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> 1. [ISPs] could choose which newsgroups to provide access to as part of their USENET access service. Just as they could decide which websites you can visit,

by u801e 3y ago

> 1. [ISPs] could choose which newsgroups to provide access to as part of their USENET access service. Just as they could decide which websites you can visit, but, outside of government intervention, they normally don't. Similarly, they could limit which MX servers could connect to the ISP's MTA server, but they don't (not counting SPF, DKIM, and DMARC). Why would that be different for usenet? > 2. USENET or a modern-day like-service as a separate billable item would not necessarily be subject to the same common carrier provisions that broadband service providers were subject to when they were regulated under Title II of the 1934 Communications Act. Reddit was a defendant in a lawsuit[1] case that the SCOTUS decided not to consider. The 9th US Circuit court ruled in favor of Reddit. Both Google and Twitter went through similar cases[2] and both prevailed. Would usenet fare any differently? > 3. This rule was also repealed under the Trump administration and broadband service providers are once again regulated under Title I, which is to say they are not classified as common carriers. Even if it hadn’t been or if they were to be reclassified under Title II, see point 2. I did try to see if this did change under the Biden administration but I have not heard of such a change nor could I find one. I don't believe ISPs were ever considered common carriers[3] and this includes the period where usenet and email were commonly included with ISP internet access. > 4. ISPs previously did not have the same incentive structure, and were dealing with a different market and legal environment prior to 2002. The truth is, USENET at the scale of Reddit could not exist without good moderation. After Eternal September, usenet continued to function relatively well up till the time the attorney general of New York threatened to sue[4] a number of major ISPs over child pornography on usenet (which would be like a user's ISP being sued over the fact that they have child pornographic images stored in their ISP email account's inbox folder). This lead to many ISPs discontinuing their bundled usenet service which led to a significant reduction in the number of people connecting to usenet. > I have an issue with the idea of getting billed for non-internet access services (read: content) through my ISP as a means of paying for them. Your ISP provides DNS services you can use to allow your computer to determine what server to connect to when you initiate a HTTP request with your web browser. You could choose not to use them and have your computer connect to an external DNS provider. Similarly, you could choose to use your ISPs MTA and have your mail client connect to it and issue SMTP requests to send your email to whomever you wish. So, if your ISP provided a NNTP server for your NNTP client to connect to, you can still choose to use another provider to connect to usenet. > I want a direct billing relationship with my service providers, not a stack of line items on my internet bill. ISPs so far have never had separate line items for bundled services in their bill. Not for usenet, not for email, not for DNS. I don't see that changing in the foreseeable future. > Put another way, I’m saying it is simply an unappealing arrangement when there are superior alternatives. I don't really see having to use third party service providers for every single service as a superior alternative. [1] https://www.reuters.com/legal/us-supreme-court-declines-hear-bid-sue-reddit-over-child-porn-2023-05-30/ https://www.reuters.com/legal/us-supreme-court-declines-hear... [2] https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/18/politics/supreme-court-twitter-google-social-media/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/18/politics/supreme-court-twitte... [3] https://www.ncta.com/whats-new/why-its-a-good-thing-that-broadband-isnt-a-common-carrier https://www.ncta.com/whats-new/why-its-a-good-thing-that-bro... [4] https://www.techdirt.com/2008/07/22/andrew-cuomo-threatens-to-sue-comcast-if-it-doesnt-sign-up-for-his-plan-to-pretend-to-fight-child-porn/ https://www.techdirt.com/2008/07/22/andrew-cuomo-threatens-t...

SllX 3y ago
1. Except some ISPs did eventually cutoff access to the alt.* hierarchy. Some terminated their NNTP service entirely. 2. That case is not related to the 1934 Communications Act and neither are the other two cases you cited. You’re thinking of the Communications Decency Act which is a separate law with the famous Section 230 clause, but Title I and Title II are different parts of the 1934 statute passed by Congress under which the FCC claims its legal authority, and who they regulate and how they may do so. 3. Briefly under the Obama administration until they were reclassified again under the Trump administration, but I addressed it because of what you said here: > ISPs are a common carrier and never really moderated the content of newsgroups on usenet. Re: DNS DNS is probably a core service. Yes there are third parties but if I had to supply my own DNS service, an Internet service provider would not be a very good Internet service provider seeing as how their core function is access to the Internet. I’d like to see how long an ISP would last without providing customers with a DNS resolver though, that could be fun. > ISPs so far have never had separate line items for bundled services in their bill. Not for usenet, not for email, not for DNS. I don't see that changing in the foreseeable future. Telephone, cable, home security and various streaming services they either own or have relationships with. Comcast even has an MVNO. We don’t live in a world where most ISPs are merely ISPs and a lot of them repurpose that infrastructure to provide other services. We don’t have to talk about ISPs in a vacuum. Also remember the original context of my first comment in this chain. I was responding to this: > I think that's what we're missing here. If we simply paid for this stuff as part of our regular internet bill again, we could solve a lot of the "nothing works for free" problems. I’ve re-read that a few times and wondered if I misread the spirit of this text and whether I should have replied the way I did or not, but independent of whether I have or not, please read what I wrote with the appropriate context when you respond. I wasn’t addressing whether ISPs did something, I was addressing the appeal of being billed this way vs on my credit card without the additional layer of obfuscation. Put another way: ISPs trying to do anything but give me Internet for money = bad; so a USENET or USENET-like service but at a much larger scale as a service provided by ISPs = unappealing. We have a million social networks and even communities with paid memberships. When AT&T cut off USENET access in 2008, it wasn’t just because they were being threatened with legal action over hosting child pornography on their NNTP servers, USENET had in their estimation declined past the point of return and it was no longer worth providing to their customers, particularly with a changing legal landscape that put them further at risk for continuing to provide it. There will never be a sequel to or rebirth of USENET at social media scale without moderation.

by u801e 3y ago

SllX 3y ago

1. Except some ISPs did eventually cutoff access to the alt.* hierarchy. Some terminated their NNTP service entirely. 2. That case is not related to the 1934 Communications Act and neither are the other two cases you cited. You’re thinking of the Communications Decency Act which is a separate law with the famous Section 230 clause, but Title I and Title II are different parts of the 1934 statute passed by Congress under which the FCC claims its legal authority, and who they regulate and how they may do so. 3. Briefly under the Obama administration until they were reclassified again under the Trump administration, but I addressed it because of what you said here: > ISPs are a common carrier and never really moderated the content of newsgroups on usenet. Re: DNS DNS is probably a core service. Yes there are third parties but if I had to supply my own DNS service, an Internet service provider would not be a very good Internet service provider seeing as how their core function is access to the Internet. I’d like to see how long an ISP would last without providing customers with a DNS resolver though, that could be fun. > ISPs so far have never had separate line items for bundled services in their bill. Not for usenet, not for email, not for DNS. I don't see that changing in the foreseeable future. Telephone, cable, home security and various streaming services they either own or have relationships with. Comcast even has an MVNO. We don’t live in a world where most ISPs are merely ISPs and a lot of them repurpose that infrastructure to provide other services. We don’t have to talk about ISPs in a vacuum. Also remember the original context of my first comment in this chain. I was responding to this: > I think that's what we're missing here. If we simply paid for this stuff as part of our regular internet bill again, we could solve a lot of the "nothing works for free" problems. I’ve re-read that a few times and wondered if I misread the spirit of this text and whether I should have replied the way I did or not, but independent of whether I have or not, please read what I wrote with the appropriate context when you respond. I wasn’t addressing whether ISPs did something, I was addressing the appeal of being billed this way vs on my credit card without the additional layer of obfuscation. Put another way: ISPs trying to do anything but give me Internet for money = bad; so a USENET or USENET-like service but at a much larger scale as a service provided by ISPs = unappealing. We have a million social networks and even communities with paid memberships. When AT&T cut off USENET access in 2008, it wasn’t just because they were being threatened with legal action over hosting child pornography on their NNTP servers, USENET had in their estimation declined past the point of return and it was no longer worth providing to their customers, particularly with a changing legal landscape that put them further at risk for continuing to provide it. There will never be a sequel to or rebirth of USENET at social media scale without moderation.