4 ms·

Good post; a lot to unpack. This administration's objections to the AT&T/TWC merger was probably rooted in television because the administration's opinions abo

Good post; a lot to unpack. This administration's objections to the AT&T/TWC merger was probably rooted in television because the administration's opinions about net neutrality are rather well-known; it's doubtful they'd see the eventual outcome, if they even envisioned it, as problematic or anticompetitive -- and that's just the charitable reading that omits the Predient's own upset over the future of CNN, which too reinforces approaching the subject with a television lens. That being said, it is somewhat ironic that zero-rating was never considered outright problematic by Wheeler's FCC [1] (or the EFF [2]) and the FCC resolved to investigate zero-rating practices on a case-by-case basis. They let some of them fly, but admonished several others, even in the last few days of Wheeler's term [3]. Then, Pai predictably stopped all such investigations when he took office [2]. In this favorable regulatory climate, it's no wonder that zero-rating looks like a valuable tool that businesses can leverage to make their offerings seem more attractive versus their competitors, making past predictions about a future of vertically-integrated content silos and delivery networks [4][5][6][7][8] seem a bit less like quackery. As an added complication, it is much more difficult to explain to laypeople why zero-rating is problematic, than other topics that can fall under the wider umbrella of 'net neutrality'. Zero-rating is perhaps the most popular facet of delivery that doesn't adhere to net neutrality, attracting a wide range of supporters [9], including many that support missions that are helped or enabled by no-cost access to information. Once zero-rating is commonplace, efforts to undo it will be more politically challenging than the previous net neutrality debate. [1] https://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2017/db0111/DOC-342987A1.pdf https://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/201... [2] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/02/fcc-abandons-zero-rating-investigation-and-moves-backward-net-neutrality https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/02/fcc-abandons-zero-rati... [3] https://www.eff.org/files/2017/02/09/fcc-zerorating.pdf https://www.eff.org/files/2017/02/09/fcc-zerorating.pdf [4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17305508 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17305508 [5] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12350087 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12350087 [6] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14229742 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14229742 [7] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15092525 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15092525 [8] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13557318 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13557318 [9] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality#Arguments_against https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality#Arguments_again...

shmerl 8y ago
> Once zero-rating is commonplace, efforts to undo it will be more politically challenging than the previous net neutrality debate. Only while anti-trust remains as crippled as it is now. In practice zero rating kind of violations should be blasted with classic anti-trust, not with specially crafted net neutrality rules. So may be fixing anti-trust should be a priority. To be clear, I'm in support of strict net neutrality rules, but they are often a fix for a symptom, while the root cause is actually anti-competitive abuse that runs amok because anti-trust is doing nothing.

shmerl 8y ago

> Once zero-rating is commonplace, efforts to undo it will be more politically challenging than the previous net neutrality debate. Only while anti-trust remains as crippled as it is now. In practice zero rating kind of violations should be blasted with classic anti-trust, not with specially crafted net neutrality rules. So may be fixing anti-trust should be a priority. To be clear, I'm in support of strict net neutrality rules, but they are often a fix for a symptom, while the root cause is actually anti-competitive abuse that runs amok because anti-trust is doing nothing.