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The amount of pro-net neutrality in here is a clear demonstration of the opinion forming power of John Oliver, by dressing the issue as affecting users instead

The amount of pro-net neutrality in here is a clear demonstration of the opinion forming power of John Oliver, by dressing the issue as affecting users instead of companies. A lot of people seem very confused about what “neutrality” means, and it’s consequences. As an analogy, VAT is an equal tax (everyone pays the same VAT) but it’s a very non-progressive tax (it burdens poor people more than rich people. Your ISP doesn’t really care about your speed, it could increase yours and all your neighbors speed by a big chunk and it won’t really notice it. The problem is that to handle a Netflix they need to do a massive investment. Yes, non net neutrality is about creating differentiated “highways”, but you are not going on that “highway” no matter what. The discussion is if internet is considered infrastructure (as roads are) and thus they should be built with everyones money, no matter how specific they are to a single company, or if we should leave it to the market. I’m still waiting for someone to explain to me why a company that makes massive amounts of money from the internet shouldn’t be paying a higher proportion of the infrastructure costs than a user.

nabla9 2y ago
Net neutrality laws are not an US only thing. EU (The Net Neutrality Regulation 2015) and many other countries have net neutrality laws. >I’m still waiting for someone to explain to me why a company that makes massive amounts of money from the internet shouldn’t be paying a higher proportion of the infrastructure costs than a user. Because ISP is in business of selling internet access to consumer. ISP can sell different tiers of service to the consumer, but can't sell the product twice. Netflix pays huge sum in their end. This is how money flows: customer--->[ISP]-->|backbone|<---Netflix >The framework we adopt today does not prevent broadband providers from asking subscribers who use the network less to pay less, and subscribers who use the network more to pay more You see.
- xondono 2y ago
  > Because ISP is in business of selling internet access to consumer. ISP can sell different tiers of service to the consumer, but can't sell the product twice. Netflix pays huge sum in their end. The network is not some amorphous blob. If a new streaming company called Notflix enters the market (with dedicated hardware), ISPs will have to build dedicated infrastructure that connects that competitor to the network. One of the obvious ways of gaining a foothold in the market is to go where other services have poor connectivity and setup shop there. Of course the ISP that sets up that infrastructure will take big cut for their work, as they should. With Net Neutrality in effect, the supply side of heavy use internet services becomes constrained, creating a barrier of entry for new competitors. It’s just plain old regulatory capture.
diordiderot 2y ago
ISPs don't want to charge they want to extort.
AkBKukU 2y ago
I became "pro-net neutrality" back in the 2010's when Verizon was trying to charge an extra $20/mo for hot spot functionality on my provider locked android phone. After some rooting and side loading I was gleefully working around that until FCC came down on them for it [1]. Net Neutrality was passed after that and only seemed like a logical response as a means of consumer protection. It has always been a user facing issue, it's just not one that many people seem to want to expend the energy to think about how it impacts them. Netflix isn't using that bandwidth, the users are. Without users, Netflix would use low/no bandwidth, just as it did when it was renting DVDs. The users are paying for their own access and speeds to be able to watch netflix over the internet instead. And in turn Netflix is paying their ISP to be able to provide that data. Punishing either the users or the web hosts for finding a more effective use case for the internet than just sending static pages is the ISPs either trying to find a way to blame someone else for having over provisioned their network. Or they are trying to strong arm web hosts into paying more because they have regional monopolies and can get away with it. As a consumer if I had a choice between two ISPs and one of them throttling Netflix to try and extort them for more money, even for self centered reasons I would pick the other just to have better service. But there are a lot of areas where that isn't the case and there is a single major broadband provider who has free reign. [1] https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/what-verizons-fcc-tethering-settlement-means-to-you-faq/ https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/what-verizons-fcc-tethering...

nabla9 2y ago

Net neutrality laws are not an US only thing. EU (The Net Neutrality Regulation 2015) and many other countries have net neutrality laws. >I’m still waiting for someone to explain to me why a company that makes massive amounts of money from the internet shouldn’t be paying a higher proportion of the infrastructure costs than a user. Because ISP is in business of selling internet access to consumer. ISP can sell different tiers of service to the consumer, but can't sell the product twice. Netflix pays huge sum in their end. This is how money flows: customer--->[ISP]-->|backbone|<---Netflix >The framework we adopt today does not prevent broadband providers from asking subscribers who use the network less to pay less, and subscribers who use the network more to pay more You see.

xondono 2y ago
> Because ISP is in business of selling internet access to consumer. ISP can sell different tiers of service to the consumer, but can't sell the product twice. Netflix pays huge sum in their end. The network is not some amorphous blob. If a new streaming company called Notflix enters the market (with dedicated hardware), ISPs will have to build dedicated infrastructure that connects that competitor to the network. One of the obvious ways of gaining a foothold in the market is to go where other services have poor connectivity and setup shop there. Of course the ISP that sets up that infrastructure will take big cut for their work, as they should. With Net Neutrality in effect, the supply side of heavy use internet services becomes constrained, creating a barrier of entry for new competitors. It’s just plain old regulatory capture.

diordiderot 2y ago

ISPs don't want to charge they want to extort.

AkBKukU 2y ago

I became "pro-net neutrality" back in the 2010's when Verizon was trying to charge an extra $20/mo for hot spot functionality on my provider locked android phone. After some rooting and side loading I was gleefully working around that until FCC came down on them for it [1]. Net Neutrality was passed after that and only seemed like a logical response as a means of consumer protection. It has always been a user facing issue, it's just not one that many people seem to want to expend the energy to think about how it impacts them. Netflix isn't using that bandwidth, the users are. Without users, Netflix would use low/no bandwidth, just as it did when it was renting DVDs. The users are paying for their own access and speeds to be able to watch netflix over the internet instead. And in turn Netflix is paying their ISP to be able to provide that data. Punishing either the users or the web hosts for finding a more effective use case for the internet than just sending static pages is the ISPs either trying to find a way to blame someone else for having over provisioned their network. Or they are trying to strong arm web hosts into paying more because they have regional monopolies and can get away with it. As a consumer if I had a choice between two ISPs and one of them throttling Netflix to try and extort them for more money, even for self centered reasons I would pick the other just to have better service. But there are a lot of areas where that isn't the case and there is a single major broadband provider who has free reign. [1] https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/what-verizons-fcc-tethering-settlement-means-to-you-faq/ https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/what-verizons-fcc-tethering...