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In a fully capitalist market for broadband, I would indeed feel net enforced neutrality is not quite as necessary and would agree with the pro-market economist

In a fully capitalist market for broadband, I would indeed feel net enforced neutrality is not quite as necessary and would agree with the pro-market economist comments more. Generally speaking, I would expect that consumers could have a choice between various tiers and qualities of service. I'm fairly sure a "net neutrality" type tier would be one of the options here (there's enough for demand for it.) The current marketplace is a different story. In many places in America, Internet service is a defacto monopoly. And the current legal landscape is anti-competitive and protects the big players. States can't experiment with their own net neutrality policies [1]; heck, legislation is in place in many states to defacto prevent municipal broadband alternatives [2]. And even with private players like Google Fiber, the "big players" show every willingness to use nuisance lawsuits in attempt to delay that pesky capitalist competition from coming into play. [3] I did notice that a lot of the comments in that survey of economists brought up both the anti-competitive nature of the current broadband market, as well as the worry about vertical integration (which also is a monopoly concern). So it's not like they aren't aware of some of the strongest reasons (MHO) for needing net neutrality style regulations at the moment. [1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/11/fcc-will-also-order-states-to-scrap-plans-for-their-own-net-neutrality-laws/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/11/fcc-will-also-or... [2] https://www.freepress.net/sites/default/files/resources/brief_broadband.pdf https://www.freepress.net/sites/default/files/resources/brie... [3] https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20171101/10474538530/att-backs-off-nuisance-lawsuit-intended-to-hamstring-broadband-competitors-like-google-fiber.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20171101/10474538530/att-b...

nickik 9y ago
Exactly. So many people don't get that. Really 'net neutrality' is sort of the wrong battle. I want to be able to write soft real time application on the internet. You are right, the market economist are basically just misinformed about the structure of the market. Most of them are not actually people that know much about the internet or work in that space specifically. My attempt at a solution is to equate packets with real live postal services. The postal service is not allowed to open your packets but they are allowed to look at the stamp. This is how the IP protocol was designed to work, and it would work, but that requires a change in how IP do pricing and so on and so on.

nickik 9y ago

Exactly. So many people don't get that. Really 'net neutrality' is sort of the wrong battle. I want to be able to write soft real time application on the internet. You are right, the market economist are basically just misinformed about the structure of the market. Most of them are not actually people that know much about the internet or work in that space specifically. My attempt at a solution is to equate packets with real live postal services. The postal service is not allowed to open your packets but they are allowed to look at the stamp. This is how the IP protocol was designed to work, and it would work, but that requires a change in how IP do pricing and so on and so on.