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What I’ve never understood is the argument that what California does regulating ISPs could actually affect the service plans in 49 other States. Think about it

by SllX 3y ago

What I’ve never understood is the argument that what California does regulating ISPs could actually affect the service plans in 49 other States. Think about it: these are service plans offered through cables that already exist, and that cross defined borders right? But what all an ISP has to do to offer different service plans in California, Oregon, Nevada and Arizona is to merely offer different terms to different people based off the State they reside in. That’s just paperwork (and you know, delivering on the agreed upon service for the agreed upon price), not automobiles. So I don’t really buy the argument that because California did a thing, ISPs couldn’t do all the supposed bad evil stuff they were going to immediately do once the FCC failed to “save the internet” anywhere else (although maybe other States also did the thing California did).

kstrauser 3y ago
Users in California may download from a service in New York. Users in New York may download from a service in California. I suspect it would be more expensive than it's worth to have asymmetric infrastructure that would allow them to them to throttle the New Yorker without violating the law for the Californian. All that network management would require teams of engineers and specialized hardware, all for something that may change on a whim and be obsoleted. What if New York copies California law? Bam. That investment instantly evaporated.
- onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
  >50% of US GDP is in states that are almost certainly going to prevent traffic throttling: https://www.naruc.org/nrri/nrri-activities/net-neutrality-tracker/ https://www.naruc.org/nrri/nrri-activities/net-neutrality-tr... It's probably not worth it to add in a whole bunch of BS just to try to make a bit more money in maybe Fl and Tx. Especially given the fact that it's not as straightforward as it seems - and legal consequences could easily outweigh any benefits. On top of that, I'd be surprised if ISPs tried to throttle traffic even in Fl and Tx and people in those states didn't pressure their government to ban it as well. Net neutrality is wildly popular with the public.
  - SllX 3y ago
    > Net neutrality is wildly popular with the public. I didn’t say it explicitly but I think this is the real reason that the ISPs largely haven’t changed their business practices independent of what the FCC says it can or can’t do. They don’t want the FCC in their shit, but they also don’t plan to do all of the worst case scenarios envisioned in say, this video from 2006: https://youtu.be/cWt0XUocViE https://youtu.be/cWt0XUocViE And one of the scenarios that did come to pass (high speed and slow speed lanes) was never even prohibited by the FCC back when it did pass net neutrality rules: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/01/netflix-is-so-big-that-it-doesnt-need-net-neutrality-rules-anymore/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/01/netflix-is-so-bi... > Netflix ultimately paid ISPs for interconnection but the dispute had an impact on the FCC's net neutrality proceedings. The FCC didn't ban interconnection payments but set up a complaint process so that companies like Netflix can challenge specific payment demands as being "unjust" or "unreasonable." There have been no major public disputes since then. So I mean, I get it. In 2006 it was easy to see how turning the Internet into cable TV would be terrible, but if that was ever a danger, it probably isn’t now? And the internet is so much more important now that if it ever did look like that was going to happen, we could pass a real law then. In the mean time I’m going to enjoy listening to the court proceedings when the FCC is sued because they said they didn’t have the power to govern ISPs when they had a different set of commissioners.
  - joecool1029 3y ago
    > Net neutrality is wildly popular with the public. In the tech bubble. Outside of the bubble you will be hard pressed to find people able to actually articulate what net neutrality is. And those people are easily swayed by partisan means: ('The democrats want more government regulation that's going to increase your internet and wireless bills') ISP's only have to claim 'your costs have gone up due to new government rules preventing us from selling discounted service' or something to that effect and you will find that 'widespread' support eroding away.
    - InSteady 3y ago
      Average Joe and Jane consumers are quite familiar with data limits, more expensive access to highspeed data, throttled data based on arbitrary stuff, etc. People may not have heard of net neutrality, but that doesn't mean the basic concepts are over their head. "AT&T could choose to throttle your streaming data when you don't use their partnered app to watch sports on your phone" cuts through the BS pretty directly.
godelski 3y ago
> What I’ve never understood is the argument that what California does regulating ISPs could actually affect the service plans in 49 other States. What I've never understood is the argument that what Europe does regarding privacy could actually affect the privacy of other countries. Sure, some websites detect your location and apply different rules to you but a lot end up just following GDPR and apply it universally because it is easier and cheaper to do that than do a "means testing" and apply specific rules. Creating all those rulesets makes for an increasingly complex system, makes it more prone to error (which includes doing those banned actions within California and resulting in a lawsuit), and just is overall more expensive. Determining country origin is presumably a lot easier than determining state origin too. Not to mention that California is the most populous state and the biggest tech sector. Pretty much the argument is ISPs have bigger fish to fry when they're restricted from doing something to a large portion of their customers. No one and nothing are truly independent. That's always been a lie being sold. Choices you make affect others and choices collectively made affect you. It's literally the definition of a society. On HN we have these discussions about Chrome's dominance allowing them to have control over how the internet is structured. We've had these discussion about Apple's dominance influencing right to repair. And so on. Monolithic forces are never going to be stopped by single player boycotting. My usage of Firefox for over a decade never did anything to dethrone Chrome and I never expected it would, but hey, it also can't happen without people like me. Just needs to happen at a larger scale.
- SllX 3y ago
  Except for the fact that the facts are different. When you sign up with an ISP, you’re signing up for a guaranteed service at a physical location with defined jurisdictional borders and laws governing it. My ISP throttling their New York customers who try to use Netflix isn’t going to affect me. Honestly throttling their Oregon customers wouldn’t either. This is factually different from Facebook who serves people independent of their location, residence or citizenship and don’t give a fig about who your ISP is because laws might cover someone based on any or all of those whereas a Californian who invades Texas is no longer covered by California-specific consumer protection laws, and to the extent that businesses choose to adhere to them in Texas is incidental. ISPs are very much bound by the location they setup infrastructure in in the way that the services you access through that connection are not as evidenced by the fact that they already take into account your residential address when determining 1. if they can service your location at all and 2. what services and what quality guarantees they can make to you. Also just to make a note on GDPR, one of the screwy things about it is that covers EU citizens. EU citizenship is a complicated enough thing, but there’s a lot of people with EU citizenship living elsewhere in the world. Fully complying with GDPR is a much more onerous requirement in terms of infrastructure and professionals you need to hire than ISPs complying with a net neutrality law in one State. I’m not saying there’s no additional overhead, it probably is easier to have contracts that are as standard across as many markets as possible, but ISPs are already skilled at working within local jurisdictional requirements.
tstrimple 3y ago
Same way California auto standards impact auto standards across the entire country. California is the most populous state with a higher disposable income. At some point, creating a product specifically for 12% of the US population with money to spend while maintaining a separate product for the rest of the country becomes too much of an economic burden and the standard gets applied across the board instead.

by SllX 3y ago

kstrauser 3y ago

Users in California may download from a service in New York. Users in New York may download from a service in California. I suspect it would be more expensive than it's worth to have asymmetric infrastructure that would allow them to them to throttle the New Yorker without violating the law for the Californian. All that network management would require teams of engineers and specialized hardware, all for something that may change on a whim and be obsoleted. What if New York copies California law? Bam. That investment instantly evaporated.

onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
>50% of US GDP is in states that are almost certainly going to prevent traffic throttling: https://www.naruc.org/nrri/nrri-activities/net-neutrality-tracker/ https://www.naruc.org/nrri/nrri-activities/net-neutrality-tr... It's probably not worth it to add in a whole bunch of BS just to try to make a bit more money in maybe Fl and Tx. Especially given the fact that it's not as straightforward as it seems - and legal consequences could easily outweigh any benefits. On top of that, I'd be surprised if ISPs tried to throttle traffic even in Fl and Tx and people in those states didn't pressure their government to ban it as well. Net neutrality is wildly popular with the public.
- SllX 3y ago
  > Net neutrality is wildly popular with the public. I didn’t say it explicitly but I think this is the real reason that the ISPs largely haven’t changed their business practices independent of what the FCC says it can or can’t do. They don’t want the FCC in their shit, but they also don’t plan to do all of the worst case scenarios envisioned in say, this video from 2006: https://youtu.be/cWt0XUocViE https://youtu.be/cWt0XUocViE And one of the scenarios that did come to pass (high speed and slow speed lanes) was never even prohibited by the FCC back when it did pass net neutrality rules: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/01/netflix-is-so-big-that-it-doesnt-need-net-neutrality-rules-anymore/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/01/netflix-is-so-bi... > Netflix ultimately paid ISPs for interconnection but the dispute had an impact on the FCC's net neutrality proceedings. The FCC didn't ban interconnection payments but set up a complaint process so that companies like Netflix can challenge specific payment demands as being "unjust" or "unreasonable." There have been no major public disputes since then. So I mean, I get it. In 2006 it was easy to see how turning the Internet into cable TV would be terrible, but if that was ever a danger, it probably isn’t now? And the internet is so much more important now that if it ever did look like that was going to happen, we could pass a real law then. In the mean time I’m going to enjoy listening to the court proceedings when the FCC is sued because they said they didn’t have the power to govern ISPs when they had a different set of commissioners.
- joecool1029 3y ago
  > Net neutrality is wildly popular with the public. In the tech bubble. Outside of the bubble you will be hard pressed to find people able to actually articulate what net neutrality is. And those people are easily swayed by partisan means: ('The democrats want more government regulation that's going to increase your internet and wireless bills') ISP's only have to claim 'your costs have gone up due to new government rules preventing us from selling discounted service' or something to that effect and you will find that 'widespread' support eroding away.
  - InSteady 3y ago
    Average Joe and Jane consumers are quite familiar with data limits, more expensive access to highspeed data, throttled data based on arbitrary stuff, etc. People may not have heard of net neutrality, but that doesn't mean the basic concepts are over their head. "AT&T could choose to throttle your streaming data when you don't use their partnered app to watch sports on your phone" cuts through the BS pretty directly.

godelski 3y ago

> What I’ve never understood is the argument that what California does regulating ISPs could actually affect the service plans in 49 other States. What I've never understood is the argument that what Europe does regarding privacy could actually affect the privacy of other countries. Sure, some websites detect your location and apply different rules to you but a lot end up just following GDPR and apply it universally because it is easier and cheaper to do that than do a "means testing" and apply specific rules. Creating all those rulesets makes for an increasingly complex system, makes it more prone to error (which includes doing those banned actions within California and resulting in a lawsuit), and just is overall more expensive. Determining country origin is presumably a lot easier than determining state origin too. Not to mention that California is the most populous state and the biggest tech sector. Pretty much the argument is ISPs have bigger fish to fry when they're restricted from doing something to a large portion of their customers. No one and nothing are truly independent. That's always been a lie being sold. Choices you make affect others and choices collectively made affect you. It's literally the definition of a society. On HN we have these discussions about Chrome's dominance allowing them to have control over how the internet is structured. We've had these discussion about Apple's dominance influencing right to repair. And so on. Monolithic forces are never going to be stopped by single player boycotting. My usage of Firefox for over a decade never did anything to dethrone Chrome and I never expected it would, but hey, it also can't happen without people like me. Just needs to happen at a larger scale.

SllX 3y ago
Except for the fact that the facts are different. When you sign up with an ISP, you’re signing up for a guaranteed service at a physical location with defined jurisdictional borders and laws governing it. My ISP throttling their New York customers who try to use Netflix isn’t going to affect me. Honestly throttling their Oregon customers wouldn’t either. This is factually different from Facebook who serves people independent of their location, residence or citizenship and don’t give a fig about who your ISP is because laws might cover someone based on any or all of those whereas a Californian who invades Texas is no longer covered by California-specific consumer protection laws, and to the extent that businesses choose to adhere to them in Texas is incidental. ISPs are very much bound by the location they setup infrastructure in in the way that the services you access through that connection are not as evidenced by the fact that they already take into account your residential address when determining 1. if they can service your location at all and 2. what services and what quality guarantees they can make to you. Also just to make a note on GDPR, one of the screwy things about it is that covers EU citizens. EU citizenship is a complicated enough thing, but there’s a lot of people with EU citizenship living elsewhere in the world. Fully complying with GDPR is a much more onerous requirement in terms of infrastructure and professionals you need to hire than ISPs complying with a net neutrality law in one State. I’m not saying there’s no additional overhead, it probably is easier to have contracts that are as standard across as many markets as possible, but ISPs are already skilled at working within local jurisdictional requirements.

tstrimple 3y ago

Same way California auto standards impact auto standards across the entire country. California is the most populous state with a higher disposable income. At some point, creating a product specifically for 12% of the US population with money to spend while maintaining a separate product for the rest of the country becomes too much of an economic burden and the standard gets applied across the board instead.