rev_null 9y ago
    Wasn't Pai appointed by Trump instead of by election? Didn't most of the voting Americans vote against Trump? It seems like a better approach to US politics is to be rich.
peterwwillis 9y ago
Does anyone remember when Jack Valenti was widely mocked for his being instrumental in abusing the rights of consumers? There were huge campaigns against the MPAA and Valenti. Where's the PR push back from the techno-intelligentsia? Why aren't we pointing out Pai's attacks on the rights of American citizens? Why aren't we pointing out to regular people why this is clearly an attack on one of the few freedoms they have left? Where are the "Put this in your Pai hole" t-shirts and bumper stickers?
- redler 9y ago
  By now they're probably suffering from nihilistic-destruction-of-institutions-failure-of-imagination fatigue.
tempodox 9y ago
On the verge of being sold out by a corporate shill? You can bet we are desperate.
imgabe 9y ago
If ISPs are going to gut net neutrality, we need a way to introduce real competition into the market. I wouldn't care if Comcast wanted to sell me access to 5 websites for $99 or whatever crap they're trying to pull if I had the option to switch to a better deal somewhere else. Strong state and local laws protecting the right to form municipal ISPs would be a good start. Those seem to scare Comcast & friends the most. If corporate ISPs become significantly restrictive, I think we'd see a big upsurge in interest for municipal broadband.
- c3534l 9y ago
  Telecommunications tend to form a natural monopoly. It's a bit like roads and railroads, only you're transporting information rather than people. I looked online and it's got all the common characteristics: there are few close substitutes, the product is non-storable (although, maybe if it gets bad enough in the US we'll start seeing services that mail us USBs full of last week's Hacker News posts), supply is all about location, and fixed costs are unusually high relative to variable costs.
  - masklinn 9y ago
    Oh no, don't you read mises and vood^H^H^H^HAustrian Economics? Natural monopolies don't exist: https://mises.org/library/myth-natural-monopoly https://mises.org/library/myth-natural-monopoly
    - logfromblammo 9y ago
      Natural monopolies exist, but they don't perpetually persist. They can fluctuate between monopoly, single firm with pricing power plus challenger(s), unstable market, and complete market collapse with no suppliers. Legally protected monopolies are intended to avoid the latter state, especially where interruptions of service could have ripple effects on other industries. I believe the legislative goal was never about costs or overbuilt infrastructure, but to ensure that at least one provider was always available. So they chose to mandate that there could never be more than one. For the sake of having a dial tone 99.99% of the time, they made the choice for everyone that phone service would cost more, for everyone, every day, forever. Talking about "natural monopoly" is just a distraction. The de jure monopoly is about the difference between "no choice" and "zero choices". You may have made the same choice on a smaller scale when designing code that expects exactly one input instead of zero to N inputs. An alternate solution would be to operate a state-owned, not-for-profit utility, as the supplier of last resort, but that has its own problems, which may be more or less difficult than the monopoly problems, depending on specific circumstances. Von Mises is a good economics resource for libertarian-leaning folks, but you can't trust any single macro-economist to get everything right. I'm actually not sure any single one of them is more than 50% correct, or even if their amount of correctness is stable over time. Markets have this annoying habit of integrating all information, whether true or false, and reacting to it. This includes everything that all economists in all schools have ever written. It truly is a dismal science.
artursapek 9y ago
Honest question, what changes can we expect as ISP consumers if this happens? A follow up, if all it is is them charging customers more for using more bandwidth, how is that any different from any other fundamental resource like water, electricity, etc? Why should I pay as much money for my SSH and Hacker News as the guy down the street streaming Netflix all day?
- tangent128 9y ago
  Metered usage is not a violation of neutrality. Varying prices or manipulating quality of service based on the endpoint's identity is.
  - artursapek 9y ago
    So if I understand, they're disguising this as "Netflix eats up so much bandwidth" but really it's "we want an unfair advantage over Netflix"? Otherwise, I have no idea why republicans would support this.
    - tzs 9y ago
      In the case of Trump, no one knows if he would support or oppose net neutrality if he knew what it was. He thinks net neutrality means that websites will be required to be neutral in their content [1], which will be used to target conservative media. [1] "Obama’s attack on the internet is another top down power grab. Net neutrality is the Fairness Doctrine. Will target conservative media." https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/532608358508167168 https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/53260835850816716...
    - bo1024 9y ago
      Yes, that's a good assessment. You can think of it this way: ISPs act like roads between people's houses and the sites they want to access. People currently pay ISPs to reserve a certain amount of road, and net neutrality says they can drive whatever cars they want over that fraction of road without being discriminated against in pricing or speed. The ISPs say things like "xx% of traffic is Netflix -- that uses up an unfair portion of bandwidth". But a more accurate phrasing is that xx% of people on the road choose to fill their purchased slots with Netflix traffic. Right now, since all traffic on the road is routed fairly and equally under NN, all video services can compete on a fair footing. But after eliminating NN, ISPs will be able to charge users a big premium based on what kind of traffic they route down the road, even though there's no difference given that they already paid to reserve that portion of the road. So ISPs can route their own video service faster and everyone else's slower (or charge you extra to regain equal speeds), which squashes competition. > I have no idea why republicans would support this. I don't get it either. I think that most republican politicians have little understanding of the issue and how anti-competitive it would be to eliminate NN. Instead, they just hear superficial arguments that "NN is a regulation, and regulations are bad for competition" and since this comes from other Republicans, they trust and believe it. Unfortunately the ones it's coming from are lobbied really hard by ISPs, perhaps they believe their own propaganda.
kstrauser 9y ago
Yes, we are desperate for a representative government. May we have one please?
TYPE_FASTER 9y ago
What are our alternatives for wireless and wired ISPs? I'm done with the incumbents. I'm familiar with Republic Wireless and Google Fi, but I'm a long-time iPhone user who doesn't really want to switch. Are there any similar carriers who fully support iOS? Given the control wired home ISPs have, what are the alternatives? Is there a good, reasonably affordable wireless alternative?
- super-serial 9y ago
  I was thinking of Project Fi but Google just buys the data from TMobile/Sprint/US Cellular. So the same carriers just get richer, giving them more power. There's really no way to hurt the carriers or ISPs bottom line. The only thing I can think of is supporting municipal broadband. I wish there was some generic nation-wide municipal broadband fund I could pledge to donate to if net neutrality is revoked. I'd even pledge the same monthly amount I pay my ISP.
  - skykooler 9y ago
    Project Fi also locks you into Android phones. Good luck running an iPhone, or Windows phone, or Sailfish OS phone on that.
    - mmagin 9y ago
      As I understand it activation requires using an android phone, but it's entirely possible to then use it with an iPhone.
PhrosTT 9y ago
Are there any tools we should download before half the internet is blocked? (Can't believe I had to just write that).
- ateesdalejr 9y ago
  Get Tor while it still lasts. And just about anything on gnu.org's ftp servers.
dgritsko 9y ago
So, suppose everyone's worst nightmares come true - the FCC proceeds down the path it's currently on and ISPs begin to implement arbitrary throttling/blocking of content. How will something like SpaceX's planned "mesh network" of thousands of internet-providing satellites affect the landscape?
Blaiz0r 9y ago
Is there really no alternative to using an ISP for a connection? Is it possible to build a decentralised and encrypted network on our mobile phones? I guess we still have to run traffic through mobile service providers...
- CompuHacker 9y ago
  <speculation> Use an educational or national institution for an Internet connection, bypassing commercial networks.
  - jlgaddis 9y ago
    Those educational networks still connect to the commercial networks, via commercial ISPs.
- binaryblitz 9y ago
  We're a ways away from it being as powerful as our current internet solution, but it's called a meshnet. On a super basic level everyone connects to eachother via wifi. No ISPs or mobile providers are part of it.
jordigh 9y ago
"Chairman Pai's plan to restore Internet freedom" This phrase bugs me so much. I can't believe they're calling the end of net neutrality "internet freedom".
- elsurudo 9y ago
  There is an argument to be made that hijacking the word "freedom" for this was already half the battle for repealing net neutrality. Good luck battling "freedom" in America... If only the other side could have gotten there first.
- euvitudo 9y ago
  It’s a matter of perspective. Freedom from what? In this case it’s freedom from regulation. It’s like hospitals always wanting to cut costs. But it’s never about the patient saving money.
- nasredin 9y ago
  Stay away from Orwell's 1984. You will be pissed.
YouAreGreat 9y ago
Well. Maybe it's really just about allowing ISPs to run the same exploitative business models as Google's intimate personal information empire, Google/Apple's 30% tax app stores with far from neutral content policy, etc. But how about giving them some credit? Maybe the plan is to temporarily allow ISPs to suck on some of Google/Youtube monopoly rents (weakening their defenses) while regulators look into regulating the whole pile of internet monopoly garbage? It's possible. And it would be so good.
cmurf 9y ago
It's really unlikely anyone is going to convince a Republican to vote for a Democrat, or vice versa. It's not like politics in other countries were people are willing to switch parties when it's obvious the representation isn't working to their interests. The U.S. is stuck in tribalism for the foreseeable future, if anything it probably gets worse before it gets better. The motivation though, should be on the ~55% of eligible voters who don't vote. If nothing else I think we'd get a better signal to noise ratio in the actual election results, which is exactly why Republicans make up lies about voter fraud, in order to make it harder for citizens to vote. Notice how they aren't running to secure old voting systems and make them auditable. No they go directly to voter suppression and gerrymandering. And it makes complete sense, because if they stop doing that, they lose.

245 points by adidash 9y ago

After reading about Pai, it seems like he was hand selected to be the figure head with which the ISPs would finally take down Net Neutrality. This whole situation sucks, and no matter how much noise we make and activism we take part in, if Pai has the legal footing to ruin the internet, he will.

EGreg 9y ago
That's what I said. Trump selected lots of people like that to head up agencies. They either have no experience, wanted to destroy the agency earlier, or will put their ideology before the will of the people every time.
- arca_vorago 9y ago
  Let's be clear about something here. These are most likely not organic Trump picks. This is about the biggest donors getting their quid pro quo in the form of cabinet picks due to regulatory capture... and leaks of the Obama admin indicate the same thing happened with him, the same with Bush before him, and likely with presidents for a long time. With Obama it was citigroup who got most of the picks if I remember correctly, but with Trump it seems to be a bit more varied. (Eg Eric Princes sister for Education Secretary, etc) Edit: I'd appreciate dialogue instead of just down votes. To clarify, by saying Trumps picks were a bit more varied I wasn't saying it was any better than bankers picking almost all of them. The realpolitik response I usually hear is how only industry experts at a high level can fill these positions, but I simply no longer buy this argument.
  - FilterSweep 9y ago
    I didn't downvote you. I fail to see a Betsy Devos type character in either the Bush or Obama admin. She even wrote in a tax benefit to her neocon college in the Northeast.
    - arca_vorago 9y ago
      I disagree. She was appointed for two primary reasons that I see from my admittedly limited perspective. One, to shore up support of the evangelicals. Two, because of donations made by her brother and similar people. Once in office, abusing her position to give favors to those who get her appointed seems little different to me than bankers donating and getting bankers cabinet positions and then those people doing similar things. (For example, I can almost guarantee if I did some digging I could find similar tax break schemes for their base under each admin) I feel like just because the neocons are slightly easier to hate on than bankers it causes a bit of willful myopia on the subject.
      - FilterSweep 9y ago
        well, between neocons and bankers there's only one group that actively wants certain Americans out of their own country.
    - monocasa 9y ago
      I mean, Pai was an Obama pick for FCC commissioner.
    - thehardsphere 9y ago
      Devos is actually a perfect pick if you assume the goal was to pursue her pet agenda at the expense of every other possible agenda that a Secretary of Education could have. Whether the skids were greased because of her rich brother or not, she still could have been picked by some hypothetical other Republican president. Usually, the completely crooked, bought-their-way-into-the-Cabinet appointment in any given administration is whoever becomes the Commerce Secretary. You don't usually remember who the Commerce Secretary is because they don't typically do anything, but they're almost always a big money donor. There's a bipartisan tradition of that which stretches back to when it was created at the turn of the century.
  - maxerickson 9y ago
    What would an organic Trump pick be if not based on some sort of quid pro quo?
    - redler 9y ago
      Exactly so. While he often adopts the mien of those for whom he is a vehicle, Trump himself has no real political philosophy; every pick is entirely transactional.
      - arca_vorago 9y ago
        That's a good but saddening point. I guess its hella naive of me to imagine a lotus might someday make picks based off who actually is best qualified for the job.
- maxxxxx 9y ago
  That really seems to be the case. See EPA or CFBP.
- thehardsphere 9y ago
  Just a pedantic procedural point: The FCC is not an "agency", but a commission with 5 members. Once a commissioner is named, they cannot be removed by the President for any reason besides misconduct. The two of them besides Mr. Pai who are Republicans have been on for quite a while and their agreement is necessary for this scheme of his to work. He presumably has it, otherwise there would be no vote taking place, so it's not like this is merely a product of Trump’s unique intervention here.
  - binaryblitz 9y ago
    I feel like this happens with every president. People like to blame the person in charge when in reality, there are a LOT of other people doing nefarious things behind the scene. Not trying to let trump off the hook, more so trying to get the message across that we have more to focus on.
LaneRendell 9y ago
Your comment is much better than what I wanted to say: What a douche canoe.
- rocketpastsix 9y ago
  Meh, yours is on point too.
- jdc0589 9y ago
  http://douchecanoe.com http://douchecanoe.com
slouch 9y ago
We've only had the rules for two years, and this only shows that the next administration can also pull and about-face. The lawsuits might not even be settled by then.
- api 9y ago
  That kind of regulatory uncertainty is bad for the industry. Congress really needs to act. ... hahaha ... congress ... act ... hahahahaha ... In all seriousness though: I think it's a mistake to focus on the FCC even now. That's obviously a lost cause. Focus on Congress and the next election cycle. Network neutrality needs to be law.
- koolba 9y ago
  Not only that, I haven't seen any improvement to consumers in the two years that we've had FCC oversight on this. The only places I see improvement are in markets that have managed to create competition between providers. And that tends to only come from municipal players entering the market as the large ISPs (Comcast, Charter, ATT) generally avoid entering markets that have an established player as they'd actually have to compete.
  - bo1024 9y ago
    > Not only that, I haven't seen any improvement to consumers in the two years that we've had FCC oversight on this. That's because net neutrality was already the status quo (though enforced via other means than Title II classification up till 2014). The FCC oversight wasn't supposed to bring improvements -- it was supposed to prevent negative changes (I'm sure we'll see what kinds within the next six months). As for improvements in amount of service, and pricing, and infrastructure, these will require far more intervention.
- murph-almighty 9y ago
  I highly doubt the next administration will do that, for a few reasons 1) Once the cat is out of the bag it's a pain in the ass to put back in. "Hey Comcast and Netflix, your fastlane agreement is now null and void". Tell that to every ISP and software company that made such an agreement. 2) It's hard to get the government to pay attention even when there are people sympathetic to your case. Getting Tom Wheeler to about-face was a huge effort. This isn't to say it CAN'T happen. I'd just prefer for NN to not be removed in the first place.
Delmania 9y ago
He doesn't. Ignoring the public comment period and making comments like demonstrate he's not acting in the interest of the consumer. There's a good chance a federal judge will strike this down.
- omginternets 9y ago
  >There's a good chance a federal judge will strike this down. Is there any historical precedent for this? I'm trying to assess the resemblance between this case and such a hypothetical case. I want to believe...
  - Facemelters 9y ago
    Yes. The notice and comment period is intended to prevent arbitrary or capricious decisions by agencies.
    - paulmd 9y ago
      What makes this decision arbitrary or capricious? The administration and the FCC see a policy objective in deregulating the internet, just because you disagree with it doesn't make it arbitrary. It's going to have definite winners (telcoms) and losers (tech companies) but that is true of literally every type of regulation. There are respects in which, say, fracking is not the best thing for the public either (lighting your tap water on fire, etc). The party in charge gets to decide what the best interests of the public are, and what policies to use to achieve them.
      - dragonwriter 9y ago
        > What makes this decision arbitrary or capricious? Disregard of the integrity of the legally-mandatory public comment process is, in and of itself, strong evidence that there is a violation of procedural rules governing regulation.
        paulmd 9y ago
doubt_me 9y ago
Its now December 2017. Everybody knew about his plan the day he was sworn in as chairman. Between the resources at Google/ Yahoo/ FB/ Ycombinator alone they have the money, lawyers, know how, and have had since November of last year to do something about this, anything. anything at all. Actually, any fortune 500 company. Not a single whisper from wall street. not a single whisper from the private sector. Obviously insane levels of fraud happening with the comments being written by russian bots, fake names, and missing real comments with all investigations going nowhere thanks to shit pai. We will probably loose it for good. it will most likely be a very slow process to make sure nobody is riled up enough to actually do anything about it. I can almost guarantee instead of fixing or trying to solve any issues. Verizon, comcast, At&T, Tmobile and sprint all have new plans ready to roll out will full marketing behind them. It is up to us state by state to dismantle the communication cartels once and for all. But naw, some bot will flag this post just like the other 500+ threads that have popped up since November of last year critical of the government in any way shape or form. Seriously HN get your shit together, absolutely pathetic that it has even come to this point. Ycombinator is who they are directly attacking, 12 gauge to the head, yet nobody around here seems to actually think they are worthy enough to live. Let alone get a fast, dependable, and cheap/ fair price on our own internet that the tax payers have paid for over and over again. If that is the case then maybe we all deserve to loose it. I kind of am hoping we do. I want a new internet with blackjack and hookers. only way possible to make it happen is if the entire country were to be pushed at once to move on beyond ISPs grasp and make our own mesh networks. This is that opportunity to build something new and fresh and in our own control, something that will most likely take years and years to accomplish but once its done and stable enough to handle the countries users there will literally be zero use for an ISP beyond a public utility. THEY ARE LITERALLY GIVING US THE KEYS TO THE FUTURE AND EVERYONE IS FUCKING MOPING AROUND LIKE YOU'VE NEVER SEEN THIS COMING. Communication cartels RIP was a good run guys. See you around when you crash the markets!
- nrhk 9y ago
  It's fine, the real innovation moves on. Telecommunication is a history of openness followed by control, radio, tv, internet and whatever comes next. At least hopefully this isn't the end.
adamnemecek 9y ago
The problem with anti-Trump protests is that they will never get physical.
- Clubber 9y ago
  Not sure why this is downvoted. It's an uncomfortable thought but very little change has been brought forth in the US (and the world, historically) with peaceful protest. Too easy to ignore when politicians get paid millions to ignore it. Think the abolitionist movement (pre-Civil War) was peaceful? Nope. Think women's suffrage was peaceful? Nope. Think Vietnam protests were peaceful? Nope. Think civil rights movement was peaceful? Nope. BLM peaceful? Nope. Was the Occupy Wall Street movement peaceful? Yup. Was the protests of NSA spying peaceful? Yup. Was the Iraq war protests peaceful? Yup. Was the US Patriot Act protests peaceful? Yup. Are the net neutrality protests peaceful? Yup. What's the difference between the peaceful and non-peaceful protests I listed?
  - castis 9y ago
    It probably got downvoted because people think violence is the absolute wrong way to go about things and assume getting to that level means you've lost a moral battle. I understand why, asking nicely and blocking some streets for a few hours has been so clearly effective throughout history /s.
    - logfromblammo 9y ago
      I happen to subscribe to a rather uncommon school of conflict. Once you have identified an existential threat to you, annihilate it utterly, and don't look back. But be absolutely certain before you start, because that's not a transaction you can easily roll back. And if you can't win, try not to lose for as long as possible. I'm about 98% of the way to certainty that the current crop of ruling elites present an existential threat to (mostly) peaceful human civilization. Thinking about Putin, Kim, and Trump--all with their fingers on their launch buttons--inspired me to think about possible strategies and tactics for 5th generation warfare, and I'm sorry to say that I believe a shockingly large number of innocents are going to die in this century. Your choice isn't going to be a matter of some people getting hurt and no one getting hurt. Your choice will be whether seven billion people die, or just a few hundred million, possibly including you and your whole family. All those "preppers" out there are very likely planning for the wrong kinds of disasters. This is not going to be a conflict whose outcome hinges on the number or quality of the guns, or the number of years of stored provisions. It will instead depend upon one's ability to discriminate friend from foe. It doesn't manner how many guns you have if the one in your hand is pointed at your own foot, particularly if you have psyops-induced agnosia. I'm not certain if I have the fortitude for war. And I'm not sure if I have the moxie for covert ops. I'm not even sure who would be in the smallest possible set of people that have to die in order for the least-bleak future to come about. My heart wants there to be a solution where no one has to die, but my head has already run too many thought experiments where passive acquiescence leads directly to ruin. There's no doubt in my mind that killing people and destroying property hurts one's own moral center, and that those who grow skilled at war become less suited to serve non-destructive roles in a world at peace. I think maybe I'm just too selfish to make a choice based on the proposition that a future might not exist unless I actively disqualify myself from being a part of it. I'm certainly not going to be the one that moves first. But I am thinking about the second and third moves.
backtoyoujim 9y ago
no offense ... but stick your "just the way it is" up your desk drawer and lock it real tight.
jancsika 9y ago
Are you writing this after having called the relevant representatives and senators for your state?
paulmd 9y ago
> After reading about Pai, it seems like he was hand selected to be the figure head with which the ISPs would finally take down Net Neutrality. He's not. He's a generic Republican, appointed by Obama (since the commission is obligated by Congress to have no more than a simple majority of appointees from any one party). The problem is, this is what all Republicans are like nowadays. Any other person that Obama could have appointed would be doing the exact same thing in these circumstances. And in fact, virtually every other regulatory agency and department is doing the exact same thing thanks to Trump appointees. They are un-interested in any semblance of reasonable governance, it's siphoning your money to their backers in the most direct and aggressive fashion, plain and simple. Elections have consequences. A lot of prominent Silicon Valley figures backed Trump figuring it would be an easy tax cut for them, and this is the result. What's that story Trump liked to tell around the campaign trail, the frog and the scorpion? Everyone fantasizes they'd be the ones to come out on top (Ayn Rand wrote a whole book about it!), but there is always a bigger fish. Welcome to laissez-faire capitalism, where buying the government is part of the game. Free Markets are not a stable social structure by themselves, they need government regulation to keep the playing field level. The truth is not in the middle, and not all viewpoints have equal merit. We have one reasonable party whose positions you may or may not like, and one batshit insane party that begins tearing everything down as soon as they're in power. Shame it takes a lesson like this for people to realize that. Sorry to be blunt, and sorry to bring politics into this forum. But that's the way it is.
- timthelion 9y ago
  How do you determine which party an appointee belongs to? Why didn't Obama appoint someone from the green party?
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    > Why didn't Obama appoint someone from the green party? Because aside from the law governing appointments, there is also the Senate confirmation process, and such a violation of both the spirit of the law and the established informal norms would both be unlikely to survive that process, and complicate other matters before the Senate, which was blocking more routine nominees.

shmerl 9y ago

His smug attitude of showing how he doesn't care about the public he is supposed to serve, will be his downfall in court.

fotbr 9y ago
No, it won't be. Anything involving this will be handled by gov't lawyers, not by him, and you can bet if he does end up in front of the court, his responses will be 100% coached by those lawyers.
- SimbaOnSteroids 9y ago
  His attitude outside of court is admissible to court. It likely would be brought up to show that the agency did not represent the consumer in good faith.
- pwinnski 9y ago
  Federal court cases have already been influenced by the current administration's actions (speeches, interviews, tweets) outside of court documents and statements by attorney. What Pai says now can indeed be referenced within court proceedings. Whether that will be effective or not is unclear.
  - craftyguy 9y ago
    The court system seems to be looking the other way with this current administration though, so I wouldn't get your hopes up too high that his actions would have any effect on any court case.
crisdux 9y ago
Bureaucrats don't serve the public. They serve their institution to implement policy. Policy which is ambiguous. If any lawmakers cared they would have clarified this through law.

falcolas 9y ago

Well, he's not wrong. We are desperate - desperate to keep our internet free from corporate greed.

choward 9y ago
Since when is being desperate a bad thing?
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
bo1024 9y ago
Right? "Genocidal conqueror won't delay massacre, says civilians are 'desperate'"
asdgkknio 9y ago
We lost that battle a long time ago. The Internet is mostly corporate now and will be for the foreseeable future.

thrillgore 9y ago

I feel more helpless now than I did on November 9th, 2016.

rocketpastsix 9y ago
Make sure you are registered to vote if you are in the United States. And vote in every election. Even something that seems small like school board has more implications then we know.
- StillBored 9y ago
  And if you live in a city, demand the election commission open more polling places/etc. Low turnout in urban areas is at least partially because people don't want to wait in lines for hours, while the poling places in rural areas have 0 wait times...
- craftyguy 9y ago
  Give me candidates worth voting for first.
  - ConceptJunkie 9y ago
    This is the most important issue. The system is rigged in favor of the incumbents in many, many ways.
    - rocketpastsix 9y ago
      Nothing stopping you from running, even if it is to just push the conversation in a certain direction.
- ghostly_s 9y ago
  Not enough.
- rev_null 9y ago
  Wasn't Pai appointed by Trump instead of by election? Didn't most of the voting Americans vote against Trump? It seems like a better approach to US politics is to be rich.

peterwwillis 9y ago

Does anyone remember when Jack Valenti was widely mocked for his being instrumental in abusing the rights of consumers? There were huge campaigns against the MPAA and Valenti. Where's the PR push back from the techno-intelligentsia? Why aren't we pointing out Pai's attacks on the rights of American citizens? Why aren't we pointing out to regular people why this is clearly an attack on one of the few freedoms they have left? Where are the "Put this in your Pai hole" t-shirts and bumper stickers?

redler 9y ago
By now they're probably suffering from nihilistic-destruction-of-institutions-failure-of-imagination fatigue.

tempodox 9y ago

On the verge of being sold out by a corporate shill? You can bet we are desperate.

imgabe 9y ago

If ISPs are going to gut net neutrality, we need a way to introduce real competition into the market. I wouldn't care if Comcast wanted to sell me access to 5 websites for $99 or whatever crap they're trying to pull if I had the option to switch to a better deal somewhere else. Strong state and local laws protecting the right to form municipal ISPs would be a good start. Those seem to scare Comcast & friends the most. If corporate ISPs become significantly restrictive, I think we'd see a big upsurge in interest for municipal broadband.

c3534l 9y ago
Telecommunications tend to form a natural monopoly. It's a bit like roads and railroads, only you're transporting information rather than people. I looked online and it's got all the common characteristics: there are few close substitutes, the product is non-storable (although, maybe if it gets bad enough in the US we'll start seeing services that mail us USBs full of last week's Hacker News posts), supply is all about location, and fixed costs are unusually high relative to variable costs.
- masklinn 9y ago
  Oh no, don't you read mises and vood^H^H^H^HAustrian Economics? Natural monopolies don't exist: https://mises.org/library/myth-natural-monopoly https://mises.org/library/myth-natural-monopoly
  - logfromblammo 9y ago
    Natural monopolies exist, but they don't perpetually persist. They can fluctuate between monopoly, single firm with pricing power plus challenger(s), unstable market, and complete market collapse with no suppliers. Legally protected monopolies are intended to avoid the latter state, especially where interruptions of service could have ripple effects on other industries. I believe the legislative goal was never about costs or overbuilt infrastructure, but to ensure that at least one provider was always available. So they chose to mandate that there could never be more than one. For the sake of having a dial tone 99.99% of the time, they made the choice for everyone that phone service would cost more, for everyone, every day, forever. Talking about "natural monopoly" is just a distraction. The de jure monopoly is about the difference between "no choice" and "zero choices". You may have made the same choice on a smaller scale when designing code that expects exactly one input instead of zero to N inputs. An alternate solution would be to operate a state-owned, not-for-profit utility, as the supplier of last resort, but that has its own problems, which may be more or less difficult than the monopoly problems, depending on specific circumstances. Von Mises is a good economics resource for libertarian-leaning folks, but you can't trust any single macro-economist to get everything right. I'm actually not sure any single one of them is more than 50% correct, or even if their amount of correctness is stable over time. Markets have this annoying habit of integrating all information, whether true or false, and reacting to it. This includes everything that all economists in all schools have ever written. It truly is a dismal science.

artursapek 9y ago

Honest question, what changes can we expect as ISP consumers if this happens? A follow up, if all it is is them charging customers more for using more bandwidth, how is that any different from any other fundamental resource like water, electricity, etc? Why should I pay as much money for my SSH and Hacker News as the guy down the street streaming Netflix all day?

tangent128 9y ago
Metered usage is not a violation of neutrality. Varying prices or manipulating quality of service based on the endpoint's identity is.
- artursapek 9y ago
  So if I understand, they're disguising this as "Netflix eats up so much bandwidth" but really it's "we want an unfair advantage over Netflix"? Otherwise, I have no idea why republicans would support this.
  - tzs 9y ago
    In the case of Trump, no one knows if he would support or oppose net neutrality if he knew what it was. He thinks net neutrality means that websites will be required to be neutral in their content [1], which will be used to target conservative media. [1] "Obama’s attack on the internet is another top down power grab. Net neutrality is the Fairness Doctrine. Will target conservative media." https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/532608358508167168 https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/53260835850816716...
  - bo1024 9y ago
    Yes, that's a good assessment. You can think of it this way: ISPs act like roads between people's houses and the sites they want to access. People currently pay ISPs to reserve a certain amount of road, and net neutrality says they can drive whatever cars they want over that fraction of road without being discriminated against in pricing or speed. The ISPs say things like "xx% of traffic is Netflix -- that uses up an unfair portion of bandwidth". But a more accurate phrasing is that xx% of people on the road choose to fill their purchased slots with Netflix traffic. Right now, since all traffic on the road is routed fairly and equally under NN, all video services can compete on a fair footing. But after eliminating NN, ISPs will be able to charge users a big premium based on what kind of traffic they route down the road, even though there's no difference given that they already paid to reserve that portion of the road. So ISPs can route their own video service faster and everyone else's slower (or charge you extra to regain equal speeds), which squashes competition. > I have no idea why republicans would support this. I don't get it either. I think that most republican politicians have little understanding of the issue and how anti-competitive it would be to eliminate NN. Instead, they just hear superficial arguments that "NN is a regulation, and regulations are bad for competition" and since this comes from other Republicans, they trust and believe it. Unfortunately the ones it's coming from are lobbied really hard by ISPs, perhaps they believe their own propaganda.

kstrauser 9y ago

Yes, we are desperate for a representative government. May we have one please?

TYPE_FASTER 9y ago

What are our alternatives for wireless and wired ISPs? I'm done with the incumbents. I'm familiar with Republic Wireless and Google Fi, but I'm a long-time iPhone user who doesn't really want to switch. Are there any similar carriers who fully support iOS? Given the control wired home ISPs have, what are the alternatives? Is there a good, reasonably affordable wireless alternative?

super-serial 9y ago
I was thinking of Project Fi but Google just buys the data from TMobile/Sprint/US Cellular. So the same carriers just get richer, giving them more power. There's really no way to hurt the carriers or ISPs bottom line. The only thing I can think of is supporting municipal broadband. I wish there was some generic nation-wide municipal broadband fund I could pledge to donate to if net neutrality is revoked. I'd even pledge the same monthly amount I pay my ISP.
- skykooler 9y ago
  Project Fi also locks you into Android phones. Good luck running an iPhone, or Windows phone, or Sailfish OS phone on that.
  - mmagin 9y ago
    As I understand it activation requires using an android phone, but it's entirely possible to then use it with an iPhone.

PhrosTT 9y ago

Are there any tools we should download before half the internet is blocked? (Can't believe I had to just write that).

ateesdalejr 9y ago
Get Tor while it still lasts. And just about anything on gnu.org's ftp servers.

dgritsko 9y ago

So, suppose everyone's worst nightmares come true - the FCC proceeds down the path it's currently on and ISPs begin to implement arbitrary throttling/blocking of content. How will something like SpaceX's planned "mesh network" of thousands of internet-providing satellites affect the landscape?

Blaiz0r 9y ago

Is there really no alternative to using an ISP for a connection? Is it possible to build a decentralised and encrypted network on our mobile phones? I guess we still have to run traffic through mobile service providers...

CompuHacker 9y ago
<speculation> Use an educational or national institution for an Internet connection, bypassing commercial networks.
- jlgaddis 9y ago
  Those educational networks still connect to the commercial networks, via commercial ISPs.
binaryblitz 9y ago
We're a ways away from it being as powerful as our current internet solution, but it's called a meshnet. On a super basic level everyone connects to eachother via wifi. No ISPs or mobile providers are part of it.

jordigh 9y ago

"Chairman Pai's plan to restore Internet freedom" This phrase bugs me so much. I can't believe they're calling the end of net neutrality "internet freedom".

elsurudo 9y ago
There is an argument to be made that hijacking the word "freedom" for this was already half the battle for repealing net neutrality. Good luck battling "freedom" in America... If only the other side could have gotten there first.
euvitudo 9y ago
It’s a matter of perspective. Freedom from what? In this case it’s freedom from regulation. It’s like hospitals always wanting to cut costs. But it’s never about the patient saving money.
nasredin 9y ago
Stay away from Orwell's 1984. You will be pissed.

YouAreGreat 9y ago

Well. Maybe it's really just about allowing ISPs to run the same exploitative business models as Google's intimate personal information empire, Google/Apple's 30% tax app stores with far from neutral content policy, etc. But how about giving them some credit? Maybe the plan is to temporarily allow ISPs to suck on some of Google/Youtube monopoly rents (weakening their defenses) while regulators look into regulating the whole pile of internet monopoly garbage? It's possible. And it would be so good.

cmurf 9y ago

It's really unlikely anyone is going to convince a Republican to vote for a Democrat, or vice versa. It's not like politics in other countries were people are willing to switch parties when it's obvious the representation isn't working to their interests. The U.S. is stuck in tribalism for the foreseeable future, if anything it probably gets worse before it gets better. The motivation though, should be on the ~55% of eligible voters who don't vote. If nothing else I think we'd get a better signal to noise ratio in the actual election results, which is exactly why Republicans make up lies about voter fraud, in order to make it harder for citizens to vote. Notice how they aren't running to secure old voting systems and make them auditable. No they go directly to voter suppression and gerrymandering. And it makes complete sense, because if they stop doing that, they lose.