13 ms·

Actually, the empirical record on this shows that we see more net neutrality violations by ISPs in marketplaces with high competition.[1] This is counter-intui

Actually, the empirical record on this shows that we see more net neutrality violations by ISPs in marketplaces with high competition.[1] This is counter-intuitive but here's how it works: In a competitive marketplace ISPs have tighter margins and look for every opportunity for cost savings, so if throttling a high-bandwidth application only affects a small percentage of customers, and only a tiny tech-savvy minority of those affected will accurately attribute the effect to ISP throttling, it will incur only the tiniest competitive pressure on the ISP, so the ISP will do it to increase profits. We actually saw more net neutrality violations in competitive EU markets than in the US, until EU-level net neutrality rules passed. Another way to look at the limits of competitive pressure is from a startup's point of view: if your startup is offering a new videoconferencing service, how will competition help you when a rogue ISP breaks your service for 10% of your customers by throttling your service but putting Zoom in a fastlane? Your customers will not think "oh, I'd better switch to a better ISP," when ~10% of call participants are unintelligible. They will think, "oh, this new service sucks, I'm going to stick to Zoom." Competitive pressure on ISPs does not protect nascent startups with small userbases from ISPs. And yet, everything we care about on the Internet started as a nascent startup with a small userbase. Competition is great for keeping prices down and the US needs more of it. But to protect the long tail of startups and all the new ways people use the Internet from ISPs you need net neutrality laws. 1. https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2700055 https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2700055. Key finding: Relying on consumer switching behavior to provide more comprehensive competitive discipline was insufficient for a variety of reasons, including the presence of switching costs.

jallen_dot_dev 2y ago
Why doesn't the monopoly employ the same cost-saving measures for even bigger margins?
- HeatrayEnjoyer 2y ago
  If the FCC does not do something, they will. As to why it has not happened yet: it is easier to corrupt a new infrastructure from the beginning than change one that is already entrenched.
- AnthonyMouse 2y ago
  > Why doesn't the monopoly employ the same cost-saving measures for even bigger margins? They would. The issue is that competition alone wouldn't fix it, because there is an information deficit. Some people will pick the lowest price and not realize that the ISP offering it is taking kickbacks from incumbent services to degrade their own competitors. And since this is always bad -- it's anti-competitive in the market for over-the-top services, so this is an anti-trust rule -- it should be prohibited regardless of whether there is competition in the ISP market. Because you need it in order to preserve competition in the markets for other services.
  - avar 2y ago
    And some people will pick the ISP where Disney's subsidizing the subscription to make Netflix look bad, and not care because they're only using the connection for SSH terminals and email. Don't assume that people only pick these plans because they're uninformed.
    - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
      The informed customers aren't the issue. If Disney is paying to make Netflix look bad, it's because somebody is getting fooled into thinking Netflix is to blame for this, otherwise what is Disney getting for their money? So that plan is an anti-competitive measure, regardless of whether it also presents an arbitrage opportunity for customers who don't care about video streaming. If its only customers were the arbitrageurs then Disney would have no reason to pay and it wouldn't exist.
    - saghm 2y ago
      > Some people will pick the lowest price and not realize that the ISP offering it is taking kickbacks from incumbent services to degrade their own competitors > And some people will pick the ISP where Disney's subsidizing the subscription to make Netflix look bad, and not care because they're only using the connection for SSH terminals and email It seems unlikely that there are anywhere close to as many of the latter as the former
  - parineum 2y ago
socialhack 2y ago
[dead]
pipes 2y ago
I thought net neutrality was about ISPs trying to get netflix, facebook etc to pay them extra not to throttle. The only throttling I've heard of here in the UK (which has lots of providers and competition) is on torrenting. Are there examples of what you are talking about with zoom etc? Because as far as I can reason: if an isp throttled something like that in a high competition market, they'd lose their customers. And if it was a low user / start up phase app it wouldn't provide any competitive advantage for an isp to throttle it.
- braiamp 2y ago
  It is multiple things based on a simple concept: no traffic should be discriminated based on source, destination or type. That means that netflix ones and zeros are treated the same as facebook, same as your web page filled with cat pics, same as torrents.
  - digestivetires 2y ago
    Can there be technical things why cerain services get lower level service? I’ve read that ISP buys various links to to other networks at various prices. So maybe something like: if facebookBar server is on pricier linkFoo and for that reason ISP buys cheaper version of linkFoo effectively downgrading facebookBar service (along with everything on linkFoo)? If such scenario is realistic, maybe it could be due to valid financial stuff, not due to anticompetetive behaviour. (Just saying, some technically valid scenarios should be taken into account)
- vineyardmike 2y ago
  Getting a high-traffic service to pay extra or degrading other services are basically the same thing. Because the obvious question is “what happens if they don’t pay”? The obvious answer is throttling. > And if it was a low user / start up phase app it wouldn't provide any competitive advantage for an isp to throttle it. What we’ve seen in developing nations is internet that’s subsidized but only for certain companies (eg free Facebook, paid everything else) and people just use Facebook and have 0 access to the outside internet. There are examples in the US at least, albeit less severe. It was (is?) common for cell phone companies to offer unlimited data cellphone plans, but they throttle video streaming to a lower resolution. Then offer “unmetered streaming of Netflix” (pick your VOD provider) while, again, degrading the video stream of other companies. I’m pro-net neutrality but also I question if subsidized internet would actually be bad. If you can take a heavily metered or poor service, and subsidize it, then that could be the tool that helps bring internet to more people at less cost to those users. Advertisers would basically be subsidizing internet through these giants. The catch would be to find rules that don’t throttle competition which I don’t know if that’s possible.
withinboredom 2y ago
This isn’t at all true in the way you are portraying it. Of course, if you have more of something, you have more of the related things. If you have more oranges, more oranges are going to be rotten. This is obvious if you can think about it for more than 30s. The overall net effect isn’t what you say it is though.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
nox101 2y ago
Selection bias. They only picked UK and US. Plenty of countries in Asia have robust competition and is arguably a reason why they are so cheap and so good. One company offers twice the speed for the same price. People quickly start switching and new accounts (people coming of age) go to that cheaper better company. The other companies are forced to follow suit or lose their customers.
- holmesworcester 2y ago
  Yes, competition works for factors that the majority of consumers are aware of, like price and speed. But it doesn't work for enforcing net neutrality. If you model it, how could competition work to protect a YC startup with 1,000 or 10,000 users? You can't start an alternative ISP at that scale, so it's unthinkable that a new ISP would emerge just to serve that throttled startup's pissed off users. And again, only a tiny minority of users would correctly attribute throttling-induced failure to the ISP. Most will attribute it to the new startup being janky. Even or those who do correctly attribute it, what are they going to do? Convince everyone they want to use this new product with to switch ISPs?
eru 2y ago
Net neutrality is pretty silly as a regulation, and most economists are against it. You are right that net neutrality, and competitive markets (and thus low prices for consumers) don't really go together.
- cyberax 2y ago
  Most economists? BS. Most economists understand that ISPs in the US are a natural monopoly, you simply can not have more than 1 or 2 choices in most locations. And when there is no possibility of competition, regulation becomes necessary.
  - eru 2y ago
    Huh, ISPs are far from a natural monopoly. What makes you think they are? Especially if you take mobile broadband, paid 'public' wifi and satellite internet into account. (Regulations that make market entry harder push things into the monopoly direction, but that's far from 'natural'. See some of the recent troubles SpaceX has been having.) See also https://siepr.stanford.edu/publications/policy-brief/net-neutrality-changing-regulations-wont-kill-internet https://siepr.stanford.edu/publications/policy-brief/net-neu... or https://www.cato.org/regulation/winter-2011-2012/economics-network-neutrality# https://www.cato.org/regulation/winter-2011-2012/economics-n... > Network neutrality makes competition and consumer welfare dependent on law and lobbying, not natural competition. So you’ve chosen the area in which the telcos are strongest on which to fight!
    - cyberax 2y ago
      > Huh, ISPs are far from a natural monopoly. Black is white. War is peace. Yeah, we know that. > What makes you think they are? Especially if you take mobile broadband, paid 'public' wifi and satellite internet into account. Neither mobile nor satellite (even Starlink) can compete for the main Internet connection for the majority of people. Around 50-70% of the US population has exactly ONE choice of a wired broadband ISP, and maaaaybe 2 if you count ADSL as broadband. Less than 10% of the population has access to 3 or more wired broadband ISPs.

jallen_dot_dev 2y ago

Why doesn't the monopoly employ the same cost-saving measures for even bigger margins?

HeatrayEnjoyer 2y ago
If the FCC does not do something, they will. As to why it has not happened yet: it is easier to corrupt a new infrastructure from the beginning than change one that is already entrenched.
AnthonyMouse 2y ago
> Why doesn't the monopoly employ the same cost-saving measures for even bigger margins? They would. The issue is that competition alone wouldn't fix it, because there is an information deficit. Some people will pick the lowest price and not realize that the ISP offering it is taking kickbacks from incumbent services to degrade their own competitors. And since this is always bad -- it's anti-competitive in the market for over-the-top services, so this is an anti-trust rule -- it should be prohibited regardless of whether there is competition in the ISP market. Because you need it in order to preserve competition in the markets for other services.
- avar 2y ago
  And some people will pick the ISP where Disney's subsidizing the subscription to make Netflix look bad, and not care because they're only using the connection for SSH terminals and email. Don't assume that people only pick these plans because they're uninformed.
  - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
    The informed customers aren't the issue. If Disney is paying to make Netflix look bad, it's because somebody is getting fooled into thinking Netflix is to blame for this, otherwise what is Disney getting for their money? So that plan is an anti-competitive measure, regardless of whether it also presents an arbitrage opportunity for customers who don't care about video streaming. If its only customers were the arbitrageurs then Disney would have no reason to pay and it wouldn't exist.
  - saghm 2y ago
    > Some people will pick the lowest price and not realize that the ISP offering it is taking kickbacks from incumbent services to degrade their own competitors > And some people will pick the ISP where Disney's subsidizing the subscription to make Netflix look bad, and not care because they're only using the connection for SSH terminals and email It seems unlikely that there are anywhere close to as many of the latter as the former
- parineum 2y ago

socialhack 2y ago

[dead]

pipes 2y ago

I thought net neutrality was about ISPs trying to get netflix, facebook etc to pay them extra not to throttle. The only throttling I've heard of here in the UK (which has lots of providers and competition) is on torrenting. Are there examples of what you are talking about with zoom etc? Because as far as I can reason: if an isp throttled something like that in a high competition market, they'd lose their customers. And if it was a low user / start up phase app it wouldn't provide any competitive advantage for an isp to throttle it.

braiamp 2y ago
It is multiple things based on a simple concept: no traffic should be discriminated based on source, destination or type. That means that netflix ones and zeros are treated the same as facebook, same as your web page filled with cat pics, same as torrents.
- digestivetires 2y ago
  Can there be technical things why cerain services get lower level service? I’ve read that ISP buys various links to to other networks at various prices. So maybe something like: if facebookBar server is on pricier linkFoo and for that reason ISP buys cheaper version of linkFoo effectively downgrading facebookBar service (along with everything on linkFoo)? If such scenario is realistic, maybe it could be due to valid financial stuff, not due to anticompetetive behaviour. (Just saying, some technically valid scenarios should be taken into account)
vineyardmike 2y ago
Getting a high-traffic service to pay extra or degrading other services are basically the same thing. Because the obvious question is “what happens if they don’t pay”? The obvious answer is throttling. > And if it was a low user / start up phase app it wouldn't provide any competitive advantage for an isp to throttle it. What we’ve seen in developing nations is internet that’s subsidized but only for certain companies (eg free Facebook, paid everything else) and people just use Facebook and have 0 access to the outside internet. There are examples in the US at least, albeit less severe. It was (is?) common for cell phone companies to offer unlimited data cellphone plans, but they throttle video streaming to a lower resolution. Then offer “unmetered streaming of Netflix” (pick your VOD provider) while, again, degrading the video stream of other companies. I’m pro-net neutrality but also I question if subsidized internet would actually be bad. If you can take a heavily metered or poor service, and subsidize it, then that could be the tool that helps bring internet to more people at less cost to those users. Advertisers would basically be subsidizing internet through these giants. The catch would be to find rules that don’t throttle competition which I don’t know if that’s possible.

withinboredom 2y ago

This isn’t at all true in the way you are portraying it. Of course, if you have more of something, you have more of the related things. If you have more oranges, more oranges are going to be rotten. This is obvious if you can think about it for more than 30s. The overall net effect isn’t what you say it is though.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

nox101 2y ago

Selection bias. They only picked UK and US. Plenty of countries in Asia have robust competition and is arguably a reason why they are so cheap and so good. One company offers twice the speed for the same price. People quickly start switching and new accounts (people coming of age) go to that cheaper better company. The other companies are forced to follow suit or lose their customers.

holmesworcester 2y ago
Yes, competition works for factors that the majority of consumers are aware of, like price and speed. But it doesn't work for enforcing net neutrality. If you model it, how could competition work to protect a YC startup with 1,000 or 10,000 users? You can't start an alternative ISP at that scale, so it's unthinkable that a new ISP would emerge just to serve that throttled startup's pissed off users. And again, only a tiny minority of users would correctly attribute throttling-induced failure to the ISP. Most will attribute it to the new startup being janky. Even or those who do correctly attribute it, what are they going to do? Convince everyone they want to use this new product with to switch ISPs?

eru 2y ago

Net neutrality is pretty silly as a regulation, and most economists are against it. You are right that net neutrality, and competitive markets (and thus low prices for consumers) don't really go together.

cyberax 2y ago
Most economists? BS. Most economists understand that ISPs in the US are a natural monopoly, you simply can not have more than 1 or 2 choices in most locations. And when there is no possibility of competition, regulation becomes necessary.
- eru 2y ago
  Huh, ISPs are far from a natural monopoly. What makes you think they are? Especially if you take mobile broadband, paid 'public' wifi and satellite internet into account. (Regulations that make market entry harder push things into the monopoly direction, but that's far from 'natural'. See some of the recent troubles SpaceX has been having.) See also https://siepr.stanford.edu/publications/policy-brief/net-neutrality-changing-regulations-wont-kill-internet https://siepr.stanford.edu/publications/policy-brief/net-neu... or https://www.cato.org/regulation/winter-2011-2012/economics-network-neutrality# https://www.cato.org/regulation/winter-2011-2012/economics-n... > Network neutrality makes competition and consumer welfare dependent on law and lobbying, not natural competition. So you’ve chosen the area in which the telcos are strongest on which to fight!
  - cyberax 2y ago
    > Huh, ISPs are far from a natural monopoly. Black is white. War is peace. Yeah, we know that. > What makes you think they are? Especially if you take mobile broadband, paid 'public' wifi and satellite internet into account. Neither mobile nor satellite (even Starlink) can compete for the main Internet connection for the majority of people. Around 50-70% of the US population has exactly ONE choice of a wired broadband ISP, and maaaaybe 2 if you count ADSL as broadband. Less than 10% of the population has access to 3 or more wired broadband ISPs.