5 ms·

I still don't understand "net neutrality". Further, reading other people's definitions and opinions, it feels like the pro and con advocates are talking past ea

I still don't understand "net neutrality". Further, reading other people's definitions and opinions, it feels like the pro and con advocates are talking past each other. Here's my current stab at understanding each side: Customer perspective: Rent seeking bad. Don't want to be gouged. Broadband providers perspective: Mitigate the free rider problem(s), make the system fair. Examples would be very helpful. Of course there are bad actors. I'm trying to not get sucked into that food fight. My hope is that we can curtail bad behavior (cheating) with better policies. Surely we can design markets to satisfy the needs and concerns of both sides. Right? -- Mea culpa: My bro created and runs the ISP portions of a cable company. He relates examples of their struggles. Stuff like spending millions of dollars on gear and having other companies abusing it. We pretty much don't agree on anything. But my bros examples and concerns are legit. So I've been trying to dig into his positions on net neutrality, to better understand the larger impasse.

sologoub 6y ago
Can you share more of what he considers abuse and any other sides of that story?
- specialist 6y ago
  Of course. I'll try harder to ferret out my bro's grievances. Get some IRL details and not just his arm wavey stuff. Most of our policy discussions quickly devolve into partisan bullshit. It's a lot of work to keep convos on track. And when he talks about topics I do know about, a lot of the stuff he says (repeats) isn't even wrong. He is very good at his job, and knows the technical stuff cold, which is why I'm more open to his input on net neutrality.
zeroflow 6y ago
> Mitigate the free rider problem(s), make the system fair. Which free rider problem? The customer pays the ISP for access to the internet. I understand that the ISP would like to double-dip on this deal. But I regard this as wrong.
- specialist 6y ago
  Other broadband providers. My bro has never complained about their end users.
nickelcitymario 6y ago
I don't understand the "free rider" problem. I pay my ISP for bandwidth. WHAT I choose to download with that bandwidth has no impact on their bottom line, unless they were counting on me not actually using it. Websites and web apps pay for bandwidth. Anyone who has paid an AWS bill knows there's nothing free about it. The only group of companies that are guaranteed to make money in any internet venture are the ISPs. The rest of us are gambling, hoping that our investments will be worth it. On top of that, we're all competing with a global market, whiles ISPs tend to only compete with a handful of local providers at a time, allowing them a lot more control over prices. Meanwhile, they're selling pick axes in a gold rush and crying victim? Doesn't make a lick of sense to me.
- worldofmatthew 6y ago
  You pay your ISP for their transit and peering blend. The same as I pay my Web host for access to their transit blend. This is a seprate issue from what most people see as net neutrality. If true net neutrality was enforced, then there would be no caching boxes for Google,Facebook or Netflix and they would have to rely on public peering with the congestion that comes with.
  - specialist 6y ago
    > This is a seprate issue from what most people see as net neutrality. Exactly. It really feels like the debate over "net neutrality" is conflating multiple issues. I kinda get the ISP biz model. Overprovisioning and so forth. I have no clue about the backbone biz model. How the transit fees work. I want the ELI5 (Ray Dalio, Courtney Love) covering how broadband works. What the basics? Who's screwing who? How companies deal with each other. How they deal with content publishers like Netflix, TikTok, etc.
- itisit 6y ago
  You pay your ISP for bandwidth, but not for full and constant utilization of said bandwidth. Check the acceptable use policy of any major ISP, and you'll find they can throttle you whenever and however at their sole discretion.
- 6y ago
wiml 6y ago
Possibly helpful example: the classic net neutrality example, in my mind, is a decade or so ago when Time-Warner Cable (in some markets) was throttling Craigslist to be painfully slow, because Craigslist was eating into the classified-ads business of other parts of the Time-Warner group.

sologoub 6y ago

Can you share more of what he considers abuse and any other sides of that story?

specialist 6y ago
Of course. I'll try harder to ferret out my bro's grievances. Get some IRL details and not just his arm wavey stuff. Most of our policy discussions quickly devolve into partisan bullshit. It's a lot of work to keep convos on track. And when he talks about topics I do know about, a lot of the stuff he says (repeats) isn't even wrong. He is very good at his job, and knows the technical stuff cold, which is why I'm more open to his input on net neutrality.

zeroflow 6y ago

> Mitigate the free rider problem(s), make the system fair. Which free rider problem? The customer pays the ISP for access to the internet. I understand that the ISP would like to double-dip on this deal. But I regard this as wrong.

specialist 6y ago
Other broadband providers. My bro has never complained about their end users.

nickelcitymario 6y ago

I don't understand the "free rider" problem. I pay my ISP for bandwidth. WHAT I choose to download with that bandwidth has no impact on their bottom line, unless they were counting on me not actually using it. Websites and web apps pay for bandwidth. Anyone who has paid an AWS bill knows there's nothing free about it. The only group of companies that are guaranteed to make money in any internet venture are the ISPs. The rest of us are gambling, hoping that our investments will be worth it. On top of that, we're all competing with a global market, whiles ISPs tend to only compete with a handful of local providers at a time, allowing them a lot more control over prices. Meanwhile, they're selling pick axes in a gold rush and crying victim? Doesn't make a lick of sense to me.

worldofmatthew 6y ago
You pay your ISP for their transit and peering blend. The same as I pay my Web host for access to their transit blend. This is a seprate issue from what most people see as net neutrality. If true net neutrality was enforced, then there would be no caching boxes for Google,Facebook or Netflix and they would have to rely on public peering with the congestion that comes with.
- specialist 6y ago
  > This is a seprate issue from what most people see as net neutrality. Exactly. It really feels like the debate over "net neutrality" is conflating multiple issues. I kinda get the ISP biz model. Overprovisioning and so forth. I have no clue about the backbone biz model. How the transit fees work. I want the ELI5 (Ray Dalio, Courtney Love) covering how broadband works. What the basics? Who's screwing who? How companies deal with each other. How they deal with content publishers like Netflix, TikTok, etc.
itisit 6y ago
You pay your ISP for bandwidth, but not for full and constant utilization of said bandwidth. Check the acceptable use policy of any major ISP, and you'll find they can throttle you whenever and however at their sole discretion.
6y ago

wiml 6y ago

Possibly helpful example: the classic net neutrality example, in my mind, is a decade or so ago when Time-Warner Cable (in some markets) was throttling Craigslist to be painfully slow, because Craigslist was eating into the classified-ads business of other parts of the Time-Warner group.