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One of the biggest arguments I remember being made back when net neutrality was a hot topic was that ISPs would bundle and sell specific websites as tiered plan

• ejstronge 3y ago
  ISPs are offering 'Netflix-included' or discounted Disney+ plans. I don't know how they account for downloads from these services but the bundling is definitely happening.
  • falcojr 3y ago
    Data caps (and services being excluded from them) are different though, aren't they? IIRC these were already happening before net neutrality rules were removed.
    • Goronmon 3y ago
      Data caps existed, but exempting services from specific ones it the problem. Especially when it becomes "pay us to get your service excluded from the caps".
    • sarchertech 3y ago
      It’s about different data caps for different services. It’s favoring one service over another. Especially when many of those services are owned by the same company that owns the ISP, it’s completely anti-competitive. When your new high bandwidth service counts against a customer’s data cap, but your Comcast owned competitor’s data doesn’t, how are you supposed to fairly compete?
  • supriyo-biswas 3y ago
    When a zero-rating agreement is successfully negotiated between ISPs and website operators, they share a list of IP ranges with the ISP, and any traffic towards these IPs are excluded from the consumer’s data cap.
    • parineum 3y ago
      ISPs have already gotten around anti-data cap laws by locating content servers within their network and only charging caps for data that travels outside their network.
  • lr4444lr 3y ago
    That comes with exclusive content, though - not the same thing at all as what the NN acolytes were warning us would happen if common carrier status was lost. The goal-post shifting is not admirable. We were told there would be the end of the free web, and we're almost 6 years out. Time to admit that the evidence suggests this was fear mongering, and not grasp at straws.
  • SV_BubbleTime 3y ago
    They are grouping the service payments. Unless you can show examples of these servcices avoiding datacaps? And even then, in this case it's very likely that allow-lists were OK under NN, just not block-lists.
• mlindner 3y ago
  No, nothing of that sort has happened in the US because the rules for NN haven't changed. It was a created internet hype machine to push more new restrictive rules by acting like chicken little and shouting that the sky was falling.
• JohnTHaller 3y ago
  We have gotten it, but with services not websites. Mobile providers will sell you an "Unlimited" data plan that throttles everything after 25GB a month. Streaming Spotify and Apple Music won't count against that soft data cap. Streaming other music services will count against it. Video streaming over YouTube, Netflix, etc is capped at 480p levels. If you pay an additional monthly fee, you get upgraded to "Unlimited Plus" which will increase your soft cap to 40GB a month and your video streaming quality to 1080p. It'll also bundle in Netflix's basic level and give you 6 months of Apple+ for "free".
  • 0xy 3y ago
    How is that remotely the same thing? The infographic above and others clearly claim that ISPs will be blocking services then requiring you to pay for them separately. Exempting services from data caps is not against net neutrality, and for example has been regular practice all across Europe (which has "net neutrality"). Isn't it just shifting the goal posts after the original claims of NN campaigners were discredited and never materialized in any remote fashion after NN was abolished? Let us not forget that net neutrality campaigning was primarily pushed by Netflix, who refused to pay Verizon for infrastructure upgrades as per industry standard going back decades. The standard is that the disproportionate data user pays to upgrade the ports, equipment and/or line infrastructure. This is absolutely fair. A parallel is electricity capacity for homes and businesses, if you require more electricity than the local street infrastructure can provide you pay the power company to upgrade it to accommodate you. Only fair, the heavy users pay. The movement carried water for deadbeat corpos. Netflix wanted to saturate internet links and balked at paying Verizon for new switches and pipes -- so they got their subscribers to complain.
    • UnlockedSecrets 3y ago
      > Exempting services from data caps is not against net neutrality, and for example has been regular practice all across Europe (which has "net neutrality"). UPS doesn't care if it is a Nike shirt or a Gucci shirt in a box, They just deliver the box where it is meant to go. Why should it be any different for an ISP?
• CalRobert 3y ago
  I seem to recall seeing it more a few years ago but there were definitely "Unlimited whatsapp" etc. style deals around. Maybe it's less relevant as data has gotten cheap enough so as to be a non-issue for most people. https://www.androidauthority.com/freedompop-sim-card-unlimited-free-whatsapp-710626/ https://www.androidauthority.com/freedompop-sim-card-unlimit... for instance (but that's old)
  • vxNsr 3y ago
    NN rules didn’t (and likely won’t) affect mobile carriers due to the limited nature of wireless spectrum, the FCC views throttling and data prioritization as a necessary evil.
    • rsingel 3y ago
      This is not true. FCC net neutrality rules apply to mobile carriers. So do the ones in California Europe India and Canada. There is leewway for a reasonable ment, but those measures can only be used temporarily during times of congestion and have to be as application agnostic as possible
      • hedora 3y ago
        If that is the case, then 100% of cell carriers are in violation of the law. If you know of a counterexample I'd like to hear it. In particular, California network neutrality says they can't discriminate against services or devices. Complying with the law would imply that any 5G plan could work with any 5G device, so people could use their $10/month tablet add on plans for home broadband and laptops / tethering. Similarly no company would be offering bundles or degrading streaming bandwidth on a per-service basis. For what it's worth, Comcast is also obviously in violation of the above rules, as are the AT&T business 5G terms of service (which specifically say you can't use the service for residential services, such as streaming video, but you can use it for things like video conferencing.) It could just be that the law is not being enforced.
        • 3y ago
• lr4444lr 3y ago
  The sky was supposed to fall if net neutrality were abrogated, and IME, that hasn't happened. The only change I (and people I know) witnessed was throttling once broad data limits were exceeded, which IIRC wasn't what was at stake, and which I for one didn't object to, i.e., that people would have to pay for what they use. In short, I have not seen bandwidth or pricing weaponized at all to target specific businesses other than for morally objectionable content. Maybe my awareness is limited - I can't confirm that!
  • Goronmon 3y ago
    The sky was supposed to fall if net neutrality were abrogated, and IME, that hasn't happened. ISPs aren't run by complete idiots. They knew this current switch back was a likely possibility. If they had rushed to implement service tiers, it would have given even more ammunition to the net neutrality debate. Now they can say "See we had a chance for a few years to do it and didn't, so we need to pass laws to make sure net neutrality is illegal to protect our freedom." They'll pay some politicians to push something like the "Internet Freedom Act" and then they'll be good to go.
    • somenameforme 3y ago
      And how long do you expect your timeline to playout on? It's been more than 6 years now, and we're talking about corporations that regularly have difficulty seeing beyond next quarter, and have absolutely no qualms pissing off the entire world if it means another buck. Why wouldn't they have rushed to enact the new laws immediately under an FCC political establishment that would have been favorable to such? It seems to me that simple market economics offers a compelling alternative. The more they screw the customer, the more room there is for new or existing competitor, be that something like Starlink or one of the many micro-ISPs being able to grow a bit. You need to create some economic model where these tiers are both profitable and don't expose you to a reasonable fear of competition. That seems quite difficult to do.
      • supriyo-biswas 3y ago
        There is precedent of this happening in countries without Net Neutrality laws such as the Philippines, where ISPs have zero-rating agreements with operators of popular websites, which effectively cements the position of incumbents.
• aqme28 3y ago
  That didn't happen here, but that is an actual advertisement from a Portuguese ISP, not just some sensationalized propaganda.
  • SV_BubbleTime 3y ago
    So, you are saying some unverified tiny ISP bad marketing decision in Portugal in 2015 or earlier (that image is old) should be used to direct policy for the entire united states regardless of the reality of the actual practices? That is exactly what sensationalized propaganda looks like in this case. You are doing it right now.
    • aqme28 3y ago
      To say that this thing that actually happened didn't actually happen would also be propaganda. Every statement has bias. I'm just pointing out that this isn't a joke image, it's a real image.
• AlexandrB 3y ago
  If net neutrality is not relevant anyways, why are ISPs so dead set against it?
  • cptskippy 3y ago
    A concern from ISPs is that they will lose the ability to shape and prioritize traffic, something that is often necessary. A concern from consumers is that services will be restricted or rendered unusable by throttling selectively driving customers away from services. A concern from Service Providers is that they will have to make deals with ISPs to ensure quality of service. They're valid concerns on all sides and without Net Neutrality we've seen service restrictions, though they're advertised as benefits (e.g. free OTT messaging on flights from certain providers). We've also seen ISPs bully providers like Netflix into paying to deliver traffic their customers are paying to access (double dipping). It hasn't been the doom and gloom that was hyped but has definitely impacted services. Under net neutrality I expect we'll see a degradation of cellular services or forced consent agreements as WISPs will not be allowed to downgrade or shape traffic otherwise. It cuts both ways and I will be surprised if it makes much difference.
    • dd36 3y ago
      Net neutrality is the law in California. ISPs are doing just fine.
    • hedora 3y ago
      Shaping and prioritizing traffic can be done in a service-agnostic way, so the sorts of shaping they can make money off of are never "necessary." The anti-network neutrality thing is just a money grab. Here's a good-enough traffic shaping algorithm: Each user gets their traffic put into two queues. High bandwidth flows go into a the low priority queues. Low bandwidth (video conferencing, interactive) flows go into the high priority queue. You round robin between all the users' queues at the local node level. If the trunk line is saturated by a few users, then their queues will be long, causing their flows to backpressure. Everyone else's queues will have ~ 1 packet in them, leading to no backpressure and negligible latency. It's extremely difficult to do better than the solution I just sketched. It is stateless, and it is also very easy to approximate in hardware. It even handles the "I want to torrent and VOIP at the same time" problem.
• exabrial 3y ago
  No it hasn’t. We’re fighting a boogieman. Instead, we’re going to do is further entrench local monopolies, since only the large guys will be able to afford to comply with regulation. You literally can’t force corporate Americas to act beneficial to their consumers of incentives are misaligned. It takes literal FDA-levels of regulation to accomplish that, and even that has failures while generally making the entire process expensive while consolidating things down to just a few market players.
  • deltarholamda 3y ago
    Like many government regulations, it has a great name, "Net Neutrality," which, when it is actually implemented, will do much more than make the 'Net neutral. Maybe, at first, it will have something to do with "you can't throttle Web services," but it will morph into "you MUST throttle this particular Web service, it spreads disinformation, which makes the Net less neutral." It is what always happens. It is more reliable than gravity.
    • mattnewton 3y ago
      What? How would regulation that “you must not throttle” lead to regulation for “you just throttle”? That makes no sense.
      • deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      • deltarholamda 3y ago
        How much of the Patriot Act was patriotic? The US government does this sort of thing all the time.
      • somenameforme 3y ago
        The most typical way this is done is through selective enforcement. You create rules that most of anybody can be argued to be breaking, but only enforce it for individuals or organizations that you have an issue with. With net neutrality it's pretty easy to see how this would happen. The previous net neutrality rules, under Tom Wheeler, included a carveout for nearly all rules under anything that could be justified as "reasonable network management." This carveout is necessary due to the nature of network management, but it creates an interesting scenario. That term was used literally dozens of times, but also defined absolutely nowhere. This now gives politicians the ability to interpret it, as they see fit. For a company that runs afoul of the powers that be, suddenly it's a standard that can't be met. For those in favor, anything can be accepted as "reasonable network management." And this is how corruption and tyranny typically works works. The cases of a somebody going completely rogue, or a politician doing something after being handed golden bars or a bag of cash - do still happen. But, by and large, the system is big enough, and complex enough, that if somebody with enough power wants to screw somebody - they can do it legally. And if somebody protests inequitable or unfair treatment, just call it a whataboutism.
• ericmay 3y ago
  If it never happened no harm in making sure it doesn’t happen either.
  • cddotdotslash 3y ago
    Sure, but the argument kind of loses merit, no? I remember the entire collective internet having site wide shutdowns, urging users to write to congress, etc. It was an extensive campaign that looped in many non technical folks to a very technical topic. You can only cry wolf like that a few times. If a similar campaign were to launch again, I’m almost certain it would fail to get the same mainstream support, especially because the “sky is falling” arguments made last time never came true (or at least not in the ways claimed). Lost credibility is hard to regain for the next time there truly is an existential crisis.
    • mattnewton 3y ago
      No it doesn’t lose merit because the fight isn’t over. It’s not like all major ISPs are going to immediately ramp up to 11; even if they wanted to make that blunder while people are still clearly educated about the issue and paying attention, negotiating payments for services exempt from traffic shaping is a long b2b sales cycle that has only started. They are going to slowly boil the frog after watching the others get away with more in their region.
      • wredue 3y ago
        Yeah. This thread is getting to me. Okay. Net neutrality died and ISPs didn’t immediately turn the internet in to subscriptions to different cloud providers. The fact is that they CAN, and to be so deliriously ignorant as to believe that “it didn’t happen yet, so it will never happen” is just… what is happening here? Is this thread just ChatGPT bots? Regardless of if Microsoft, google, Amazon and ISPs have not yet managed to cooperate in to cable style subscriptions to what parts of the internet you get, we are WAY better off enshrining to law that they cannot do it.
        • 3y ago
• deleted 3y ago
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• temporallobe 3y ago
  I’m with you, but “bundling” sites like cable companies bundle channels is not even a correct analogy. Doing so would fundamentally break the internet as we know it and I am pretty certain the site owners wouldn’t like it either, since it could break ad-delivery. It would be a complicated mess that the ISPs would have to backpedal on. The simpler solution is just to change more money for everything and throttle, though I suppose they could create app-only access like what you’re describing (basically no direct access to port 80 via normal browsers). Or, recreate the glory days of something like AOL.
• KingLancelot 3y ago
  [dead]
• adrr 3y ago
  It happens on airplanes and paid WiFi. Some allow free browsing of certain sites and charge for full access. Some airlines charge more for streaming access. Some provide basic messaging on a low priced tier.
• dfxm12 3y ago
  People were screwed, but not like this. ISP's mostly put the screws to streaming services. Just point them to Netflix's price hikes shortly after they felt the effects of NN getting repealed in ~2019, or the constant back and forth between Verizon and Netflix. Mobile customers didn't get away scot free though. This did enable mobile service providers to offer more tiered plans, which on average raised prices on worse service via caps and throttled speeds. Some people may still be "grandfathered" in to old unlimited plans, but a lot of people either paid more, got worse service, or both.
• op00to 3y ago
  It's more insidious than simply bundling together access to certain websites. The main way that ISPs extract $$ out of content providers is by charging the content providers to peer to their network. If there isn't a recurring peering agreement in place, the ISP will let the content provider's peering interface overload which drives service quality down. Of course, the ISP ensures /their/ content provider is always on an interface with plenty of bandwidth to spare.
• birdyrooster 3y ago
  They don’t upgrade their interconnects with other residential ISPs which is making it hard for decentralized alternatives to displace the big cloud based vendors.