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> Facebook's, although ostensibly also for public benefit, is something to be avoided. Without descending into hyperbloics: why? If people want to use Faceboo

> Facebook's, although ostensibly also for public benefit, is something to be avoided. Without descending into hyperbloics: why? If people want to use Facebook then why shouldn't they have the choice of doing so without additional cost? Many mobile providers zero-rate music streaming such as Spotify. Is that bad too?

BoorishBears 9y ago
To blanket proponents of Net Neutrality, yes. The logic being, if you want to start a Spotify competitor, you’re now competing with a solution that has free data baked in. Even if your service is good, Spotify will be much cheaper. My position is a bit more nuanced than that but I’m weary of being blanket downvoted and derided for not just accepting net neutrality as our lord and savior so I’ll stop here...
- andybak 9y ago
  I'm in the mood for some heresy after seeing the WSJ/Peter Thiel article killed just now. Please go on.
  - BoorishBears 9y ago
    Our comments are already all but removed from the conversation... But it's nothing new, my views are just centered around focusing on competition. I don't agree that bits are "just bits" anymore. If we all used internet to read HTML-only websites I'm sure ISPs could guarantee faster speeds and actually keep the guarantees for much less than they do now. Realistically it takes more infrastructure to provide certain types of content at scale and I respect the ISPs rights to reflect that in their pricing. People don't seem to get how Zero rating can benefits consumers without increasing the price of other data. They assume "If Spotify is free, they must be baking the cost into non-Spotify data". Which is not true. People just won't use data if most of their uses of data immediately blow up their data usage (remember back when Internet on phones was measured in KB? Some phones started coming out with J2ME apps for streaming video, but who would be foolhardy enough to use them when you were being charged several cents a minute?). Zero rating lets ISPs allow usages that would otherwise turn people away from data completely, while still charging from uses that are incidental. You'll be more likely to use your phone's data if you also have it on while in the car to stream music, the sum for the ISP is less money per MB on average, but more MBs in total. And of course we all act like not having blanket net neutrality laws prevents the FCC from acting in outlying cases. I'm all for targeted FCC intervention, we've seen it work in the past, I don't know why it'd stop working. The campaign for net neutrality has also become centered on half-truths and complete embellishments that take advantage of the average person's lack of technical knowledge which doesn't sit well with me. Technically I guess that's neither here nor there, but us "techies" only get the soapbox every once in a while, if we waste it on claiming false doomsdays like "You'll have to pay to watch porns and read Reddit!!!!!" and it doesn't come to fruition, next time something serious comes up the response will be "well last time nothing really happened did it?".
    - BoorishBears 9y ago
      Everyone downvoting this, won't one of you at least say what you disagree with? Or is the complaint I don't fit in with your echo chamber?
      - nicoburns 9y ago
        I haven't downvoted, but the obvious rebuttal seems to be: If there is spare capacity in the network, why not simply increase data caps.
        BoorishBears 9y ago
        I’m not trying to be facetious I honestly appreciate someone responding, but I don’t see how that single statement is a rebuttal to a multi faceted case that I made in my comment. I’m actually not sure where I imply they have spare capacity, but if you mean in reference to the zero-rating hypothetical (ie. they have spare capacity if they use zero rating to fill it) the idea is the data usage of the services is several orders of magnitude above what normal data usage is, and with zero rating there’s often a trade off, like reduced resolution on video. They could decrease the price of the data, but not enough to make the full quality usages economical for most people.
      - zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 9y ago
        You are committing so obvious fallacies it's just not really believable that you aren't aware. > They assume "If Spotify is free, they must be baking the cost into non-Spotify data". Which is not true. So, how is that data paid for then? Or are you saying that there are no costs associated with providing that service? Does it not cost anything to operate the cell towers that transmit the spotify data? > Zero rating lets ISPs allow usages that would otherwise turn people away from data completely, So, let's compare two scenarios that only differ in whether there is zero rating involved: 1. The customer has a data cap of 100 GB for n $/month. 2. The customer has a data cap of 10 GB plus an average (across customers, not enforced for individual customers) 90 GB of bandwidth that is limited to specific services for n $/month. What advantages/additional usages does the limitation to specific services in the latter case allow that the former does not?
geofft 9y ago
> If people want to use Facebook then why shouldn't they have the choice of doing so without additional cost? Because now a potential Facebook competitor is now artificially on an uneven playing field because access to Facebook is free and access to the competitor costs mobile data (on top of naturally being on an uneven playing field because of network effects). It's short-term good for Facebook users, yes, but if you believe in competition / innovation, it has negative structural effects. If accessing things without additional cost is good, people should have the choice of accessing everything without additional cost, not just Facebook and Wikipedia. > Many mobile providers zero-rate music streaming such as Spotify. Is that bad too? Yes. EFF has come out strongly against T-Mobile's "Binge On" program (see e.g. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/01/eff-confirms-t-mobiles-bingeon-optimization-just-throttling-applies https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/01/eff-confirms-t-mobiles... ), and that (plus the truly awful reaction of the T-Mobile CEO, who clearly doesn't realize that his customers include EFF members / supporters) is why I quit and moved to AT&T's prepaid plan, which as far as I know does not have the same scheme. AT&T does have a plan where any provider can sign up to pay for their customers' data use, which is different from waiving costs for certain large, established sites. I think it's important to stick up for the sort of products you want to see in the world long-term, for prisoners'-dilemma reasons.
- nwjtkjn 9y ago
  > AT&T does have a plan where any provider can sign up to pay for their customers' data use, which is different from waiving costs for certain large, established sites. Wait, how is that different?
  - ves 9y ago
    It’s like a customer-acquisition cost shouldered by the company, and presumably an option available to all companies. Zero-metering or other things being discussed privilege a fixed, arbitrary list of companies/websites, which is why they’re bad. Also, the extra cost is shouldered by either the ISP or the customer, which is like the company/website in question benefiting from a negative externality.
  - geofft 9y ago

BoorishBears 9y ago

To blanket proponents of Net Neutrality, yes. The logic being, if you want to start a Spotify competitor, you’re now competing with a solution that has free data baked in. Even if your service is good, Spotify will be much cheaper. My position is a bit more nuanced than that but I’m weary of being blanket downvoted and derided for not just accepting net neutrality as our lord and savior so I’ll stop here...

andybak 9y ago
I'm in the mood for some heresy after seeing the WSJ/Peter Thiel article killed just now. Please go on.
- BoorishBears 9y ago
  Our comments are already all but removed from the conversation... But it's nothing new, my views are just centered around focusing on competition. I don't agree that bits are "just bits" anymore. If we all used internet to read HTML-only websites I'm sure ISPs could guarantee faster speeds and actually keep the guarantees for much less than they do now. Realistically it takes more infrastructure to provide certain types of content at scale and I respect the ISPs rights to reflect that in their pricing. People don't seem to get how Zero rating can benefits consumers without increasing the price of other data. They assume "If Spotify is free, they must be baking the cost into non-Spotify data". Which is not true. People just won't use data if most of their uses of data immediately blow up their data usage (remember back when Internet on phones was measured in KB? Some phones started coming out with J2ME apps for streaming video, but who would be foolhardy enough to use them when you were being charged several cents a minute?). Zero rating lets ISPs allow usages that would otherwise turn people away from data completely, while still charging from uses that are incidental. You'll be more likely to use your phone's data if you also have it on while in the car to stream music, the sum for the ISP is less money per MB on average, but more MBs in total. And of course we all act like not having blanket net neutrality laws prevents the FCC from acting in outlying cases. I'm all for targeted FCC intervention, we've seen it work in the past, I don't know why it'd stop working. The campaign for net neutrality has also become centered on half-truths and complete embellishments that take advantage of the average person's lack of technical knowledge which doesn't sit well with me. Technically I guess that's neither here nor there, but us "techies" only get the soapbox every once in a while, if we waste it on claiming false doomsdays like "You'll have to pay to watch porns and read Reddit!!!!!" and it doesn't come to fruition, next time something serious comes up the response will be "well last time nothing really happened did it?".
  - BoorishBears 9y ago
    Everyone downvoting this, won't one of you at least say what you disagree with? Or is the complaint I don't fit in with your echo chamber?
    - nicoburns 9y ago
      I haven't downvoted, but the obvious rebuttal seems to be: If there is spare capacity in the network, why not simply increase data caps.
      - BoorishBears 9y ago
        I’m not trying to be facetious I honestly appreciate someone responding, but I don’t see how that single statement is a rebuttal to a multi faceted case that I made in my comment. I’m actually not sure where I imply they have spare capacity, but if you mean in reference to the zero-rating hypothetical (ie. they have spare capacity if they use zero rating to fill it) the idea is the data usage of the services is several orders of magnitude above what normal data usage is, and with zero rating there’s often a trade off, like reduced resolution on video. They could decrease the price of the data, but not enough to make the full quality usages economical for most people.
    - zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 9y ago
      You are committing so obvious fallacies it's just not really believable that you aren't aware. > They assume "If Spotify is free, they must be baking the cost into non-Spotify data". Which is not true. So, how is that data paid for then? Or are you saying that there are no costs associated with providing that service? Does it not cost anything to operate the cell towers that transmit the spotify data? > Zero rating lets ISPs allow usages that would otherwise turn people away from data completely, So, let's compare two scenarios that only differ in whether there is zero rating involved: 1. The customer has a data cap of 100 GB for n $/month. 2. The customer has a data cap of 10 GB plus an average (across customers, not enforced for individual customers) 90 GB of bandwidth that is limited to specific services for n $/month. What advantages/additional usages does the limitation to specific services in the latter case allow that the former does not?

geofft 9y ago

> If people want to use Facebook then why shouldn't they have the choice of doing so without additional cost? Because now a potential Facebook competitor is now artificially on an uneven playing field because access to Facebook is free and access to the competitor costs mobile data (on top of naturally being on an uneven playing field because of network effects). It's short-term good for Facebook users, yes, but if you believe in competition / innovation, it has negative structural effects. If accessing things without additional cost is good, people should have the choice of accessing everything without additional cost, not just Facebook and Wikipedia. > Many mobile providers zero-rate music streaming such as Spotify. Is that bad too? Yes. EFF has come out strongly against T-Mobile's "Binge On" program (see e.g. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/01/eff-confirms-t-mobiles-bingeon-optimization-just-throttling-applies https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/01/eff-confirms-t-mobiles... ), and that (plus the truly awful reaction of the T-Mobile CEO, who clearly doesn't realize that his customers include EFF members / supporters) is why I quit and moved to AT&T's prepaid plan, which as far as I know does not have the same scheme. AT&T does have a plan where any provider can sign up to pay for their customers' data use, which is different from waiving costs for certain large, established sites. I think it's important to stick up for the sort of products you want to see in the world long-term, for prisoners'-dilemma reasons.

nwjtkjn 9y ago
> AT&T does have a plan where any provider can sign up to pay for their customers' data use, which is different from waiving costs for certain large, established sites. Wait, how is that different?
- ves 9y ago
  It’s like a customer-acquisition cost shouldered by the company, and presumably an option available to all companies. Zero-metering or other things being discussed privilege a fixed, arbitrary list of companies/websites, which is why they’re bad. Also, the extra cost is shouldered by either the ISP or the customer, which is like the company/website in question benefiting from a negative externality.
- geofft 9y ago