7 ms·

House of Representatives Passes Net Neutrality Protections

111 points by glitcher 8y ago

zachwood 8y ago
Mitch McConnell has already stated that he will refuse to allow the Senate a vote. Because he is trash. https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/438133-mcconnell-net-neutrality-bill-dead-on-arrival-in-senate https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/438133-mcconnell-net-neu...
- JosephHatfield 8y ago
  In the last election cycle, McConnell received: $99K from Comcast, $66K from Verizon, and $49K from AT&T.
  - mywittyname 8y ago
    Maybe he should receive 214,000 complain letters and phone calls from his constituents.
  - educationdata 8y ago
    There is no reason to believe this small amount of money is the explanation of his position.
    - jchw 8y ago
      Who do you treat more favorably, people who just happen to pay you a collective amount of around $200,000 or people that yell at you but otherwise effectively can't do anything to stop or even discourage you? Yeah, I bet ISPs accidentally signed checks to politicians without intending for it to cause them to be treated favorably, just out of the good of their heart. Dropping the sarcasm now, because it's obnoxious, but honestly, it's silly to pretend nobody knows what's going on here. Frankly though singling out ISPs here is silly, I'm sure most big businesses do exactly this same thing and we all let it happen so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
      - paulgb 8y ago
        I despise McConnell, but I think it's just as plausible that he genuinely believes that net neutrality goes against his ideology (free market, low regulation) and Comcast et. al. make their donations because his ideology futhers their desired outcomes, as opposed to donating to bring him to their side.
        heavenlyblue 8y ago
        I would assume the problem is that for the consumers, even if they are a larger group - it’s way more expensive to collect the same amount of money to lobby for the opposite. So obviously it’s way easier to hold an extremely narrow point of view because it’s so easy to get campaign money for it.
        educationdata 8y ago
        $200,000 is a very small amount of money in grassroot crowdfunding. Against net neutrality is not "an extremely narrow point of view".
        enumjorge 8y ago
        Possibly. But that doesn’t excuse his refusal to have the Senate vote on it.
        uabstraction 8y ago
        McConnell has no ideology besides accumulating power.
      - educationdata 8y ago
        If it is really just because of money, why can't companies supporting net neutrality donate to him and other senators to get the law passed in the Senate? There are way more companies can do this than a few ISPs, and they have tons of money. Your simplistic view does not hold water.
        jchw 8y ago
    - acct1771 8y ago
      I've seen instances of political favoritism for as little as 15k USD in campaign funds...never underestimate a man's willingness to sell himself.
  - sampleinajar 8y ago
    I'm not sure where you are getting those numbers from, but according to Open Secrets, in 2018 a Democrat was top receiver from Comcast. McConnell is fairly low on this list. Can you share your source? https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/recips.php?id=D000000461&type=P&state=&sort=A&cycle=2018 https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/recips.php?id=D000000461&ty...
    - ineedasername 8y ago
      I'm guessing it also comes from opensecrets. Not sure why the two views of data are in apparent disagreement, but when you look at what McConnell received from Comcast instead of what Comcast gave, the number does indeed jump to just under $100k: https://www.opensecrets.org/members-of-congress/contributors?cid=N00003389&cycle=2018&type=C https://www.opensecrets.org/members-of-congress/contributors...
- jandrese 8y ago
  I would have expected him to just rush it to the floor without debate so it could be voted down. Either way there was never a chance this legislation was going to make it through the Senate. There was a definite feel of "you can go back to eating the paste now House, the big boys of the Senate know what is best."
- Mikhail_Edoshin 8y ago
  Is that kind of speech permissible on HN nowadays?
mekane8 8y ago
Why do the Republicans hate Net neutrality so much?
- wmf 8y ago
  Because Republicans are "pro-business" and favor "small government" while net neutrality is "anti-business" and "large government".
  - zigzaggy 8y ago
    Funny that you put all these “issues” in quotes. Gave me a smile. :) Because as we know: Government spending is growing at an unprecedented rate under current POTUS, and corporate welfare is alive and well.
  - AnthonyMouse 8y ago
    That doesn't really ring true. If they were actually in favor of those things then they would also be eliminating build-out requirements and other regulations so that it would be easier to start a small ISP with e.g. 500 customers in one section of town, without having to raise enough capital to cover an entire region or being sued into bankruptcy by the incumbents under existing laws. This is less ideology and more corruption.
    - president 8y ago
      People against net-neutrality either: 1. Don't know what net-neutrality really is 2. Are against it because their "team" is against it. 3. Or are getting paid to oppose it
      - Agustus 8y ago
        Negative. People who support net neutrality do not know what net neutrality really is. Net neutrality is a push by the big corporations to avoid having to pay for the pipeline they use. Google, Netflix, and the like that use huge amounts of bandwidth. You are witnessing rent seeking 101, the corporations on one side are trying to get regulations to help themselves.
nintendo95 8y ago
Please, could someone more knowledgeable explain to me. I have used computers since mid 1980s. Started with Atari 800XL. I have used Internet since mid or late 1990s. So first thing: please forget what the name of the Act is. Forget it. Not Net Neutrality. Let's call it "Act ABC". I know, ridicilous, but I want you to look at the issue... hmmm... in neutral manner. I remember the Internet that the ABC Act is supposed to protect us from. Internet in which you pay for the data used. I used a modem and was paying for my time online. So websites that took forever to load or didn't employ caching (looking at you youtube without cashing just streaming, but wth). This was much much more diverse internet. That was the internet that forced p2p sharing and p2p platforms. Non-existent now because the current system where you don't pay for the data privilleges big oligopolies, big corporations that have the most data. Google (with its subsidaries), Facebook, Twitter are like what 70% of the internet now? Why? How is that good? I want my crazy websites back. I want diversity. I want copyrighted streaming to be kicked in the stomach. I want competition. I don't want Google, Facebook and Twitter monopolizing the internet. Look, ISPs have never censored the content. Google, Facebook, Twitter do it all the time. On the one hand they say, oh we're platform. On the other they edit content. So which one is it? Obviously you can't have both at the same time. Paying for data would disrupt Google, i.e. it would kill youtube (owned by google) overnight or at least far reaching changes in it. Facebook also, spending 3-4 hours a day on it, and paying ? Noow, wouldn't it be better to spend 20 minutes there and then browse for other locations? Just to spend your expensive online time more wisely. With free cost of bytes send developers, and I'm sorry to say it, I'm a developer too though, can be lazy. No optimization what-so-ever. Building websites to make sure they are small, load fast, put important content up-front, don't waste users time... now how this could be bad? Net Neutrality is the step in the future. Future of Googles, Twitters and Facebooks, Amazons, 3-4 oligopolies taking all traffic, killing all the innovation and competition in the process. This isn't the future I hoped for. I hoped for neevr ending 1990s internet. With dozens of websites I visited regularly. And these dozens changing every year too. Future of the internet looks so regulated now. The last step will be the Government taking over, or rather regulating, FANG. This is death of the innovation for this Industry. And make no mistake: if Republicans won't pass Net Neutrality then Democrats will surely do it. But still they seem to recognize the same problem, Ms. Elizabeth Warren wants to break-down Google, Twitter, Facebook into smaller competing companies -- employing anti-trust laws against them via Department of Justice action. So I think we see the problem on both sides of the aisle. The thing is that solving the problem of big corporations governing the Internet like their own turf might be better done via making time on the internet or data sent paid again. Just seems more natural than taking Judical action against the offenders.
ghda 8y ago
Genuine question: has the end of net neutrality had any bad effects so far? I remember a lot of doom being prophesied regarding the end of net neutrality, and then I remember it ending, and then I don’t really remember hearing about it again until just now.
carnagii 8y ago
This net neutrality is far from it when Google, Amazon, etc have their own private networks to which net neutrality rules don't apply. If carriers are prevented from offering differentiated services, which are required for next Gen products like self driving cars, video games in the cloud, Tele presence, and even just reliable video conferencing, then the only companies that will be able to offer these services will be the ones with existing multi billion private networks. Or you have to run your business on aws or gce and pay them 10X and they get all the profit. The only way a true competitor could get started is if they can buy the network service they need from an independent carrier. The fcc is right on this and Google is full of bs.
- AnthonyMouse 8y ago
  Network neutrality applies to last mile providers like Comcast and Verizon, and only to the extent that one of the endpoints is one of their last mile customers. You're talking about transit providers like Cogent and Level 3, which it doesn't apply to any more than it does to Google. It also applies to Google to the extent that they have Google Fiber last mile customers. It's true that GCE and AWS have expensive bandwidth prices, but then buy from someone else. It's not as if they have no effective competition, unlike Comcast.
  - carnagii 8y ago
    Correct, but suppose one company has hundreds of edge's to their private network very close to the last mile and they run 10-20% of all internet traffic going across that last mile. If you are Google or Amazon and push a lot of low priority streaming bandwidth, a neutral last mile dedicates a lot of capacity to you, so when you prioritize high value data on your own network that priority ends up applying to the last mile as well. The only way a new company without a massive nationwide network could compete with Google or Amazon is if they could pay a carrier for prioritized service. If you prevent the carriers from offering prioritized service then you are reducing competition because Google and Amazon can and do offer this. Google and Amazon are far more dangerous monopolists than the traditional telcos. They are already vertically integrated hardware/software/media/everything companies. If some innovative startup builds a killer product that requires their network to function then they will either buy it, or create their own competitive product and kill it. AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast are relatively small companies now and they are in direct competition with Google and Amazon on many fronts, including this one. The Google version of net-neutrality is nothing more than an attempt to stifle what little competition they have left.

111 points by glitcher 8y ago

Mitch McConnell has already stated that he will refuse to allow the Senate a vote. Because he is trash. https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/438133-mcconnell-net-neutrality-bill-dead-on-arrival-in-senate https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/438133-mcconnell-net-neu...

JosephHatfield 8y ago
In the last election cycle, McConnell received: $99K from Comcast, $66K from Verizon, and $49K from AT&T.
- mywittyname 8y ago
  Maybe he should receive 214,000 complain letters and phone calls from his constituents.
- educationdata 8y ago
  There is no reason to believe this small amount of money is the explanation of his position.
  - jchw 8y ago
    Who do you treat more favorably, people who just happen to pay you a collective amount of around $200,000 or people that yell at you but otherwise effectively can't do anything to stop or even discourage you? Yeah, I bet ISPs accidentally signed checks to politicians without intending for it to cause them to be treated favorably, just out of the good of their heart. Dropping the sarcasm now, because it's obnoxious, but honestly, it's silly to pretend nobody knows what's going on here. Frankly though singling out ISPs here is silly, I'm sure most big businesses do exactly this same thing and we all let it happen so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
    - paulgb 8y ago
      I despise McConnell, but I think it's just as plausible that he genuinely believes that net neutrality goes against his ideology (free market, low regulation) and Comcast et. al. make their donations because his ideology futhers their desired outcomes, as opposed to donating to bring him to their side.
      - heavenlyblue 8y ago
        I would assume the problem is that for the consumers, even if they are a larger group - it’s way more expensive to collect the same amount of money to lobby for the opposite. So obviously it’s way easier to hold an extremely narrow point of view because it’s so easy to get campaign money for it.
        educationdata 8y ago
        $200,000 is a very small amount of money in grassroot crowdfunding. Against net neutrality is not "an extremely narrow point of view".
      - enumjorge 8y ago
        Possibly. But that doesn’t excuse his refusal to have the Senate vote on it.
      - uabstraction 8y ago
        McConnell has no ideology besides accumulating power.
    - educationdata 8y ago
      If it is really just because of money, why can't companies supporting net neutrality donate to him and other senators to get the law passed in the Senate? There are way more companies can do this than a few ISPs, and they have tons of money. Your simplistic view does not hold water.
      - jchw 8y ago
  - acct1771 8y ago
    I've seen instances of political favoritism for as little as 15k USD in campaign funds...never underestimate a man's willingness to sell himself.
- sampleinajar 8y ago
  I'm not sure where you are getting those numbers from, but according to Open Secrets, in 2018 a Democrat was top receiver from Comcast. McConnell is fairly low on this list. Can you share your source? https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/recips.php?id=D000000461&type=P&state=&sort=A&cycle=2018 https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/recips.php?id=D000000461&ty...
  - ineedasername 8y ago
    I'm guessing it also comes from opensecrets. Not sure why the two views of data are in apparent disagreement, but when you look at what McConnell received from Comcast instead of what Comcast gave, the number does indeed jump to just under $100k: https://www.opensecrets.org/members-of-congress/contributors?cid=N00003389&cycle=2018&type=C https://www.opensecrets.org/members-of-congress/contributors...
jandrese 8y ago
I would have expected him to just rush it to the floor without debate so it could be voted down. Either way there was never a chance this legislation was going to make it through the Senate. There was a definite feel of "you can go back to eating the paste now House, the big boys of the Senate know what is best."
Mikhail_Edoshin 8y ago
Is that kind of speech permissible on HN nowadays?

mekane8 8y ago

Why do the Republicans hate Net neutrality so much?

wmf 8y ago
Because Republicans are "pro-business" and favor "small government" while net neutrality is "anti-business" and "large government".
- zigzaggy 8y ago
  Funny that you put all these “issues” in quotes. Gave me a smile. :) Because as we know: Government spending is growing at an unprecedented rate under current POTUS, and corporate welfare is alive and well.
- AnthonyMouse 8y ago
  That doesn't really ring true. If they were actually in favor of those things then they would also be eliminating build-out requirements and other regulations so that it would be easier to start a small ISP with e.g. 500 customers in one section of town, without having to raise enough capital to cover an entire region or being sued into bankruptcy by the incumbents under existing laws. This is less ideology and more corruption.
  - president 8y ago
    People against net-neutrality either: 1. Don't know what net-neutrality really is 2. Are against it because their "team" is against it. 3. Or are getting paid to oppose it
    - Agustus 8y ago
      Negative. People who support net neutrality do not know what net neutrality really is. Net neutrality is a push by the big corporations to avoid having to pay for the pipeline they use. Google, Netflix, and the like that use huge amounts of bandwidth. You are witnessing rent seeking 101, the corporations on one side are trying to get regulations to help themselves.

nintendo95 8y ago

Please, could someone more knowledgeable explain to me. I have used computers since mid 1980s. Started with Atari 800XL. I have used Internet since mid or late 1990s. So first thing: please forget what the name of the Act is. Forget it. Not Net Neutrality. Let's call it "Act ABC". I know, ridicilous, but I want you to look at the issue... hmmm... in neutral manner. I remember the Internet that the ABC Act is supposed to protect us from. Internet in which you pay for the data used. I used a modem and was paying for my time online. So websites that took forever to load or didn't employ caching (looking at you youtube without cashing just streaming, but wth). This was much much more diverse internet. That was the internet that forced p2p sharing and p2p platforms. Non-existent now because the current system where you don't pay for the data privilleges big oligopolies, big corporations that have the most data. Google (with its subsidaries), Facebook, Twitter are like what 70% of the internet now? Why? How is that good? I want my crazy websites back. I want diversity. I want copyrighted streaming to be kicked in the stomach. I want competition. I don't want Google, Facebook and Twitter monopolizing the internet. Look, ISPs have never censored the content. Google, Facebook, Twitter do it all the time. On the one hand they say, oh we're platform. On the other they edit content. So which one is it? Obviously you can't have both at the same time. Paying for data would disrupt Google, i.e. it would kill youtube (owned by google) overnight or at least far reaching changes in it. Facebook also, spending 3-4 hours a day on it, and paying ? Noow, wouldn't it be better to spend 20 minutes there and then browse for other locations? Just to spend your expensive online time more wisely. With free cost of bytes send developers, and I'm sorry to say it, I'm a developer too though, can be lazy. No optimization what-so-ever. Building websites to make sure they are small, load fast, put important content up-front, don't waste users time... now how this could be bad? Net Neutrality is the step in the future. Future of Googles, Twitters and Facebooks, Amazons, 3-4 oligopolies taking all traffic, killing all the innovation and competition in the process. This isn't the future I hoped for. I hoped for neevr ending 1990s internet. With dozens of websites I visited regularly. And these dozens changing every year too. Future of the internet looks so regulated now. The last step will be the Government taking over, or rather regulating, FANG. This is death of the innovation for this Industry. And make no mistake: if Republicans won't pass Net Neutrality then Democrats will surely do it. But still they seem to recognize the same problem, Ms. Elizabeth Warren wants to break-down Google, Twitter, Facebook into smaller competing companies -- employing anti-trust laws against them via Department of Justice action. So I think we see the problem on both sides of the aisle. The thing is that solving the problem of big corporations governing the Internet like their own turf might be better done via making time on the internet or data sent paid again. Just seems more natural than taking Judical action against the offenders.

ghda 8y ago

Genuine question: has the end of net neutrality had any bad effects so far? I remember a lot of doom being prophesied regarding the end of net neutrality, and then I remember it ending, and then I don’t really remember hearing about it again until just now.

carnagii 8y ago

This net neutrality is far from it when Google, Amazon, etc have their own private networks to which net neutrality rules don't apply. If carriers are prevented from offering differentiated services, which are required for next Gen products like self driving cars, video games in the cloud, Tele presence, and even just reliable video conferencing, then the only companies that will be able to offer these services will be the ones with existing multi billion private networks. Or you have to run your business on aws or gce and pay them 10X and they get all the profit. The only way a true competitor could get started is if they can buy the network service they need from an independent carrier. The fcc is right on this and Google is full of bs.

AnthonyMouse 8y ago
Network neutrality applies to last mile providers like Comcast and Verizon, and only to the extent that one of the endpoints is one of their last mile customers. You're talking about transit providers like Cogent and Level 3, which it doesn't apply to any more than it does to Google. It also applies to Google to the extent that they have Google Fiber last mile customers. It's true that GCE and AWS have expensive bandwidth prices, but then buy from someone else. It's not as if they have no effective competition, unlike Comcast.
- carnagii 8y ago
  Correct, but suppose one company has hundreds of edge's to their private network very close to the last mile and they run 10-20% of all internet traffic going across that last mile. If you are Google or Amazon and push a lot of low priority streaming bandwidth, a neutral last mile dedicates a lot of capacity to you, so when you prioritize high value data on your own network that priority ends up applying to the last mile as well. The only way a new company without a massive nationwide network could compete with Google or Amazon is if they could pay a carrier for prioritized service. If you prevent the carriers from offering prioritized service then you are reducing competition because Google and Amazon can and do offer this. Google and Amazon are far more dangerous monopolists than the traditional telcos. They are already vertically integrated hardware/software/media/everything companies. If some innovative startup builds a killer product that requires their network to function then they will either buy it, or create their own competitive product and kill it. AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast are relatively small companies now and they are in direct competition with Google and Amazon on many fronts, including this one. The Google version of net-neutrality is nothing more than an attempt to stifle what little competition they have left.