13 ms·

Tech luminaries call net neutrality vote an 'imminent threat'

279 points by kjhughes 9y ago

betterunix2 9y ago
Not that this will make a difference in the outcome of Thursday's vote. I urge everyone to look at the actual proposed rules, and in particular the technical background and explanations. Basically, if ISPs claimed something in their comments, the FCC assumes it is true and dismisses any contradictory claims submitted by others. The entire comment period was for show. Pai and his republican co-commissioners are going to jam this through regardless of what anyone says or does. He was brazen enough to admit, early on, that he does not care whether or not his plan is unpopular and that what the public thinks makes no difference whatsoever. The only way to change this is to convince Congress that this is an election issue. Unfortunately there are too many other things happening right now, so net neutrality is being drowned in the noise and will likely continue to be drowned in the noise.
- epistasis 9y ago
  I wonder if the lack of regulatory process, and clear corruption here, would allow for a remedy in the courts. If the FCC is not fulfilling it's obligations according to the law, in terms of addressing and considering reasonable decisions, then they may be in violation of the laws that give FCC authority in the first place. I know very little about the FCC, but the DOE and FERC, up until the latest administration, were under very clear legislative imperatives in performing reasoned and justified regulation. Typically courts are quite deferential to the regulatory agencies, but when there's clear evidence of fraud, judges have been known to go with a reasoned interpretation of the law rather than just deferring to the FCC to do whatever it wants.
  - Retric 9y ago
    Existing monopoly laws could also have some bite if ISP's are not already shielded. Slow Netflix while pushing Cable subscriptions could be a rather large issue.
    - takeda 9y ago
      At this point companies like Netflix will probably do just fine (that's why they are not pressing as much about it), because of the popularity they might not even be requested to pay anything. The issue is for companies that will try to exists after that and would offer better service than Netflix. They won't succeed because: "well, the service might be cheaper and offer more shows, but it is dogshit slow and unusable/goes against my datacap so why should I use it?"
  - techsupporter 9y ago
    I read...somewhere, can't find it now that I try to go looking for the source...that the most likely remedy, in that article's opinion, is the Administrative Procedures Act. The author basically said that the APA doesn't permit reversing rules without a factual basis as to why they should be reversed, particularly if the rules being reversed were recently adopted using a stronger evaluation. I'm not versed in the APA at all so I might be remembering the article wrong but it seemed reasonable.
    - shkkmo 9y ago
      I think this is the piece you are referring to: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/22/opinion/courts-net-neutrality-fcc.html?mtrref=www.google.ca&assetType=opinion https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/22/opinion/courts-net-neutra... Most relevant section: >So drastic is the reversal of policy (if, as expected, the commission approves Mr. Pai’s proposal next month), and so weak is the evidence to support the change, that it seems destined to be struck down in court. > The problem for Mr. Pai is that government agencies are not free to abruptly reverse longstanding rules on which many have relied without a good reason, such as a change in factual circumstances. A mere change in F.C.C. ideology isn’t enough. As the Supreme Court has said, a federal agency must “examine the relevant data and articulate a satisfactory explanation for its action.” Given that net neutrality rules have been a huge success by most measures, the justification for killing them would have to be very strong. However, a legal challenge will likely take a while to wend it's way to the Supreme Court.
  - davidw 9y ago
    The courts that are being packed with unqualified judges? https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/11/12/he-has-never-tried-a-case-but-trump-wants-to-make-him-judge-for-life/?utm_term=.6916a7d790e7 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/11/12/h...
    - rayiner 9y ago
      The criticisms of Brett Talley are ignorant. The article talks about whether he has "tried a case" but he's an appellate lawyer, not a trial lawyer. Talley graduated near the top of his class at Harvard Law, completed appellate and district court clerkships, was Deputy Solicitor General in the Alabama Attorney General's office, and is currently at the Office of Legal Counsel. If he clocked in a few more years doing that line of work, he'd be perfectly qualified. But he still would never have "tried a case."
      - cmurf 9y ago
        The American Bar Association unanimously declared him not qualified based on his inexperience. https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/uncategorized/GAO/TalleyratinglettertoGrassleyandFeinstein.authcheckdam.pdf https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/uncategorized/GA...
        rayiner 9y ago
        The ABA criteria require a judicial nominee to generally have twelve years of legal experience, which Talley obviously doesn't. If that's all the media said about Talley, that would be fine. But the criticisms go far beyond that, misrepresent the strength of the rest of his background, and veer off into ignorant assertions about "trying cases."
        CalChris 9y ago
        Judges have lifetime tenure so maybe requiring a lengthy resume isn’t such a bad idea. This strikes me as nominating a young conservative who will serve for a long time when Republicans stonewalled Obama’s very qualified nominees.
- artorias 9y ago
  >Pai and his republican co-commissioners are going to jam this through regardless of what anyone says or does Australian lawmakers are lauded as heroes for doing the same thing. The double think here is insane.
- pythonaut_16 9y ago
  I'm actually somewhat satisfied with how they're ramming this vote through right now. Not because I want to lose Net Neutrality, but because if it is going to happen, it's best that it happens now, early in Trump's term, and that the process of forcing the vote is messy. Two possible silver linings if it does get removed on the 14th: 1. We were wrong the whole time and reversing net neutrality launches us into a golden age of fast and cheap internet for all. (Very unlikely) 2. We were right, and reversing net neutrality is as bad as we feared. While it will be painful in the short term, hopefully it's bad enough to The Internet/Net Neutrality a relevant election issue for more people. Either way, the sure silver lining is that by hashing this out now the consequences will be fully felt by the time the next presidential election rolls around. Can you imagine if they were trying to shove this through in the lead up to the 2020 election when everyone is distracted by all the other issues at stake in the election?
  - 8ytecoder 9y ago
    Most people are not going to realise the pain. It's one of those issues that affect people but they would never understand why. In spite of scientists saying climate change is real and it's affecting us directly (floods, heat waves,...etc) people still can't put 2 and 2 together to ask for change. I don't think ISPs would be dumb enough to drastically become cable-operatorish and charge customers for every website. The pain will be felt by small companies and competition (albeit indirectly).
    - takeda 9y ago
      I'm fairly sure they early stages will even look like it was a good change, making some people wonder why were they even fighting it. For example excluding affiliated sites from any caps (let's stream 4k movies from Hulu, RedBox etc even if you have lower bandwidth than necessary, you would be excluded for these services) or have data caps not apply for affiliated sites. For an extra fee you could also get similar treatment for non-affiliated sites (Netflix, YouTube, Amazon Video etc). In the mean time everything else will gradually is getting slower and slower. Tough luck for any new startup trying to enter the market. As it already is difficult right now, it will be nearly impossible after that. The absolutely bad things (throttling/blocking/modifying content of sites the companies don't agree with) will happen much much later.
- setecgastronomy 9y ago
  > He was brazen enough to admit, early on, that he does not care whether or not his plan is unpopular and that what the public thinks makes no difference whatsoever. Looks like it. It's pretty surprising how ambivalent the guy is to public pressure. Also, we really need to look into how government and regulation works in this country. What's the point of having a regulatory system for industries if the officials of companies in these industry lead the governmental/regulatory agencies? If former goldman sachs officials run financial agencies and if a former verizon official runs the FCC, what's the point of these agencies?
  - betterunix2 9y ago
    There is nothing specific wrong with industry people working at regulatory agencies; in fact, good regulation should include the input of the regulated industries (failure to do so was a causative factor in the bankruptcy of railroads in the 60s and 70s). The problem with this proceeding is that it is based only on industry comments and ignores other voices, which is the worst way to create regulation. Remember that Wheeler was a former cable industry lobbyist. Unlike Pai, he actually listened to non-industry voices during his proceeding and created rules based on inputs from many different sources. He did not give net neutrality advocates everything we wanted, but he did listen and did create something much better than what the industry has been demanding.
    - ajnin 9y ago
      Industry people working at regulatory agencies is an obvious conflict of interest. Taking inputs from various parties, including the industry and the general public, to then make an informed decision about the best course of action in the general interest, is a completely different thing.
      - betterunix2 9y ago
        "Industry people working at regulatory agencies is an obvious conflict of interest." Not necessarily. An obvious conflict of interest would be someone who has a significant financial stake in the industry, or someone who is married to a CEO in that industry, etc. Also consider this: who is actually qualified to regulate an industry? It is often the case that the only qualified candidates are people who have worked in the industry or who have worked against it (which is just as much of a conflict of interest). Someone who is clueless could be worse: they could be more susceptible to lobbying pressure, since they have no prior knowledge of the issues they are dealing with. In theory the job of the Senate should be to determine whether or not a candidate will be able to serve the public instead of their former industry bosses. Such people definitely exist -- Tom Wheeler is a prominent example. We also have an impeachment procedure to deal with the possibility of failure i.e. the possibility of the Senate confirming a regulator who fails to serve the public; by now there is ample evidence that confirming Pai was a mistake, but with today's hyper-partisan Congress there is not much hope for impeachment.
- CamperBob2 9y ago
  The only way to change this is to convince Congress that this is an election issue. Here's what I don't understand, maybe someone has some insights. Demographics is not on the side of the Republicans. It hasn't been for a long time, and the imbalance is getting worse, not only because of immigration but because the Republicans depend on older white voters. That cohort isn't growing at the rate it needs to, if the Republicans are to continue to win elections at either the local or national level. If they aren't careful, many of the gerrymandered districts they've constructed so carefully will turn into electoral deathtraps. So, given that they must expand their appeal to younger, more diverse voters, why are they choosing this hill to die on? Internet regulation is one of the vanishingly-few issues that actually gets young people involved in the political system. It gets them to sign petitions, call their representatives, and -- who knows? -- maybe even vote. If and when the ISPs follow through on their newly-granted powers to balkanize and channelize the Web, the outrage will be seismic. Young people and old people alike will remember who made it happen, and will respond accordingly. Every race, every gender, every faith, and almost every individual has a stake in this issue. The rest of the Republican agenda will be imperiled by the resulting groundswell, as people who wouldn't otherwise have bothered to vote do so. In American politics, you can collude with foreign and domestic enemies to install raving demagogues, you can raise peoples' taxes, you can even start wars, but you do not mess with the Internet. The SOPA/PIPA fiasco should have made that clear enough. What exactly is the GOP expecting to happen here?
  - marshray 9y ago
    > given that they must expand their appeal to younger, more diverse voters They gave up trying to appeal to more diverse voters long ago and are becoming increasingly desperate. So desperate that in the last election they took hacking assistance from a foreign adversary. > why are they choosing this hill to die on? They're not. Almost no one outside of our bubble will think about this when they go to vote. On the other hand, this move may be expected to result in substantial campaign contributions from those who stand to benefit.
- tzs 9y ago
  > I urge everyone to look at the actual proposed rules, and in particular the technical background and explanations. They aren't even trying to make sensible, plausible justifications. For example, see paragraph 252, where they discuss paid prioritization. They say ISPs need it because ISPs may not be able to figure out how to do usage based billing of their customers, so they need to be able to make sites like Netflix pay instead.
- throwawaymanbot 9y ago
  I still believe that if the BIG tech companies raise enough stink, that he will back down. I'm curious as to why I have heard nothing in the media from facebook or google or anyone else like them.
matchagaucho 9y ago
For all the zero-rated services that Google and Facebook subsidize globally, they've actually become part of the problem. It seems hypocritical for them to take a pro-net neutrality stance when they're funding the capture of entry-level mobile data plans.
- saghm 9y ago
  I might be wrong, but didn't the net neutrality regulations that were put into place before the current rule change allow zero-rating? A large part of the opposition to the rules change is that it allows paid prioritization, not just zero rating.
  - matchagaucho 9y ago
    Zero-rated services were the trojan horse that led to paid-prioritization. Both producers and consumers have already been conditioned to accept this new model.
coding123 9y ago
So why does no one complain when they benefit from non-net neutrality: https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/6/16262086/t-mobile-free-netflix-family-plan-deal https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/6/16262086/t-mobile-free-net... See the comments and tell me if I missed any.
- 0xfeba 9y ago
  I don't see how do I benefit from a wireless carrier giving me a credit for Netflix access... on their unlimited plan? They aren't zero-rating it AFAICT.
- shkkmo 9y ago
  This article is discussing a give away of netflix accounts to people with unlimited data account, which isn't a net-neutrality issue (while still an example of the anti-competitive desires that encourage major ISPs to push to end net neutrality). However, the prior action, an opt-out scheme to limit bandwidth of streaming video in exchange for zero-rating certain approved streaming providers was vigorously opposed here on HN.
- techsupporter 9y ago
  If T-Mobile wants to pay for something on my behalf, I don't think that's a violation of network neutrality principles for two reasons: First, T-Mobile isn't saying "we pay for your Netflix subscription and we block access to Hulu." Second, the service is opt-in at the customer's discretion. Giving the customer* a choice is the biggest point of the neutrality argument. If the customer, from an open marketplace, makes the decision, fine. If the service provider, particularly in a natural monopoly position, imposes service-specific limitations on the customer, not fine. To my mind, T-Mobile's BingeOn (and rate limiting for subscribers who don't have the ONE Plus add-on) is closer to a violation than simply paying for Netflix subscriptions. * Not that you used this word, but I'm on a mission: I intentionally write "customer" instead of "consumer." We are not consumers; we are customers paying money for a service.
  - ocdtrekkie 9y ago
    T-Mobile isn't paying for something on your behalf. You're paying for cell service. They've just decided to charge you a different rate (in this case, nothing) for YouTube traffic and the like than for everything else. It gives favor and preference to the large established services which are included (by making them free/cheaper for consumers to use), which hurts small startups trying to disrupt the market. Binge On is the exact definition of a net neutrality violation, but since it's not available "a la carte" as an "add-on", nobody's really talking about it. Free things pass under the radar. Zero rating by T-Mobile hasn't been blocked by the FCC's existing rules which is one of the reason's I'm in support of the repeal: The orders being repealed aren't even protecting our net neutrality successfully.
Mozilz_spoofing 9y ago
It's kinda sad the only time the Woz is relevant anymore is on political commentary.
stevew20 9y ago
The French have a long history of beheading bureaucrats who refused to properly do their jobs. It was a system of checks that helped keep the bureaucrats from becoming tyrannical, ignoring the will of the public, and farcically rigging votes. It seems that Paj has embodied all three of these characteristics, and in an incredibly short amount of time. It would behoove him to realize that the only thing that keeps anyone safe in the country is the social contract we have with eachother. The government has the power to find and punish people, but not the power to keep any individual safe. Breaking this social contract is very dangerous, and Paj seems to think that because he holds a government office, this contract no longer applies to him.
- stevew20 9y ago
  Also, please ignore the auto corrections from Pai to Paj, apparently Google Keyboard doesn't even like the bastard...
  - ta456789 9y ago
    He looks like the love child of Trump and Guy Smiley, I'm surprised noone has cleaned his dial yet.
    - stevew20 9y ago
      His looks matter not at all. His decisions, however, are disgusting, and invite the anger of the more technically inclined in our nation down upon him.
- shkkmo 9y ago
  In as much as you seem to be making any point with your comment, that points seems to be a veiled threat that has no place in this discussion.
  - stevew20 9y ago
    Nope, no veiled threat. For example, when someone chooses to go diving with sharks, they've made a decision that puts them in harm's way. Being a public servant (as all government jobs are), and refusing to acknowledge the will of the people you serve, is similarly dangerous. You put yourself in a place that has no social protections, by violating trust.
joering2 9y ago
I keep asking: where the HECK is Facebook? Zuckerberg needs to forget about profits for a moment, and put a 5-minute blackout page instead of people's feed. And phone number Geolocated to their representative. I guarantee this will change the winds of internet history!
- Crespyl 9y ago
  Facebook wants NN gone, so that they can sell their curated "Free Basics" plan with ISPs, blocking everything outside of Facebook and maybe Wikipedia. They want to lock low income people into the Facebook bubble.
  - omnimus 9y ago
    I was thinking about this since they are "somehow" for NN. I believe they want NN to be gone only in places where they can be their own ISP (as they try in Africa and India with internet.org). In US they already have the market in their hands and NN actually gives them certain protection so Verizon can't make their version of facebook and price them out of the market. US without NN could be much more expensive for Facebook. And as much as i hate Facebook this is the reason for NN. I can't understand why would anyone think that Internet is not utility like electricity and water. It is crazy how can get people confused and some people even here on HN are against NN.
  - SketchySeaBeast 9y ago
    That'll make all the "fake news" links a very interesting affair.
  - joering2 9y ago
    ? I thought that Zuckerberg was for internet freedom?? Project Free Internet in India and his non-profit??
    - Crespyl 9y ago
      Quite the opposite[0]. "Free Basics" was the name of the program, and it only allowed access to Facebook and whatever sites whichever sites Facebook (in all its infinite wisdom) decided were appropriate for the users to visit. The program was eventually found to be in violation of India's neutrality rules and was shut down. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Basics#Net_neutrality_criticism_in_India https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Basics#Net_neutrality_cri...
glitcher 9y ago
All signs point to net neutrality being killed this week no matter who opposes it, but I applaud all those that stand up for their voices to be heard. Just because those currently in power are choosing to ignore those voices doesn't mean they aren't heard, and even if net neutrality dies this week doesn't mean it can't be resurrected later. The more voices loudly protesting, the more momentum there will be to help correct this travesty in the next election cycle.
- guelo 9y ago
  The next time this political battle comes up the ISPs will have the legal authority to censor any pro neutrality voices.
danjoc 9y ago
Apple Siri promotes Google over Bing for billions of dollars. Net Neutral. Mozilla promotes Google over Yahoo and switches user search preferences back to Google. Net Neutral. Google blocks YouTube access from Amazon's streaming devices. Net Neutral. Netflix throttles AT&T and Verizon customers. Net Neutral. You know why I don't care if Pai "repeals" NN?
- WiseWeasel 9y ago
  The FCC regulation of ISPs isn't expected to right every wrong in the technology sector; the only US laws those cases might have transgressed are anti-competition/monopoly, regulated by the FTC. You've not provided any support for ending the regulation of ISPs as common carriers. Netflix throttles AT&T and Verizon customers. Net Neutral. They've limited the bitrate/quality for the benefit of the consumer, since those ISPs have low monthly bandwidth limits. This allows them to watch more video before they hit their bandwidth limits, something most would probably find to be a desirable tradeoff.
  - danjoc 9y ago
    >the only US laws those cases might have transgressed are anti-competition/monopoly, regulated by the FTC. That's the point. When you put up a law that says "Cable Co can't do this, but Internet Co can" it offends my sense of fairness.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
- belltaco 9y ago
  That's like saying that it's okay to get rid of Fire Code regulations because they do nothing to prevent road accidents.
  - danjoc 9y ago
    It's more like: Inns and hotels subject to fire code regulation and AirBnB is not? Fine, remove the fire code regulations, since they're obviously unnecessary.
AngeloAnolin 9y ago
Aren't government officials supposed to be working FOR the public, rather than some vested interests by a few? And shouldn't you be listening when the people who have made internet possible today (Tim Berners-Lee, Steven Bellovin, Steve Wozniak and Brewster Kahle to name a few) is very much against it? The vote, the process and the resulting decision otherwise should be done in an objective and transparent manner. Just the way that the internet has been envisioned to be.
- jandrese 9y ago
  The people already had their say on this last year. They demand more crony capitalism in government, and elected the leaders who would most effectively enact these policies for them. Well, technically it wasn't a majority, but it was a majority of the people who's votes count the most.
  - dexterdog 9y ago
    Was there an alternative that would have meant less crony capitalism in government?
    - jandrese 9y ago
      Yes, but he didn't make it out of the primaries.
      - matwood 9y ago
        > Yes, but he didn't make it out of the primaries. Because of crony politics.
      - PostOnce 9y ago
        It wasn't merely bad luck, nor was it the will of the people. Rather than the DNC machine working to find which candidate the Democratic party voters at large preferred, they actively worked against Sanders; it was a machine to elect Clinton, not a machine to enact the will of the Democrats (the people, not the party's inner circle). I doubt they learned anything at all from their failure to get Clinton elected, though. I don't know that Sanders could have won the general election, but arguably the DNC's sabotage of the Sanders campaign and their subsequent failure to win the general election (with probably Russian interference) has and will continue to cost us dearly, now that we have lost much good faith in our international relations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Democratic_National_Committee_email_leak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Democratic_National_Commi... https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/11/02/clinton-brazile-hacks-2016-215774 https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/11/02/clinton-b... http://observer.com/2017/08/court-admits-dnc-and-debbie-wasserman-schulz-rigged-primaries-against-sanders/ http://observer.com/2017/08/court-admits-dnc-and-debbie-wass...
westurner 9y ago
> “The current technically-incorrect order discards decades of careful work by FCC chairs from both parties, who understood the threats that Internet access providers could pose to open markets on the Internet.” Paid prioritization is that threat. Again, streaming video content for all ages is not more important than online courses.
theptip 9y ago
An interesting counterpoint to the standard arguments equating support for Net Neutrality with support for Title II classification of broadband providers, from Ben Thompson: https://stratechery.com/2017/pro-neutrality-anti-title-ii/ https://stratechery.com/2017/pro-neutrality-anti-title-ii/ > Allow me to state this point plainly: I am absolutely in favor of net neutrality... The question at hand, though, is what is the best way to achieve net neutrality? > Any regulatory decision — indeed, any decision period — is about tradeoffs. To choose one course of action is to gain certain benefits and incur certain costs... 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. > 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... and you wonder why anyone opens a restaurant at all. > 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. 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. After all, regulation always has a cost far greater than what we can see at the moment it is enacted, and given the importance of the Internet, those costs are massively more consequential than restaurants or just about anything else.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- vkou 9y ago
  > 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... and you wonder why anyone opens a restaurant at all. 13 of those 14 permits are not for food safety, but that doesn't stop op-eds from being deliberately dishonest about it. Most of those regulations have been written in blood - but surely we'll all be better off if we just bulldoze Chesterton's fence!
  - 9y ago
notadoc 9y ago
> Tech luminaries call net neutrality vote an 'imminent threat' If tech companies and luminaries genuinely considered the loss of net neutrality as an existential threat, wouldn't they be hiring every lobbyist under the sun to fight for it?
- 1_2__4 9y ago
  They have. The fact that it didn’t work should inform you about how politics works today
notliketherest 9y ago
I hope these individuals and companies fight for and win the change they want to see in the world because I agree with them. But I hope the vote passes tomorrow and ISPs no longer fall under Title 2 regulations. A 100 year old law cannot possibly fit the world of global, decentralized digital information sharing that the internet has become in the last 20 years. We need a new law for the new time. And it's this passion and energy we need from these luminaries and large companies to get people aware enough of the problem to pressure congress to do something about it. So the fight doesn't end tomorrow, it starts tomorrow.
danblick 9y ago
I don't understand how the administration can support this change. Allowing carriers to discriminate against content providers seems like legalizing extortion. Is there an argument in favor of this change that would convince a reasonable person?
jokoon 9y ago
What about the devil's advocate? As the internet kept growing for the last 20 years, "global bandwidth" have increased by a lot because of services like youtube, netflix. The democratization of smartphones multiplied this effect: people listens to music using streaming, and you could say it doubled the amount of connected devices (not to mention smartphones update apps quite often). I'm not against net neutrality, but the internet is still a very centralized platform, and it's not surprising that very popular services can become problematic for ISPs. If you look at bandwidth, the largest actors are using a disproportionately larger share of it compared to smaller actors. I just want to ask, is there some accounting of how those big actors contribute to the internet infrastructure, or how much they pay for its access considering the bandwidth usage? I know that monopolies are bad, but I'm really curious about the business of internet infrastructure and how things works.
- Treblemaker 9y ago
  This question touches on something I've wondered about for a while. Why are large actors' usage questioned as if they alone were responsible for their internet traffic? Bits go in and bits come back out somewhere. There are always two endpoints in a connection. Netflix, for example, pays for Netflix's internet connection according to their usage at their endpoint[1]. The consumers cumulatively pay for the same amount of usage; it's just spread across a large number of endpoints. Netflix's ISP and the consumers' ISPs pay for the infrastucture to connect the two together, and set their end user rates accordingly. Nobody in this chain of connections is getting a free ride. Is this deliberate misdirection from the ISPs? Do I have some fundamental misunderstanding? Is it more nuanced than this? [1] ignoring CDNs etc. for the sake of simplyfing the argument

279 points by kjhughes 9y ago

Not that this will make a difference in the outcome of Thursday's vote. I urge everyone to look at the actual proposed rules, and in particular the technical background and explanations. Basically, if ISPs claimed something in their comments, the FCC assumes it is true and dismisses any contradictory claims submitted by others. The entire comment period was for show. Pai and his republican co-commissioners are going to jam this through regardless of what anyone says or does. He was brazen enough to admit, early on, that he does not care whether or not his plan is unpopular and that what the public thinks makes no difference whatsoever. The only way to change this is to convince Congress that this is an election issue. Unfortunately there are too many other things happening right now, so net neutrality is being drowned in the noise and will likely continue to be drowned in the noise.

epistasis 9y ago
I wonder if the lack of regulatory process, and clear corruption here, would allow for a remedy in the courts. If the FCC is not fulfilling it's obligations according to the law, in terms of addressing and considering reasonable decisions, then they may be in violation of the laws that give FCC authority in the first place. I know very little about the FCC, but the DOE and FERC, up until the latest administration, were under very clear legislative imperatives in performing reasoned and justified regulation. Typically courts are quite deferential to the regulatory agencies, but when there's clear evidence of fraud, judges have been known to go with a reasoned interpretation of the law rather than just deferring to the FCC to do whatever it wants.
- Retric 9y ago
  Existing monopoly laws could also have some bite if ISP's are not already shielded. Slow Netflix while pushing Cable subscriptions could be a rather large issue.
  - takeda 9y ago
    At this point companies like Netflix will probably do just fine (that's why they are not pressing as much about it), because of the popularity they might not even be requested to pay anything. The issue is for companies that will try to exists after that and would offer better service than Netflix. They won't succeed because: "well, the service might be cheaper and offer more shows, but it is dogshit slow and unusable/goes against my datacap so why should I use it?"
- techsupporter 9y ago
  I read...somewhere, can't find it now that I try to go looking for the source...that the most likely remedy, in that article's opinion, is the Administrative Procedures Act. The author basically said that the APA doesn't permit reversing rules without a factual basis as to why they should be reversed, particularly if the rules being reversed were recently adopted using a stronger evaluation. I'm not versed in the APA at all so I might be remembering the article wrong but it seemed reasonable.
  - shkkmo 9y ago
    I think this is the piece you are referring to: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/22/opinion/courts-net-neutrality-fcc.html?mtrref=www.google.ca&assetType=opinion https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/22/opinion/courts-net-neutra... Most relevant section: >So drastic is the reversal of policy (if, as expected, the commission approves Mr. Pai’s proposal next month), and so weak is the evidence to support the change, that it seems destined to be struck down in court. > The problem for Mr. Pai is that government agencies are not free to abruptly reverse longstanding rules on which many have relied without a good reason, such as a change in factual circumstances. A mere change in F.C.C. ideology isn’t enough. As the Supreme Court has said, a federal agency must “examine the relevant data and articulate a satisfactory explanation for its action.” Given that net neutrality rules have been a huge success by most measures, the justification for killing them would have to be very strong. However, a legal challenge will likely take a while to wend it's way to the Supreme Court.
- davidw 9y ago
  The courts that are being packed with unqualified judges? https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/11/12/he-has-never-tried-a-case-but-trump-wants-to-make-him-judge-for-life/?utm_term=.6916a7d790e7 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/11/12/h...
  - rayiner 9y ago
    The criticisms of Brett Talley are ignorant. The article talks about whether he has "tried a case" but he's an appellate lawyer, not a trial lawyer. Talley graduated near the top of his class at Harvard Law, completed appellate and district court clerkships, was Deputy Solicitor General in the Alabama Attorney General's office, and is currently at the Office of Legal Counsel. If he clocked in a few more years doing that line of work, he'd be perfectly qualified. But he still would never have "tried a case."
    - cmurf 9y ago
      The American Bar Association unanimously declared him not qualified based on his inexperience. https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/uncategorized/GAO/TalleyratinglettertoGrassleyandFeinstein.authcheckdam.pdf https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/uncategorized/GA...
      - rayiner 9y ago
        The ABA criteria require a judicial nominee to generally have twelve years of legal experience, which Talley obviously doesn't. If that's all the media said about Talley, that would be fine. But the criticisms go far beyond that, misrepresent the strength of the rest of his background, and veer off into ignorant assertions about "trying cases."
        CalChris 9y ago
        Judges have lifetime tenure so maybe requiring a lengthy resume isn’t such a bad idea. This strikes me as nominating a young conservative who will serve for a long time when Republicans stonewalled Obama’s very qualified nominees.
artorias 9y ago
>Pai and his republican co-commissioners are going to jam this through regardless of what anyone says or does Australian lawmakers are lauded as heroes for doing the same thing. The double think here is insane.
pythonaut_16 9y ago
I'm actually somewhat satisfied with how they're ramming this vote through right now. Not because I want to lose Net Neutrality, but because if it is going to happen, it's best that it happens now, early in Trump's term, and that the process of forcing the vote is messy. Two possible silver linings if it does get removed on the 14th: 1. We were wrong the whole time and reversing net neutrality launches us into a golden age of fast and cheap internet for all. (Very unlikely) 2. We were right, and reversing net neutrality is as bad as we feared. While it will be painful in the short term, hopefully it's bad enough to The Internet/Net Neutrality a relevant election issue for more people. Either way, the sure silver lining is that by hashing this out now the consequences will be fully felt by the time the next presidential election rolls around. Can you imagine if they were trying to shove this through in the lead up to the 2020 election when everyone is distracted by all the other issues at stake in the election?
- 8ytecoder 9y ago
  Most people are not going to realise the pain. It's one of those issues that affect people but they would never understand why. In spite of scientists saying climate change is real and it's affecting us directly (floods, heat waves,...etc) people still can't put 2 and 2 together to ask for change. I don't think ISPs would be dumb enough to drastically become cable-operatorish and charge customers for every website. The pain will be felt by small companies and competition (albeit indirectly).
  - takeda 9y ago
    I'm fairly sure they early stages will even look like it was a good change, making some people wonder why were they even fighting it. For example excluding affiliated sites from any caps (let's stream 4k movies from Hulu, RedBox etc even if you have lower bandwidth than necessary, you would be excluded for these services) or have data caps not apply for affiliated sites. For an extra fee you could also get similar treatment for non-affiliated sites (Netflix, YouTube, Amazon Video etc). In the mean time everything else will gradually is getting slower and slower. Tough luck for any new startup trying to enter the market. As it already is difficult right now, it will be nearly impossible after that. The absolutely bad things (throttling/blocking/modifying content of sites the companies don't agree with) will happen much much later.
setecgastronomy 9y ago
> He was brazen enough to admit, early on, that he does not care whether or not his plan is unpopular and that what the public thinks makes no difference whatsoever. Looks like it. It's pretty surprising how ambivalent the guy is to public pressure. Also, we really need to look into how government and regulation works in this country. What's the point of having a regulatory system for industries if the officials of companies in these industry lead the governmental/regulatory agencies? If former goldman sachs officials run financial agencies and if a former verizon official runs the FCC, what's the point of these agencies?
- betterunix2 9y ago
  There is nothing specific wrong with industry people working at regulatory agencies; in fact, good regulation should include the input of the regulated industries (failure to do so was a causative factor in the bankruptcy of railroads in the 60s and 70s). The problem with this proceeding is that it is based only on industry comments and ignores other voices, which is the worst way to create regulation. Remember that Wheeler was a former cable industry lobbyist. Unlike Pai, he actually listened to non-industry voices during his proceeding and created rules based on inputs from many different sources. He did not give net neutrality advocates everything we wanted, but he did listen and did create something much better than what the industry has been demanding.
  - ajnin 9y ago
    Industry people working at regulatory agencies is an obvious conflict of interest. Taking inputs from various parties, including the industry and the general public, to then make an informed decision about the best course of action in the general interest, is a completely different thing.
    - betterunix2 9y ago
      "Industry people working at regulatory agencies is an obvious conflict of interest." Not necessarily. An obvious conflict of interest would be someone who has a significant financial stake in the industry, or someone who is married to a CEO in that industry, etc. Also consider this: who is actually qualified to regulate an industry? It is often the case that the only qualified candidates are people who have worked in the industry or who have worked against it (which is just as much of a conflict of interest). Someone who is clueless could be worse: they could be more susceptible to lobbying pressure, since they have no prior knowledge of the issues they are dealing with. In theory the job of the Senate should be to determine whether or not a candidate will be able to serve the public instead of their former industry bosses. Such people definitely exist -- Tom Wheeler is a prominent example. We also have an impeachment procedure to deal with the possibility of failure i.e. the possibility of the Senate confirming a regulator who fails to serve the public; by now there is ample evidence that confirming Pai was a mistake, but with today's hyper-partisan Congress there is not much hope for impeachment.
CamperBob2 9y ago
The only way to change this is to convince Congress that this is an election issue. Here's what I don't understand, maybe someone has some insights. Demographics is not on the side of the Republicans. It hasn't been for a long time, and the imbalance is getting worse, not only because of immigration but because the Republicans depend on older white voters. That cohort isn't growing at the rate it needs to, if the Republicans are to continue to win elections at either the local or national level. If they aren't careful, many of the gerrymandered districts they've constructed so carefully will turn into electoral deathtraps. So, given that they must expand their appeal to younger, more diverse voters, why are they choosing this hill to die on? Internet regulation is one of the vanishingly-few issues that actually gets young people involved in the political system. It gets them to sign petitions, call their representatives, and -- who knows? -- maybe even vote. If and when the ISPs follow through on their newly-granted powers to balkanize and channelize the Web, the outrage will be seismic. Young people and old people alike will remember who made it happen, and will respond accordingly. Every race, every gender, every faith, and almost every individual has a stake in this issue. The rest of the Republican agenda will be imperiled by the resulting groundswell, as people who wouldn't otherwise have bothered to vote do so. In American politics, you can collude with foreign and domestic enemies to install raving demagogues, you can raise peoples' taxes, you can even start wars, but you do not mess with the Internet. The SOPA/PIPA fiasco should have made that clear enough. What exactly is the GOP expecting to happen here?
- marshray 9y ago
  > given that they must expand their appeal to younger, more diverse voters They gave up trying to appeal to more diverse voters long ago and are becoming increasingly desperate. So desperate that in the last election they took hacking assistance from a foreign adversary. > why are they choosing this hill to die on? They're not. Almost no one outside of our bubble will think about this when they go to vote. On the other hand, this move may be expected to result in substantial campaign contributions from those who stand to benefit.
tzs 9y ago
> I urge everyone to look at the actual proposed rules, and in particular the technical background and explanations. They aren't even trying to make sensible, plausible justifications. For example, see paragraph 252, where they discuss paid prioritization. They say ISPs need it because ISPs may not be able to figure out how to do usage based billing of their customers, so they need to be able to make sites like Netflix pay instead.
throwawaymanbot 9y ago
I still believe that if the BIG tech companies raise enough stink, that he will back down. I'm curious as to why I have heard nothing in the media from facebook or google or anyone else like them.

matchagaucho 9y ago

For all the zero-rated services that Google and Facebook subsidize globally, they've actually become part of the problem. It seems hypocritical for them to take a pro-net neutrality stance when they're funding the capture of entry-level mobile data plans.

saghm 9y ago
I might be wrong, but didn't the net neutrality regulations that were put into place before the current rule change allow zero-rating? A large part of the opposition to the rules change is that it allows paid prioritization, not just zero rating.
- matchagaucho 9y ago
  Zero-rated services were the trojan horse that led to paid-prioritization. Both producers and consumers have already been conditioned to accept this new model.

coding123 9y ago

So why does no one complain when they benefit from non-net neutrality: https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/6/16262086/t-mobile-free-netflix-family-plan-deal https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/6/16262086/t-mobile-free-net... See the comments and tell me if I missed any.

0xfeba 9y ago
I don't see how do I benefit from a wireless carrier giving me a credit for Netflix access... on their unlimited plan? They aren't zero-rating it AFAICT.
shkkmo 9y ago
This article is discussing a give away of netflix accounts to people with unlimited data account, which isn't a net-neutrality issue (while still an example of the anti-competitive desires that encourage major ISPs to push to end net neutrality). However, the prior action, an opt-out scheme to limit bandwidth of streaming video in exchange for zero-rating certain approved streaming providers was vigorously opposed here on HN.
techsupporter 9y ago
If T-Mobile wants to pay for something on my behalf, I don't think that's a violation of network neutrality principles for two reasons: First, T-Mobile isn't saying "we pay for your Netflix subscription and we block access to Hulu." Second, the service is opt-in at the customer's discretion. Giving the customer* a choice is the biggest point of the neutrality argument. If the customer, from an open marketplace, makes the decision, fine. If the service provider, particularly in a natural monopoly position, imposes service-specific limitations on the customer, not fine. To my mind, T-Mobile's BingeOn (and rate limiting for subscribers who don't have the ONE Plus add-on) is closer to a violation than simply paying for Netflix subscriptions. * Not that you used this word, but I'm on a mission: I intentionally write "customer" instead of "consumer." We are not consumers; we are customers paying money for a service.
- ocdtrekkie 9y ago
  T-Mobile isn't paying for something on your behalf. You're paying for cell service. They've just decided to charge you a different rate (in this case, nothing) for YouTube traffic and the like than for everything else. It gives favor and preference to the large established services which are included (by making them free/cheaper for consumers to use), which hurts small startups trying to disrupt the market. Binge On is the exact definition of a net neutrality violation, but since it's not available "a la carte" as an "add-on", nobody's really talking about it. Free things pass under the radar. Zero rating by T-Mobile hasn't been blocked by the FCC's existing rules which is one of the reason's I'm in support of the repeal: The orders being repealed aren't even protecting our net neutrality successfully.

Mozilz_spoofing 9y ago

It's kinda sad the only time the Woz is relevant anymore is on political commentary.

stevew20 9y ago

The French have a long history of beheading bureaucrats who refused to properly do their jobs. It was a system of checks that helped keep the bureaucrats from becoming tyrannical, ignoring the will of the public, and farcically rigging votes. It seems that Paj has embodied all three of these characteristics, and in an incredibly short amount of time. It would behoove him to realize that the only thing that keeps anyone safe in the country is the social contract we have with eachother. The government has the power to find and punish people, but not the power to keep any individual safe. Breaking this social contract is very dangerous, and Paj seems to think that because he holds a government office, this contract no longer applies to him.

stevew20 9y ago
Also, please ignore the auto corrections from Pai to Paj, apparently Google Keyboard doesn't even like the bastard...
- ta456789 9y ago
  He looks like the love child of Trump and Guy Smiley, I'm surprised noone has cleaned his dial yet.
  - stevew20 9y ago
    His looks matter not at all. His decisions, however, are disgusting, and invite the anger of the more technically inclined in our nation down upon him.
shkkmo 9y ago
In as much as you seem to be making any point with your comment, that points seems to be a veiled threat that has no place in this discussion.
- stevew20 9y ago
  Nope, no veiled threat. For example, when someone chooses to go diving with sharks, they've made a decision that puts them in harm's way. Being a public servant (as all government jobs are), and refusing to acknowledge the will of the people you serve, is similarly dangerous. You put yourself in a place that has no social protections, by violating trust.

joering2 9y ago

I keep asking: where the HECK is Facebook? Zuckerberg needs to forget about profits for a moment, and put a 5-minute blackout page instead of people's feed. And phone number Geolocated to their representative. I guarantee this will change the winds of internet history!

Crespyl 9y ago
Facebook wants NN gone, so that they can sell their curated "Free Basics" plan with ISPs, blocking everything outside of Facebook and maybe Wikipedia. They want to lock low income people into the Facebook bubble.
- omnimus 9y ago
  I was thinking about this since they are "somehow" for NN. I believe they want NN to be gone only in places where they can be their own ISP (as they try in Africa and India with internet.org). In US they already have the market in their hands and NN actually gives them certain protection so Verizon can't make their version of facebook and price them out of the market. US without NN could be much more expensive for Facebook. And as much as i hate Facebook this is the reason for NN. I can't understand why would anyone think that Internet is not utility like electricity and water. It is crazy how can get people confused and some people even here on HN are against NN.
- SketchySeaBeast 9y ago
  That'll make all the "fake news" links a very interesting affair.
- joering2 9y ago
  ? I thought that Zuckerberg was for internet freedom?? Project Free Internet in India and his non-profit??
  - Crespyl 9y ago
    Quite the opposite[0]. "Free Basics" was the name of the program, and it only allowed access to Facebook and whatever sites whichever sites Facebook (in all its infinite wisdom) decided were appropriate for the users to visit. The program was eventually found to be in violation of India's neutrality rules and was shut down. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Basics#Net_neutrality_criticism_in_India https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Basics#Net_neutrality_cri...

glitcher 9y ago

All signs point to net neutrality being killed this week no matter who opposes it, but I applaud all those that stand up for their voices to be heard. Just because those currently in power are choosing to ignore those voices doesn't mean they aren't heard, and even if net neutrality dies this week doesn't mean it can't be resurrected later. The more voices loudly protesting, the more momentum there will be to help correct this travesty in the next election cycle.

guelo 9y ago
The next time this political battle comes up the ISPs will have the legal authority to censor any pro neutrality voices.

danjoc 9y ago

Apple Siri promotes Google over Bing for billions of dollars. Net Neutral. Mozilla promotes Google over Yahoo and switches user search preferences back to Google. Net Neutral. Google blocks YouTube access from Amazon's streaming devices. Net Neutral. Netflix throttles AT&T and Verizon customers. Net Neutral. You know why I don't care if Pai "repeals" NN?

WiseWeasel 9y ago
The FCC regulation of ISPs isn't expected to right every wrong in the technology sector; the only US laws those cases might have transgressed are anti-competition/monopoly, regulated by the FTC. You've not provided any support for ending the regulation of ISPs as common carriers. Netflix throttles AT&T and Verizon customers. Net Neutral. They've limited the bitrate/quality for the benefit of the consumer, since those ISPs have low monthly bandwidth limits. This allows them to watch more video before they hit their bandwidth limits, something most would probably find to be a desirable tradeoff.
- danjoc 9y ago
  >the only US laws those cases might have transgressed are anti-competition/monopoly, regulated by the FTC. That's the point. When you put up a law that says "Cable Co can't do this, but Internet Co can" it offends my sense of fairness.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
belltaco 9y ago
That's like saying that it's okay to get rid of Fire Code regulations because they do nothing to prevent road accidents.
- danjoc 9y ago
  It's more like: Inns and hotels subject to fire code regulation and AirBnB is not? Fine, remove the fire code regulations, since they're obviously unnecessary.

AngeloAnolin 9y ago

Aren't government officials supposed to be working FOR the public, rather than some vested interests by a few? And shouldn't you be listening when the people who have made internet possible today (Tim Berners-Lee, Steven Bellovin, Steve Wozniak and Brewster Kahle to name a few) is very much against it? The vote, the process and the resulting decision otherwise should be done in an objective and transparent manner. Just the way that the internet has been envisioned to be.

jandrese 9y ago
The people already had their say on this last year. They demand more crony capitalism in government, and elected the leaders who would most effectively enact these policies for them. Well, technically it wasn't a majority, but it was a majority of the people who's votes count the most.
- dexterdog 9y ago
  Was there an alternative that would have meant less crony capitalism in government?
  - jandrese 9y ago
    Yes, but he didn't make it out of the primaries.
    - matwood 9y ago
      > Yes, but he didn't make it out of the primaries. Because of crony politics.
    - PostOnce 9y ago
      It wasn't merely bad luck, nor was it the will of the people. Rather than the DNC machine working to find which candidate the Democratic party voters at large preferred, they actively worked against Sanders; it was a machine to elect Clinton, not a machine to enact the will of the Democrats (the people, not the party's inner circle). I doubt they learned anything at all from their failure to get Clinton elected, though. I don't know that Sanders could have won the general election, but arguably the DNC's sabotage of the Sanders campaign and their subsequent failure to win the general election (with probably Russian interference) has and will continue to cost us dearly, now that we have lost much good faith in our international relations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Democratic_National_Committee_email_leak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Democratic_National_Commi... https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/11/02/clinton-brazile-hacks-2016-215774 https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/11/02/clinton-b... http://observer.com/2017/08/court-admits-dnc-and-debbie-wasserman-schulz-rigged-primaries-against-sanders/ http://observer.com/2017/08/court-admits-dnc-and-debbie-wass...

westurner 9y ago

> “The current technically-incorrect order discards decades of careful work by FCC chairs from both parties, who understood the threats that Internet access providers could pose to open markets on the Internet.” Paid prioritization is that threat. Again, streaming video content for all ages is not more important than online courses.

theptip 9y ago

An interesting counterpoint to the standard arguments equating support for Net Neutrality with support for Title II classification of broadband providers, from Ben Thompson: https://stratechery.com/2017/pro-neutrality-anti-title-ii/ https://stratechery.com/2017/pro-neutrality-anti-title-ii/ > Allow me to state this point plainly: I am absolutely in favor of net neutrality... The question at hand, though, is what is the best way to achieve net neutrality? > Any regulatory decision — indeed, any decision period — is about tradeoffs. To choose one course of action is to gain certain benefits and incur certain costs... 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. > 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... and you wonder why anyone opens a restaurant at all. > 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. 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. After all, regulation always has a cost far greater than what we can see at the moment it is enacted, and given the importance of the Internet, those costs are massively more consequential than restaurants or just about anything else.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
vkou 9y ago
> 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... and you wonder why anyone opens a restaurant at all. 13 of those 14 permits are not for food safety, but that doesn't stop op-eds from being deliberately dishonest about it. Most of those regulations have been written in blood - but surely we'll all be better off if we just bulldoze Chesterton's fence!
- 9y ago

notadoc 9y ago

> Tech luminaries call net neutrality vote an 'imminent threat' If tech companies and luminaries genuinely considered the loss of net neutrality as an existential threat, wouldn't they be hiring every lobbyist under the sun to fight for it?

1_2__4 9y ago
They have. The fact that it didn’t work should inform you about how politics works today

notliketherest 9y ago

I hope these individuals and companies fight for and win the change they want to see in the world because I agree with them. But I hope the vote passes tomorrow and ISPs no longer fall under Title 2 regulations. A 100 year old law cannot possibly fit the world of global, decentralized digital information sharing that the internet has become in the last 20 years. We need a new law for the new time. And it's this passion and energy we need from these luminaries and large companies to get people aware enough of the problem to pressure congress to do something about it. So the fight doesn't end tomorrow, it starts tomorrow.

danblick 9y ago

I don't understand how the administration can support this change. Allowing carriers to discriminate against content providers seems like legalizing extortion. Is there an argument in favor of this change that would convince a reasonable person?

jokoon 9y ago

What about the devil's advocate? As the internet kept growing for the last 20 years, "global bandwidth" have increased by a lot because of services like youtube, netflix. The democratization of smartphones multiplied this effect: people listens to music using streaming, and you could say it doubled the amount of connected devices (not to mention smartphones update apps quite often). I'm not against net neutrality, but the internet is still a very centralized platform, and it's not surprising that very popular services can become problematic for ISPs. If you look at bandwidth, the largest actors are using a disproportionately larger share of it compared to smaller actors. I just want to ask, is there some accounting of how those big actors contribute to the internet infrastructure, or how much they pay for its access considering the bandwidth usage? I know that monopolies are bad, but I'm really curious about the business of internet infrastructure and how things works.

Treblemaker 9y ago
This question touches on something I've wondered about for a while. Why are large actors' usage questioned as if they alone were responsible for their internet traffic? Bits go in and bits come back out somewhere. There are always two endpoints in a connection. Netflix, for example, pays for Netflix's internet connection according to their usage at their endpoint[1]. The consumers cumulatively pay for the same amount of usage; it's just spread across a large number of endpoints. Netflix's ISP and the consumers' ISPs pay for the infrastucture to connect the two together, and set their end user rates accordingly. Nobody in this chain of connections is getting a free ride. Is this deliberate misdirection from the ISPs? Do I have some fundamental misunderstanding? Is it more nuanced than this? [1] ignoring CDNs etc. for the sake of simplyfing the argument