9 ms·

Anyone willing to consider that maybe he's right about this issue?

by gfosco 8y ago

bthrm 8y ago
As a European: he’s right. You’ll love zero-rating. I do. :-)
- seba_dos1 8y ago
  As an European, I don't. How any sensible alternative to Facebook is supposed to out-compete it if Facebook is commonly zero-rated on mobile?
- Someone1234 8y ago
  You love this[0]? Ick. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-rating#/media/File:Screenshot-2017-10-28_MEO_-_Televisão,_Internet,_Telefone_e_Telemóvel.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-rating#/media/File:Screen...
  - bthrm 8y ago
    Yes, paying extra to get unlimited traffic to certain services is good. It’s good there’s choice.
    - Someone1234 8y ago
      You, as the consumer, aren't making the choice. The ISP is picking which companies get the privileged position. It is in effect king-making certain services.
      - bthrm 8y ago
        No because European law does not allow them to do that. If you zero rate YouTube you have to zero rate all video streaming sites, for example.
        Someone1234 8y ago
        So in effect you're arguing it works due to Net Neutrality?
- bkor 8y ago
  As a European: T-Mobile is charging companies for their music zero rating. If you love paying twice for things it might be a good thing. Zero rating is crap.
- bajsejohannes 8y ago
  You're being deceived. The price you pay is either baked into your monthly bill or comes in the less tangible form of reduced competition for those zero-rated services (i.e. startups have a much harder time entering the stage).
gilbetron 8y ago
I think most tech people are, and have - do you have some new insight to add that is convincing?
pavel_lishin 8y ago
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
- hartator 8y ago
  Most of the repelled rules were in effect only since 2014. I don't remember the web being a terrible place before 2014.
  - kinsomo 8y ago
    > Most of the repelled rules were in effect only since 2014. I don't remember the web being a terrible place before 2014. The now-repealed rules were a codification of the pre-2014 status quo.
  - shadofx 8y ago
    ISPs really only started abusing their power in 2011-12, hijacking connections to point to their own stuff, blocking video, etc. They got sued. Then the FCC got tired of wasting money in court so they made it a rule.
  - 8u23u0893290u 8y ago
    Not a shock since human memory is awful: https://www.cnet.com/news/fcc-formally-rules-comcasts-throttling-of-bittorrent-was-illegal/ https://www.cnet.com/news/fcc-formally-rules-comcasts-thrott... They've even been blocking legal speech, so: https://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/27/us/27verizon.html https://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/27/us/27verizon.html You know All is good. Keep following orders!
  - cweagans 8y ago
    You weren't paying attention then. Here are a few of the pre-2014 instances of blatant fuckery: https://www.freepress.net/our-response/expert-analysis/explainers/net-neutrality-violations-brief-history https://www.freepress.net/our-response/expert-analysis/expla...
barneygumble742 8y ago
Given his past actions, why give him the benefit of the doubt? He has proved to be a liar and a shill for the telcos. He lied about the FCC's fake DDoS attack and refuses to investigate all the bots on the FCC's comment site as the NN open commenting period was coming to a close. He's the Scott Pruitt of the FCC.
- nicnash08 8y ago
  This. He has shown no reason to trust him, exactly the opposite. To actively disregard bot comments (of which my name was on the list saying exactly the opposite of what I believe), but they lies. He should be fired in my opinion and any actions taken under him reversed.
- thomastjeffery 8y ago
  It's not even about whether we trust Pai. His conclusion is clearly nonsense. We can do just fine fighting his words without fighting his person.
Johnny555 8y ago
He could only be right if there were real broadband competition - there's no point in the ISP disclosing how it's going to screw me if I have no choice. In the past few places I've lived (in Seattle and the SF Bay Area), there has been only a single high speed broadband provider (2 of those places had a DSL provider that promised "up to 1.5mbit" speeds), but that's barely enough for standard def streaming, and not nearly enough for HD streaming -- 1.5Mbit DSL was "high speed" 20 years ago.
falcolas 8y ago
Given that the US ISP industry has shown that it is wholly on-board for zero-rating their own services, have been questioning "why should YouTube get free access to our pipes", and have displayed an active interest in tiering the internet by site and not bandwidth... No. Ajit Pai is not right. The information to make an informed choice between service providers is meaningless when most of us in the US have no practical choice.
bajsejohannes 8y ago
I did consider it, but at least for me, it's only a negative. The key quote: > [The repeal] will protect consumers and promote better, faster Internet access and more competition First of all: I think the "competition" in question is along an axis that I'm not interested in; e.g. does this plan give me faster Netflix or unlimited Facebook. So now I have one more thing to worry about when picking a plan, which is very likely going to make me less happy with my choice. The better/faster internet he's talking about is probably along these lines too, e.g a deal being struck with Netflix to make just Netflix faster. So, for me as a consumer, I think this is terrible. I'm going to be spend more time thinking about my plan and be less happy it. It will also be worse in the sense that ISPs are spending time and money on a feature that I didn't want in the first place. I also think this is terrible for new companies, but that's for another post. A great book on this is The Paradox of Choice
thomastjeffery 8y ago
His main point is that by allowing corporations to use abusive practices, there will be incentive for competition. First of all, there is practically no competition to start with. Six ISPs control the majority of the market, and the majority of customers have only one ISP to choose from. Getting rid of net neutrality will not make other companies suddenly appear. Secondly, one company doing worse does not make a competing company better. It makes it relatively better. That doesn't matter, especially if there isn't another company to begin with. Put these together, and it's trivial to see that getting rid of net neutrality will not bolster competition. Pai's conclusion is nonsense. In our reality, we are only left with worse options.

Anyone willing to consider that maybe he's right about this issue?

by gfosco 8y ago

Anyone willing to consider that maybe he's right about this issue?

bthrm 8y ago

As a European: he’s right. You’ll love zero-rating. I do. :-)

seba_dos1 8y ago
As an European, I don't. How any sensible alternative to Facebook is supposed to out-compete it if Facebook is commonly zero-rated on mobile?
Someone1234 8y ago
You love this[0]? Ick. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-rating#/media/File:Screenshot-2017-10-28_MEO_-_Televisão,_Internet,_Telefone_e_Telemóvel.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-rating#/media/File:Screen...
- bthrm 8y ago
  Yes, paying extra to get unlimited traffic to certain services is good. It’s good there’s choice.
  - Someone1234 8y ago
    You, as the consumer, aren't making the choice. The ISP is picking which companies get the privileged position. It is in effect king-making certain services.
    - bthrm 8y ago
      No because European law does not allow them to do that. If you zero rate YouTube you have to zero rate all video streaming sites, for example.
      - Someone1234 8y ago
        So in effect you're arguing it works due to Net Neutrality?
bkor 8y ago
As a European: T-Mobile is charging companies for their music zero rating. If you love paying twice for things it might be a good thing. Zero rating is crap.
bajsejohannes 8y ago
You're being deceived. The price you pay is either baked into your monthly bill or comes in the less tangible form of reduced competition for those zero-rated services (i.e. startups have a much harder time entering the stage).

gilbetron 8y ago

I think most tech people are, and have - do you have some new insight to add that is convincing?

pavel_lishin 8y ago

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

hartator 8y ago
Most of the repelled rules were in effect only since 2014. I don't remember the web being a terrible place before 2014.
- kinsomo 8y ago
  > Most of the repelled rules were in effect only since 2014. I don't remember the web being a terrible place before 2014. The now-repealed rules were a codification of the pre-2014 status quo.
- shadofx 8y ago
  ISPs really only started abusing their power in 2011-12, hijacking connections to point to their own stuff, blocking video, etc. They got sued. Then the FCC got tired of wasting money in court so they made it a rule.
- 8u23u0893290u 8y ago
  Not a shock since human memory is awful: https://www.cnet.com/news/fcc-formally-rules-comcasts-throttling-of-bittorrent-was-illegal/ https://www.cnet.com/news/fcc-formally-rules-comcasts-thrott... They've even been blocking legal speech, so: https://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/27/us/27verizon.html https://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/27/us/27verizon.html You know All is good. Keep following orders!
- cweagans 8y ago
  You weren't paying attention then. Here are a few of the pre-2014 instances of blatant fuckery: https://www.freepress.net/our-response/expert-analysis/explainers/net-neutrality-violations-brief-history https://www.freepress.net/our-response/expert-analysis/expla...

barneygumble742 8y ago

Given his past actions, why give him the benefit of the doubt? He has proved to be a liar and a shill for the telcos. He lied about the FCC's fake DDoS attack and refuses to investigate all the bots on the FCC's comment site as the NN open commenting period was coming to a close. He's the Scott Pruitt of the FCC.

nicnash08 8y ago
This. He has shown no reason to trust him, exactly the opposite. To actively disregard bot comments (of which my name was on the list saying exactly the opposite of what I believe), but they lies. He should be fired in my opinion and any actions taken under him reversed.
thomastjeffery 8y ago
It's not even about whether we trust Pai. His conclusion is clearly nonsense. We can do just fine fighting his words without fighting his person.

Johnny555 8y ago

He could only be right if there were real broadband competition - there's no point in the ISP disclosing how it's going to screw me if I have no choice. In the past few places I've lived (in Seattle and the SF Bay Area), there has been only a single high speed broadband provider (2 of those places had a DSL provider that promised "up to 1.5mbit" speeds), but that's barely enough for standard def streaming, and not nearly enough for HD streaming -- 1.5Mbit DSL was "high speed" 20 years ago.

falcolas 8y ago

Given that the US ISP industry has shown that it is wholly on-board for zero-rating their own services, have been questioning "why should YouTube get free access to our pipes", and have displayed an active interest in tiering the internet by site and not bandwidth... No. Ajit Pai is not right. The information to make an informed choice between service providers is meaningless when most of us in the US have no practical choice.

bajsejohannes 8y ago

I did consider it, but at least for me, it's only a negative. The key quote: > [The repeal] will protect consumers and promote better, faster Internet access and more competition First of all: I think the "competition" in question is along an axis that I'm not interested in; e.g. does this plan give me faster Netflix or unlimited Facebook. So now I have one more thing to worry about when picking a plan, which is very likely going to make me less happy with my choice. The better/faster internet he's talking about is probably along these lines too, e.g a deal being struck with Netflix to make just Netflix faster. So, for me as a consumer, I think this is terrible. I'm going to be spend more time thinking about my plan and be less happy it. It will also be worse in the sense that ISPs are spending time and money on a feature that I didn't want in the first place. I also think this is terrible for new companies, but that's for another post. A great book on this is The Paradox of Choice

thomastjeffery 8y ago

His main point is that by allowing corporations to use abusive practices, there will be incentive for competition. First of all, there is practically no competition to start with. Six ISPs control the majority of the market, and the majority of customers have only one ISP to choose from. Getting rid of net neutrality will not make other companies suddenly appear. Secondly, one company doing worse does not make a competing company better. It makes it relatively better. That doesn't matter, especially if there isn't another company to begin with. Put these together, and it's trivial to see that getting rid of net neutrality will not bolster competition. Pai's conclusion is nonsense. In our reality, we are only left with worse options.