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How about they do something about random price increases, geographic monopolies, bundling, or forcing customers to rent equipment that’s cheaper to buy? These a

How about they do something about random price increases, geographic monopolies, bundling, or forcing customers to rent equipment that’s cheaper to buy? These are issues that affect consumers. The only thing NN does is make Netflix slightly cheaper.

ocdtrekkie 8y ago
Net neutrality won't make Netflix cheaper. It will ensure that Netflix can use it's size and influence to scale better and squash any potential competitors, who don't have the influence to force ISPs to colocate their cache boxes for free. They're still probably continue to raise their prices on consumers, because that's what monopolies (like Netflix) do. Net neutrality is the creation of regulatory capture for Netflix, and probably YouTube. Which is why it is shocking these are the two companies funding every single supposedly grassroots effort to support it.
- gbear605 8y ago
  The issue for Netflix with not having net neutrality is that some of Netflix’s competitors are run by some of the ISPs. If those ISPs were to decide that they wanted their customers to be forced to go with their service, and net neutrality weren’t a thing, they could block (or essentially block) Netflix.
  - ocdtrekkie 8y ago
    We have other more applicable laws to that task: It's called antitrust laws. It's already illegal to use your monopoly in one market segment to progress your control in another. The reason you won't see Google or Netflix promoting that ISPs face antitrust investigations, is because they're monopolies themselves. So they're investing in laws that hurt ISPs, but protect them. Net neutrality is a custom love letter to big tech, rather than a generally applicable law against bad practices. You'll notice exceptions are carved out to ensure Comcast is a telecom, and Google isn't, even if they both provide video services and both also run ISPs. (You could see similar when Google tried to avoid registering as a telecom when trying to deploy Fiber in Austin, so that they had less regulatory limitations than their competitors.) You'll note that Google has both last mile service in terms of Fiber and Fi, as well as major international infrastructure, like their undersea cables. They aren't shockingly different from Comcast in that regard, either. We should be promoting antitrust, where big tech and ISPs face similar penalties for their behaviors. And yes, Google and Netflix are both monopolies under any reasonable definition of the term. Yes, ISPs are in some areas, regional monopolies, but Google and Netflix are global ones, and they're a far bigger threat.
    - threeseed 8y ago
      Google and Netflix aren't monopolies. And neither are any of the ISPs. You could definitely consider some of the ISPs a monopoly in certain regions but that doesn't apply in this case. Either way your antitrust argument makes absolutely no sense.
      - shmerl 8y ago
        > And neither are any of the ISPs. Many are, in areas where there is only one ISP with high bandwidth. That's exactly why net neutrality is critical. Monopolies among ISPs combined with data caps allow them to harm all Internet services that compete with other business they own (such as video and etc.).
      - NoblePublius 8y ago
        The vast majority of Americans have but one choice for wired high speed Internet. Cable cos like to pretend that they compete with DSL, which is a lie.
    - AnthonyMouse 8y ago
      The problem with antitrust is that the law is extremely vague, there is no administrative rule-making process for it and Congress rarely touches it. It's possible to argue that it applies in this case, but actually applying it would involve a decade-long court proceeding, meanwhile everyone is open to getting pillaged by their ISPs. > You'll notice exceptions are carved out to ensure Comcast is a telecom, and Google isn't, even if they both provide video services and both also run ISPs. The telecom is the thing that owns the physical last mile network. YouTube isn't a telecom, Comcast is. Google Fiber is too, and if they claim they're not they should lose.
    - idDriven 8y ago
      100% agree that promoting antitrust legislation has the potential to improve our current economic trajectory. Both regional and global monopolies are a threat.
- Wowfunhappy 8y ago
  I'm having trouble seeing Netflix as a monopoly given all the competition from other streaming services (Amazon, Hulu, HBO, and—quite soon—Disney) Netflix prices will increase not because Netflix is a monopoly but because content is expensive and is getting more expensive.
  - ocdtrekkie 8y ago
    How well are their competitors actually doing? Hulu gave away a year of their service for 99 cents a month on Black Friday and just dropped their regular prices, Netflix just raised their prices and are trialing even higher prices as well. Most streaming service exclusives are buried under complaints about having to subscribe to something that isn't Netflix to watch them[1]. People regularly decry being expected to subscribe to 4 or 5 different services to watch the shows they want to, despite the combined total still being less than traditional cable. Netflix also has a huge first mover advantage, and the subscriber base and cash to move quickly to squash any entrant to the market. And they have a huge technical and infrastructure advantage. They alone make up about 30-35% of all US Internet traffic, and they've got their own CDN boxes all over the globe, hosted for free by the ISPs. Don't like their US subscriber numbers account for two out of every three households or something like that? Their back catalog agreements with traditional studios are definitely their weak point though, as the studios are increasingly realizing that they need to charge more for access to their catalogs or claw them back to start their own services. Netflix has shifted heavily to their own original content, and in time, CBS, Warner, and Disney's sizeable back catalogs are definitely going to make some strides on their own services, but they'll be following, not leading the pack. [1]This is half the complaints about Star Trek: Discovery in a nutshell. My guess is most people have come up with reasons they didn't like the show based on their initial upset about it being on a new paid service. Discovery's excellent, btw.
    - threeseed 8y ago
      There are more competitors joining the streaming market e.g. Apple, Comcast, Disney. Most of which have far more money and far more power than Netflix.
- sonnyblarney 8y ago
  What? No. It's regulatory capture for the carriers, definitely not for content providers. Whatever profit Netflix makes, it will be eaten up by the carrier oligarchy. Moreover, with value chain consolidation like AT&T owning Hulu and things like that, we'll see carriers preferring some sites over others. Creating serious market inefficiencies. Will you be happy when Netflix in your county is slow because they don't pay the extra tax, but crappy Hulu is cheap because it's being subsidized by their parent company? Almost all roads are public roads. Most electricity transmission lines are now owned by a highly regulated entity, separate from production. For the same reason we have NN. Edit: FYI Netflix and Reed Hastings are ardent supporters of Net Neutrality, which is evidence of 'what's good for their business'
- AndrewGaspar 8y ago
  > monopolies (like Netflix) I'm really curious what your definition of "monopoly" is.
- screye 8y ago
  > monopolies (like Netflix) I can't think of a single metric by which Netflix can be called a monopoly. A comparable number of number have Amazon Prime Video and Hulu while trailing isn't in a david-vs-goliath situation. Netflix has been struggling to keep licences, let alone licence shows exclusively. Then you have groups like HBO-go who get a huge influx of users, when their flagship show releases. But, users quickly leave when they realize they don't like anything else. Netflix is ahead atm, because it is better (or less worse) and not because of monopolistic practices keeping themselves in front.
  - AndrewGaspar 8y ago
    Cable would also be reasonably called a competitor.
- NoblePublius 8y ago
  Net neutrality stopped ISPs from tolling traffic from sources like Netflix and its CDN partners, thus making Netflix cheaper. These costs were then spread among all cable customers, regardless of whether or not they were Netflix customers. For the record, this is not nearly as significant an issue today as it was 5 years ago.
dahfizz 8y ago
> The only thing NN does is make Netflix slightly cheaper. Theoretically. I was never really convinced by the doomsday predictions of losing net neutrality. I'd rather have it than not, but I don't think it's nearly as important as some people think it is.
- jerf 8y ago
  My problem is "net neutrality" is a meaningless term. I'm in favor of Mom, baseball, apple pie, and net neutrality as much as the next guy. However, the concrete definitions of net neutrality being pushed deeply underwhelm me, and tend to look a lot more like Big Tech installing regulatory barriers than anything else. We're all here expected to go "Net neutrality? That sounds good!" and demand it, while not deeply inspecting what is actually involved, and by golly, we're doing it. I personally find myself less than inclined to demand that Big Tech be allowed to pull the ladder up behind them, since I'm more in the "break 'em up hard" camp, which is probably basically the opposite, really.
  - dahfizz 8y ago
    I agree. I was extremely skeptical of the net neutrality regulations when they were first passed by the FCC. It was a bunch of unelected officials creating massive regulations that were secret to the public. Literally all the public new for a while was that the FCC called the new regulations "net neutrality" but we had no way of knowing. Even if the government did have our best interests at heart (which is never a good assumption to make), they went about creating net neutrality in the worst way possible, and it left a bad taste in my mouth.
- NoblePublius 8y ago
  The entire concept is designed to make you not talk about all the horrible ways ISPs rip off individual customers everyday.
jogjayr 8y ago
Implying that it's not possible to do both?
dragonwriter 8y ago
> How about they do something about random price increases, geographic monopolies, bundling, or forcing customers to rent equipment that’s cheaper to buy? The Open Internet rules specifically prohibited providers from restricting the use of lawful devices on the network, which actually directly addresses that concern.
pteraspidomorph 8y ago
Here we go again. Every time this issue comes up in an online forum, at least one commenter will pop up passionately defending this position. You can easily tell who it is in this submission (it's not you). The thing is, that's an economic perspective, but net neutrality is the name for a technological state of affairs. Focusing on the economic side of the issue subtly undermines the discussion by hiding the real problem before it can even be factored in. Yet this is mainly a technology-oriented community (as far as I know), so let me try to convey my understanding of why internet pioneers, network engineers, startups and small businesses overwhelmingly support net neutrality (in addition to the afforementioned large online service providers such as Netflix or Youtube). Please bear with me if I write things you already know, and kindly correct any mistakes I make. The Internet is a collection of thousands of smaller networks, many of which are international. It can only function as a whole because those networks peer with each other all over the globe and exchange information. This means John Doe, customer of ISP A in the US, can communicate with any other internet user - such as Hiro Nakamura, customer of ISP B in Japan, or Raj Singh, customer of ISP C in India. When a company or organization deploys their own network, they can join the internet by finding one or more peers who are already in it and entering a peering agreement with them. ISPs are classified into tiers based on the answer to the following two questions: - Do I have to pay anyone for them to carry the traffic I generate? - Does anyone pay me for me to carry the traffic they generate? ISPs with a more valuable network - who own more actual long-distance capacity (bandwidth) in physical network infrastructure - are more likely to be paid and less likely to pay others, simply because they are providing infrastructure to others. But regardless of the economics of the peering agreement, usually the agreement entails carrying all traffic sent by the peer network to (presumably) recipients in your network, or your other peer networks. The traffic sent by the peer network doesn't necessarily originate in the peer network, but you treat it as if it did - this ability for traffic to traverse multiple networks that are not directly connected to each other is the only thing that ensures we have a single internet, rather than an endless amount of smaller international networks. This decades-old state of affairs, in which a network does not discriminate against traffic sent to it from another network by looking at where it came from, is called net neutrality. When a company wants to be an ISP and sell internet access to the end user, they have to join the internet in the manner described above. After all, internet participation is always bidirectional - end users generate some traffic themselves. A new commercial ISP can join the internet simply by peering with a single existing network in a single location in such a way that the new ISP pays for all traffic they send over the network. In return, they can receive traffic from everyone else. They make a few access plans for the end consumer with as low an amount of upload bandwidth as they can get away with and price them in such a way that they'll be able to make a profit after paying their upstream provider and other operating costs. For redundancy and quality of service, they can peer with more networks at the same time and charge a little more. But in the long run, as you can probably imagine, this is not cost effective. Assuming you are going to grow and have a very large participation in the internet (large geographic coverage, millions of users, lots of traffic), then you get a much better return by deploying your own network. By having a larger "network share" you are in a better position to negotiate peering agreements in your favor, not to mention all the traffic you carry within your own network doesn't have to be paid to a third party (or is subject to bandwidth limitations due to you only having purchased a limited amount of upstream bandwidth). Ultimately, an ISP like AT&T owns a backbone so large (currently 660000km of fiber according to their website), they're a substantial enough portion of the internet not to have to pay anyone for peering - it's mutually beneficial for them to peer for free with other large networks and make their money by charging smaller ones and having a bigger profit margin on their own customers, which makes them a so-called tier 1 network. Enter american ISPs like Comcast. Comcast seems to have grown through a primarily end customer oriented strategy. They grew their last mile business very quickly and became a near monopoly for commercial internet access in many parts of the United States, serving millions of customers, all the while purchasing as little upstream bandwidth as they could get away with from larger networks with a strong presence in the United States, such as Level3 (now CenturyLink). This technologically short-sighted business model did not immediately fail because they "carefully oversold" their upstream capabilities (this is perfectly normal - you sell bandwidth based on your average network load expectations, not based on the assumption everyone will be using 100% of what you sell them at all times), engaged in p2p blocking and traffic shaping, and had a really good customer retention plan ("oh, you're not happy with your service? maybe you can try our competitors... wait, there are none? oops...")

ocdtrekkie 8y ago

Net neutrality won't make Netflix cheaper. It will ensure that Netflix can use it's size and influence to scale better and squash any potential competitors, who don't have the influence to force ISPs to colocate their cache boxes for free. They're still probably continue to raise their prices on consumers, because that's what monopolies (like Netflix) do. Net neutrality is the creation of regulatory capture for Netflix, and probably YouTube. Which is why it is shocking these are the two companies funding every single supposedly grassroots effort to support it.

gbear605 8y ago
The issue for Netflix with not having net neutrality is that some of Netflix’s competitors are run by some of the ISPs. If those ISPs were to decide that they wanted their customers to be forced to go with their service, and net neutrality weren’t a thing, they could block (or essentially block) Netflix.
- ocdtrekkie 8y ago
  We have other more applicable laws to that task: It's called antitrust laws. It's already illegal to use your monopoly in one market segment to progress your control in another. The reason you won't see Google or Netflix promoting that ISPs face antitrust investigations, is because they're monopolies themselves. So they're investing in laws that hurt ISPs, but protect them. Net neutrality is a custom love letter to big tech, rather than a generally applicable law against bad practices. You'll notice exceptions are carved out to ensure Comcast is a telecom, and Google isn't, even if they both provide video services and both also run ISPs. (You could see similar when Google tried to avoid registering as a telecom when trying to deploy Fiber in Austin, so that they had less regulatory limitations than their competitors.) You'll note that Google has both last mile service in terms of Fiber and Fi, as well as major international infrastructure, like their undersea cables. They aren't shockingly different from Comcast in that regard, either. We should be promoting antitrust, where big tech and ISPs face similar penalties for their behaviors. And yes, Google and Netflix are both monopolies under any reasonable definition of the term. Yes, ISPs are in some areas, regional monopolies, but Google and Netflix are global ones, and they're a far bigger threat.
  - threeseed 8y ago
    Google and Netflix aren't monopolies. And neither are any of the ISPs. You could definitely consider some of the ISPs a monopoly in certain regions but that doesn't apply in this case. Either way your antitrust argument makes absolutely no sense.
    - shmerl 8y ago
      > And neither are any of the ISPs. Many are, in areas where there is only one ISP with high bandwidth. That's exactly why net neutrality is critical. Monopolies among ISPs combined with data caps allow them to harm all Internet services that compete with other business they own (such as video and etc.).
    - NoblePublius 8y ago
      The vast majority of Americans have but one choice for wired high speed Internet. Cable cos like to pretend that they compete with DSL, which is a lie.
  - AnthonyMouse 8y ago
    The problem with antitrust is that the law is extremely vague, there is no administrative rule-making process for it and Congress rarely touches it. It's possible to argue that it applies in this case, but actually applying it would involve a decade-long court proceeding, meanwhile everyone is open to getting pillaged by their ISPs. > You'll notice exceptions are carved out to ensure Comcast is a telecom, and Google isn't, even if they both provide video services and both also run ISPs. The telecom is the thing that owns the physical last mile network. YouTube isn't a telecom, Comcast is. Google Fiber is too, and if they claim they're not they should lose.
  - idDriven 8y ago
    100% agree that promoting antitrust legislation has the potential to improve our current economic trajectory. Both regional and global monopolies are a threat.
Wowfunhappy 8y ago
I'm having trouble seeing Netflix as a monopoly given all the competition from other streaming services (Amazon, Hulu, HBO, and—quite soon—Disney) Netflix prices will increase not because Netflix is a monopoly but because content is expensive and is getting more expensive.
- ocdtrekkie 8y ago
  How well are their competitors actually doing? Hulu gave away a year of their service for 99 cents a month on Black Friday and just dropped their regular prices, Netflix just raised their prices and are trialing even higher prices as well. Most streaming service exclusives are buried under complaints about having to subscribe to something that isn't Netflix to watch them[1]. People regularly decry being expected to subscribe to 4 or 5 different services to watch the shows they want to, despite the combined total still being less than traditional cable. Netflix also has a huge first mover advantage, and the subscriber base and cash to move quickly to squash any entrant to the market. And they have a huge technical and infrastructure advantage. They alone make up about 30-35% of all US Internet traffic, and they've got their own CDN boxes all over the globe, hosted for free by the ISPs. Don't like their US subscriber numbers account for two out of every three households or something like that? Their back catalog agreements with traditional studios are definitely their weak point though, as the studios are increasingly realizing that they need to charge more for access to their catalogs or claw them back to start their own services. Netflix has shifted heavily to their own original content, and in time, CBS, Warner, and Disney's sizeable back catalogs are definitely going to make some strides on their own services, but they'll be following, not leading the pack. [1]This is half the complaints about Star Trek: Discovery in a nutshell. My guess is most people have come up with reasons they didn't like the show based on their initial upset about it being on a new paid service. Discovery's excellent, btw.
  - threeseed 8y ago
    There are more competitors joining the streaming market e.g. Apple, Comcast, Disney. Most of which have far more money and far more power than Netflix.
sonnyblarney 8y ago
What? No. It's regulatory capture for the carriers, definitely not for content providers. Whatever profit Netflix makes, it will be eaten up by the carrier oligarchy. Moreover, with value chain consolidation like AT&T owning Hulu and things like that, we'll see carriers preferring some sites over others. Creating serious market inefficiencies. Will you be happy when Netflix in your county is slow because they don't pay the extra tax, but crappy Hulu is cheap because it's being subsidized by their parent company? Almost all roads are public roads. Most electricity transmission lines are now owned by a highly regulated entity, separate from production. For the same reason we have NN. Edit: FYI Netflix and Reed Hastings are ardent supporters of Net Neutrality, which is evidence of 'what's good for their business'
AndrewGaspar 8y ago
> monopolies (like Netflix) I'm really curious what your definition of "monopoly" is.
screye 8y ago
> monopolies (like Netflix) I can't think of a single metric by which Netflix can be called a monopoly. A comparable number of number have Amazon Prime Video and Hulu while trailing isn't in a david-vs-goliath situation. Netflix has been struggling to keep licences, let alone licence shows exclusively. Then you have groups like HBO-go who get a huge influx of users, when their flagship show releases. But, users quickly leave when they realize they don't like anything else. Netflix is ahead atm, because it is better (or less worse) and not because of monopolistic practices keeping themselves in front.
- AndrewGaspar 8y ago
  Cable would also be reasonably called a competitor.
NoblePublius 8y ago
Net neutrality stopped ISPs from tolling traffic from sources like Netflix and its CDN partners, thus making Netflix cheaper. These costs were then spread among all cable customers, regardless of whether or not they were Netflix customers. For the record, this is not nearly as significant an issue today as it was 5 years ago.

dahfizz 8y ago

> The only thing NN does is make Netflix slightly cheaper. Theoretically. I was never really convinced by the doomsday predictions of losing net neutrality. I'd rather have it than not, but I don't think it's nearly as important as some people think it is.

jerf 8y ago
My problem is "net neutrality" is a meaningless term. I'm in favor of Mom, baseball, apple pie, and net neutrality as much as the next guy. However, the concrete definitions of net neutrality being pushed deeply underwhelm me, and tend to look a lot more like Big Tech installing regulatory barriers than anything else. We're all here expected to go "Net neutrality? That sounds good!" and demand it, while not deeply inspecting what is actually involved, and by golly, we're doing it. I personally find myself less than inclined to demand that Big Tech be allowed to pull the ladder up behind them, since I'm more in the "break 'em up hard" camp, which is probably basically the opposite, really.
- dahfizz 8y ago
  I agree. I was extremely skeptical of the net neutrality regulations when they were first passed by the FCC. It was a bunch of unelected officials creating massive regulations that were secret to the public. Literally all the public new for a while was that the FCC called the new regulations "net neutrality" but we had no way of knowing. Even if the government did have our best interests at heart (which is never a good assumption to make), they went about creating net neutrality in the worst way possible, and it left a bad taste in my mouth.
NoblePublius 8y ago
The entire concept is designed to make you not talk about all the horrible ways ISPs rip off individual customers everyday.

jogjayr 8y ago

Implying that it's not possible to do both?

dragonwriter 8y ago

> How about they do something about random price increases, geographic monopolies, bundling, or forcing customers to rent equipment that’s cheaper to buy? The Open Internet rules specifically prohibited providers from restricting the use of lawful devices on the network, which actually directly addresses that concern.

pteraspidomorph 8y ago

Here we go again. Every time this issue comes up in an online forum, at least one commenter will pop up passionately defending this position. You can easily tell who it is in this submission (it's not you). The thing is, that's an economic perspective, but net neutrality is the name for a technological state of affairs. Focusing on the economic side of the issue subtly undermines the discussion by hiding the real problem before it can even be factored in. Yet this is mainly a technology-oriented community (as far as I know), so let me try to convey my understanding of why internet pioneers, network engineers, startups and small businesses overwhelmingly support net neutrality (in addition to the afforementioned large online service providers such as Netflix or Youtube). Please bear with me if I write things you already know, and kindly correct any mistakes I make. The Internet is a collection of thousands of smaller networks, many of which are international. It can only function as a whole because those networks peer with each other all over the globe and exchange information. This means John Doe, customer of ISP A in the US, can communicate with any other internet user - such as Hiro Nakamura, customer of ISP B in Japan, or Raj Singh, customer of ISP C in India. When a company or organization deploys their own network, they can join the internet by finding one or more peers who are already in it and entering a peering agreement with them. ISPs are classified into tiers based on the answer to the following two questions: - Do I have to pay anyone for them to carry the traffic I generate? - Does anyone pay me for me to carry the traffic they generate? ISPs with a more valuable network - who own more actual long-distance capacity (bandwidth) in physical network infrastructure - are more likely to be paid and less likely to pay others, simply because they are providing infrastructure to others. But regardless of the economics of the peering agreement, usually the agreement entails carrying all traffic sent by the peer network to (presumably) recipients in your network, or your other peer networks. The traffic sent by the peer network doesn't necessarily originate in the peer network, but you treat it as if it did - this ability for traffic to traverse multiple networks that are not directly connected to each other is the only thing that ensures we have a single internet, rather than an endless amount of smaller international networks. This decades-old state of affairs, in which a network does not discriminate against traffic sent to it from another network by looking at where it came from, is called net neutrality. When a company wants to be an ISP and sell internet access to the end user, they have to join the internet in the manner described above. After all, internet participation is always bidirectional - end users generate some traffic themselves. A new commercial ISP can join the internet simply by peering with a single existing network in a single location in such a way that the new ISP pays for all traffic they send over the network. In return, they can receive traffic from everyone else. They make a few access plans for the end consumer with as low an amount of upload bandwidth as they can get away with and price them in such a way that they'll be able to make a profit after paying their upstream provider and other operating costs. For redundancy and quality of service, they can peer with more networks at the same time and charge a little more. But in the long run, as you can probably imagine, this is not cost effective. Assuming you are going to grow and have a very large participation in the internet (large geographic coverage, millions of users, lots of traffic), then you get a much better return by deploying your own network. By having a larger "network share" you are in a better position to negotiate peering agreements in your favor, not to mention all the traffic you carry within your own network doesn't have to be paid to a third party (or is subject to bandwidth limitations due to you only having purchased a limited amount of upstream bandwidth). Ultimately, an ISP like AT&T owns a backbone so large (currently 660000km of fiber according to their website), they're a substantial enough portion of the internet not to have to pay anyone for peering - it's mutually beneficial for them to peer for free with other large networks and make their money by charging smaller ones and having a bigger profit margin on their own customers, which makes them a so-called tier 1 network. Enter american ISPs like Comcast. Comcast seems to have grown through a primarily end customer oriented strategy. They grew their last mile business very quickly and became a near monopoly for commercial internet access in many parts of the United States, serving millions of customers, all the while purchasing as little upstream bandwidth as they could get away with from larger networks with a strong presence in the United States, such as Level3 (now CenturyLink). This technologically short-sighted business model did not immediately fail because they "carefully oversold" their upstream capabilities (this is perfectly normal - you sell bandwidth based on your average network load expectations, not based on the assumption everyone will be using 100% of what you sell them at all times), engaged in p2p blocking and traffic shaping, and had a really good customer retention plan ("oh, you're not happy with your service? maybe you can try our competitors... wait, there are none? oops...")