7 ms·

Court strikes down US net neutrality rules

156 points by rmason 2y ago

dataflow 2y ago
Duplicate: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42578237 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42578237
isoprophlex 2y ago
> Brendan Carr, a Republican member of the FCC who Trump has tapped to lead the agency, said he was pleased the court had invalidated the Biden administration's "Internet power grab". War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength. We're truly in the post-truth age.
vouaobrasil 2y ago
Net neutrality is crucial for a free internet. This will be even more important for the future, because without it we will have tighter and tighter controls over the internet. A lack of neutrality will, among other things, allow secret deals between service providers and big platforms that will squeeze out the independent internet and accelerate a total commercialization of all aspects of the internet. Large businesses are becoming a greater liability than ever before. Although I applaud net neutrality advocates, something greater must be done: the takedown of large corporations and rebuilding them from scratch.
- bko 2y ago
  Is there any evidence that this is taking place since it's been over 7 years since it's repeal? And that it's harming competition? I'm skeptical of introducing federal intervention preemptively as it seems like a natural extension would be censorship. If some regulatory agency is telling ISPs to allow legitimate content equally, it's not that much of a stretch to imagine they'll forbid "illegitimate" content. Think cheap fakes and other misinformation.
  - Analemma_ 2y ago
    This is a difficult demand to meet, because (as many people have said) the main causalities of net neutrality are the companies and platforms which never get started because potential founders rationally calculate that they can’t compete with existing zero-rated services when ISPs play favorites. Lack of NN has massive opportunity costs for innovation, but these are difficult to quantify.
  - Hendrikto 2y ago
    Yes we do have evidence. For example ISPs throttling specifically Netflix, and trying to extort money from them, when the customers already paid for the service. And continuing to do so, after Netflix offered to host middleboxes in their datacenters, to discredit their fake arguments. They are not doing that for service quality, but out of greed. We should have had comprehensive broadband and fiber in every home for decades, but ISPs would rather throttle you, and charge you more for worse service, rather than make overdue investments in infrastructure. Or ISPs not counting their own streaming services towards the data cap, but counting their competitors. Very anti competitive. We need net neutrality.
    - bko 2y ago
      I don't exactly feel bad for Netflix, but can you provide a link? Let me see if I understand. ISPs are extorting Netflix. And Netflix is hosting middleboxes that improve quality, but they don't actually care about improving quality, they are greedy, by not wanting to be extorted by the ISPs? And we don't build out fiber because ISPs would rather throttle you and they can't do two things at once. But doesn't throttling and extorting companies like Netflix give them more revenue to build fiber? Or somehow the new fiber and customers they could get somehow prevents their ability to throttle? No offense but this is the typical unpersuasive argument for net neutrality I hear. It's just non-sensical and all over the place. It makes no logical sense. Maybe there's a better argument, but so much of what I hear is this and it leads me to believe that proponents are just rooting for a sports team. The equivalent of arguing with a ref after a call against your team.
      - 2y ago
- phkahler 2y ago
  >> the takedown of large corporations and rebuilding them from scratch. They are actually destroying themselves. Enshitification is killing Microsoft, Google, Netflix, Facebook, and more. Just build solid alternatives focused on user satisfaction instead of profit so people have viable alternatives. You can't build anything great from scratch in less than 10 years.
  - auc 2y ago
    You say this, but their share prices are pretty much straight lines up the last 10 years (other than a short lived dip during Covid).
    - dartos 2y ago
      Pretty sure tech stocks boomed during covid.
      - Schiendelman 2y ago
        Certainly, but they did also have a short-lived drop, as GP mentioned.
  - vouaobrasil 2y ago
    We don't really need to build from scratch in less than 10 years. We don't really NEED something as good as netflix, google, or Facebook. We need smaller, better alternatives. Ask yourself this: imagine Facebook and Twitter going down for good. Would society be worse off? Probably not. We'd quickly find alternatives. Maybe they wouldn't be as fully featured but they'd work.
    - sydbarrett74 2y ago
      If Facebook disappeared tomorrow, I would argue that the world would be vastly better off.
  - sofixa 2y ago
    > Enshitification is killing Microsoft, Google, Netflix, Facebook, and more Based on what metric?
- Hendrikto 2y ago
  > takedown of large corporations absolutely > and rebuilding them absolutely not
  - AdrianB1 2y ago
    Given enough time and slack, they will rebuild itself, no matter what. Corporations and cancer, they keep coming back.
    - Hendrikto 2y ago
      That’s what antitrust law is for. We just need to actually enforce it.
      - AdrianB1 2y ago
        Antitrust laws in US rarely works. I have no idea if the problem is bad law or bad enforcement, but the results are bad.
        palata 2y ago
        Isn't it the case that the US has just mostly stopped enforcing antitrust laws in the last 3-4 decades? That would explain why they don't work.
        ajmurmann 2y ago
        What are examples where antitrust laws should have been applied but aren't?
        johnnyanmac 2y ago
        from my glimpse, it's bad enforcement and outright sleazy lobbying or conflict of interest. the laws can be better, but I find it hard to imagine any actual court case ruling in Google/Amazon's favor in anything. Apple is a bit harder and that may be where the laws are a bit outdated. But EU is setting a good precedent when that comes around.
      - 2y ago
- AdrianB1 2y ago
  I fully agree with what you wrote. The question is: current laws are fit for purpose? There are many things that are wrong and supported by laws or things that can be improved but existing laws forbid that. Is this a question about net neutrality or a question about how can/should be implemented? Same about corporate powers, especially in US where consumer protection seems to be a lot weaker than in EU, even if US has a lot more regulations.
  - vouaobrasil 2y ago
    Good points. I do feel like the current laws are still insufficient, and will ultimately fail due to the corporate control of the internet/governments. More drastic solutions are probably needed. Much better anti-trust laws perhaps to combat the excessive power of big tech, maybe.
    - sumtechguy 2y ago
      The issue is the government has been ignoring for nearly 4 decades passing proper laws. They have been deferring to these groups to make fiat laws and calling them regulations. Laws not passed by the congress or senate. The current ruling exactly because the supreme court has basically said 'hey congress do your job and we are not deferring to these made up laws anymore'. It is going to be very messy for a long time. I got ganged up on when this was first done in the FCC. I said it will flip flop depending on who is in power and what their motivations are. Here we are 15 years later and that is exactly what happened. Until Title III is written there will be no real change. We should not let the executive branch have law judge and jury authority. It was not designed that way, it fundamentally breaks the separation of duties. We should also not let the congress and senate and judiciary cede their authority because it is convenient at the moment.
      - michaelmrose 2y ago
        If you look at who we elect and how there is no reason to believe they will every be capable of drafting laws on complex subject matter nor revising them to keep up with the times. Adopting a strategy that wouldn't have worked in 1980 and probably wont work in 2080 unless the country is literally torn down and rebuilt from the ground up doesn't seem like an effective strategy. The supreme court has never just been a cold arbiter of law and they certainly aren't acting thus now. The intention isn't for congress to do their job the purpose is to gut regulation so that the parties who hired the justices by proxy can profit.
- pjmlp 2y ago
  We are already beyond that, with countries closing down Internet access, and geopolitics going back to the cold war days.
- FollowingTheDao 2y ago
  This is where boycotts come in. Time to actually suffer to get what you want people.
  - afavour 2y ago
    I think this understates how essential internet access is these days. It would be very, very difficult for a lot of people to simply boycott their internet provider. Like, “not able to do your job” difficult. Few people are going to risk their job for net neutrality rules.
    - FollowingTheDao 2y ago
      > It would be very, very difficult for a lot of people to simply boycott their internet provider. As I said; "Time to actually suffer to get what you want people." But I am not just talking about the providers, I am talking about compaines like Facebook and Google. But my Grandfather was a coal miner in PA and they had strikes that led directly to some of their deaths by murder by agents of the coal companies, so do not talk about losing your job would be hard.
      - afavour 2y ago
        You don't see the difference between miners striking to improve their livelihoods and striking for net neutrality rules? I'd think it would be obvious far fewer people are prepared to do the latter. The stakes simply aren't as high.
        FollowingTheDao 2y ago
        People here seem to think net neutrality effects their livelihood...
    - johnnyanmac 2y ago
      This isn't a first (or hundredth) shot. it's a boiling frog. They won't even know their internet is slower and blame the website.
- CivBase 2y ago
  I'm pro net neutrality, but if it's ever going to work we need the legislature to do their job and put it into law. They either need to broaden the powers of the FCC or - better yet - enshrine net neutrality itself as law.
  - johnnyanmac 2y ago
    This is a part of the windfall from Chevron and all according to plan. Tear down the executive structures and have a congress in conflict. Leave the rest to "states rights" for their motte. When in reality we're giving the keys for private corporations to do whatever they want. we'll likely see similar moves with the Department of Education this year.
    - CivBase 2y ago
      Congress is no more in conflict now than it has been for the last two or three decades.
- assimpleaspossi 2y ago
  >we will have tighter and tighter controls over the internet. Years ago, I said this might happen. Way back when, there was no FCC and the airwaves were the Wild West and anyone could throw up an antenna and call themselves a broadcaster. The internet is too wild and you all know it. I, too, want to be able to put together my own web site to hold content or sell my wares but, as psychologists now warn, the harm this "anything goes" content has caused us needs to be tamed.
- smsm42 2y ago
  > because without it we will have tighter and tighter controls over the internet. Were you paying attention for the last 10 years? We already have tighter and tighter controls over the internet. Pretty much every government on the planet is itching to institute internet censorship, and many already did. Major content providers are tightly working with the governments to ensure no information disapproved by the government is allowed on their platforms. States are instituting digital ID schemes to control access to sites (and if you think it's only about porn you're still not paying attention). People are regularly deplatformed and banned from major internet services for expressing controversial opinions. Are you trying to scare me with something that had already happened? > something greater must be done: the takedown of large corporations and rebuilding them from scratch. Ah yes, of course, only the glorious proletarian revolution will save us. How does it go? Le monde va changer de base: Nous ne sommes rien, soyons tout! Please wake me up when that happens. On the second thought, please don't, I'd rather not see it. We had enough of it in the last centrury, thankyouverymuch.
bko 2y ago
I remember the intense response to the FCC repealing Obama era net neutrality rules on 2017. The proponents of NN argued all these anti consumer and anti competitive practices that this will cause. It was framed as getting ahead of some of these abusive practices. Now it's 7 years later. I haven't followed it closely but personally have not noticed many harmful or obvious exploiting of the removal of NN. Am I just not seeing it? Do I have to wait longer? Were they waiting for this to become more permanent? What am I missing?
- __alexs 2y ago
  The impact was mitigated somewhat by states adding their own NN legislation. There has definitely been an increase in zero rating certain services like Spotify etc which creates new barriers to entry for smaller businesses though.
  - ANewFormation 2y ago
    Any link to carriers 0 rating Spotify? I believe you but am also in the same boat of looking for literally any downside to net neutrality being canned. That said even this would hardly count as a negative for users though you're spot on about it hurting competition for other streaming services - on the other hand it's a way for ISPs to compete. Hmmm... still haven't formed an opinion on this issue yet.
    - arccy 2y ago
      positive for users of spotify, relative higher cost for users of other streaming services, cementing spotify's market position.
      - michaelmrose 2y ago
        Which since spotify has turned to shit is in turn bad for consumers.
  - vitorbaptistaa 2y ago
    This is very common in Brazil. Most carriers give free WhatsApp and Facebook access. As many Brazilians are in the cheapest plans, this basically mean that that's all they can access on their phones.
boh 2y ago
I always found it interesting that the big tech firms are so adamant about internet "freedom" when they've pretty much done everything they could to govern people's experience of that internet. I'm sorry if the "think about the small businesses" defense coming out the most valuable companies in existence seems a little thin. This isn't a David and Goliath fight as much as it is Godzilla vs Mothra--big companies fighting over who gets a bigger share of the profits. The net hasn't been neutral in a long time, irrespective of what the FCC has been doing. This isn't "we the people" vs big business. it's big business vs big business. "We the people" lost the fight a long time ago.
- justwool 2y ago
  What even nonsense is this? Other than I think therefore I type. Please can you actually explain how this is just big business vs big business? When this solidifies practices that allow major parties to unfairly dominate? Do you even understand what net neutrality rules are/do?
  - ysavir 2y ago
    I think their point is that the effects of removing net neutrality mirror the effects already seen on large platforms, which is how most people use the web. Twitter, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, etc already have very opinionated views on what content can be on their platforms, and which content gets shown to users vs which gets lost in the mist of cyberspace (or is shadow banned). So the competition we're seeing here, between providers and tech platforms, is a competition over who gets to have this form of control over the media.
  - boh 2y ago
    They make the companies you want to work for slightly less profitable. I guess that counts as immoral. I'm just sick of this grass roots lobbying that we're all supposed to take seriously as a fight for freedom.
- disambiguation 2y ago
  My reaction as well, the modern FAANG internet is far from free, and probably never will be again - arguments of content moderation aside. Regardless, the net neutrality movement was always about big tech protecting themselves from ISP bridge tolls, though I'm sure those costs will be passed on to consumers.
blfr 2y ago
Biden administration are the very same people who pressured social media companies into censorship[1]. Tens of seemingly serious people swearing that Hunter's laptop story is misinformation. Who cares if your traffic gets a little more or less shaped when the platforms you're accessing are all neutered? Who cares how much Netflix has to pay for bandwidth when Amazon can just delete entire platforms, like they did with Parler? "So-called open internet advocates" is the right phrase here because the Internet borne by these rules was anything but open. This policy is very much like the cookie warning in the EU, completely failed to deliver meaningful benefits. [1] https://x.com/mtaibbi/status/1598829996264390656 https://x.com/mtaibbi/status/1598829996264390656
- sofixa 2y ago
  > Biden administration are the very same people who pressured social media companies into censorship[1 Your link indicates that Twitter/affiliates donated money to Democrats (which is of course trivial to understand why - tech company from the Bay Area, of course most of its employees will slant progressive), not that "Biden pressured social media companies into censorship". Care to provide a real source for your conspiracy theory? And weren't there investigations by republicans in Congress that found nothing wrong in the whole laptop story? Why are you still stuck on it?
sgt101 2y ago
Cue FAANG buying telcos. Effectively, AT&T returns (by a very strange and expensive route). It will be very interesting to see what effect this has on networks globally.
yieldcrv 2y ago
I can’t wait till federal agencies that I don’t like get weakened with these deference rulings At the moment I find it difficult and risky to achieve “standing” to getting the court challenges and then further take it to appeals But I suspect it will get easier as the government stops even bothering with appeals court after these trial court cases get so consistent
Rob-N-da1purCnt 2y ago
[flagged]
- aaronmdjones 2y ago
  Have you heard of punctuation? How about paragraphs?
ethagnawl 2y ago
Do DoH and DoT make the classic, pathological case of providers prioritizing traffic to certain domains much more difficult or even impossible?
- daneel_w 2y ago
  Realistically the "speed limits" are not imposed in name resolution, as that would offer only a temporary delay.
bandrami 2y ago
I live in a non-net-neutral country (Sri Lanka). As far as I can tell the impact of the lack of net neutrality is that Meta pays for the portion of my phone data bill that accesses Meta properties. I've not yet heard a convincing explanation of why this is bad.
- mexicocitinluez 2y ago
  Granted, Google is getting worse but a quick search will outline the reason: "Net Neutrality policies are a national standard by which we ensure that broadband internet service is treated as an essential service. It prohibits internet service providers from blocking, throttling, or engaging in paid prioritization of lawful content. By classifying broadband service as a “telecommunications” service under Title II of the law, the FCC restores its oversight of internet service outages, national security threats in broadband networks, and consumer protection and regains key tools to promote broadband deployment." I am admittedly not educated about Sri Lanka, but here in the US, companies fuck people over regularly. And as such, it's often important to even the playing the field. If you want to create your own search engine, but Google decides to partner with every major ISP in the country and pay to throttle your site you'd probably find the whole "Why do we need net neutrality" arugment pretty convincing. It's hard for me ot understand the position that we should just let these enormous companies do whatever they want and either you're a paid shill commenting on posts like this or just honestly don't have a clue.
  - bandrami 2y ago
    Hold on, that isn't really an accurate description is it? I'm originally from the US, and carriers have always been able to block or throttle customers for basically any reason. That's not a net neutrality question. Net neutrality is about where (to use an American example) Netflix can run fiber directly to Comcast in return for Comcast not metering their customers' Netflix traffic.
    - swores 2y ago
      It's also about throttling - Net Neutrality doesn't mean ISPs can't ever throttle users, it means they can't do it differently depending what the users are accessing, either everything is throttled or nothing is.
jvanderbot 2y ago
At least in urban USA, I don't think the issue will be necessarily things like "Free access to Spotify", as most folks don't have data cap limits on home internet anymore. I definitely think ISPs will downgrade access to home VPNs. They probably really enjoy watching what sites you visit, and are probably strongly pressured to do so.
- blueflow 2y ago
  What is a "Home VPN"? Like a layer 2 proxy where you use a 3rd party AS as exit?
  - jvanderbot 2y ago
    Personal VPN services, as opposed to those that provide access for workplaces. They can be differentiated by src/exit IPs.
- 0xy 2y ago
  Given all of the proponents of net neutrality's wild ideas for what ISPs would do if net neutrality was abolished were completely and utterly wrong when the Trump Administration ended net neutrality, what makes you think this new prediction is accurate? As an example, net neutrality proponents widely predicted that ISPs would begin offering 'bundles' (for example pay separately for social media sites, pay for video sites etc) [1]. None of it happened. It was just a lie. [1] https://blog.flashrouters.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Net-Neutrality-Packages-900x755.png https://blog.flashrouters.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Net... [1] https://i.huffpost.com/gen/1567010/original.jpg https://i.huffpost.com/gen/1567010/original.jpg
  - ParetoOptimal 2y ago
    Is it not a huge regression that the power was given to ISPs to implement this at any time?
    - 0xy 2y ago
      No, since that's how peering agreements are supposed to work. Generally speaking, two parties build a peering pipe between each other, let's say it's 100Gbps. All is good. Now, fast forward a few years and this peering line is reaching capacity. Who should pay? Should it be Party A who uses 70% of the capacity or Party B who uses 30% of the capacity? Net neutrality forces Party B to pay, which is totally against the spirit of the internet and these agreements. Net neutrality is nothing more than a corporate handout to freeloading cheapskates like Netflix who started this entire outrage because they refused to pay for peering upgrades (as their peering agreements mandate). Net neutrality literally shifted the cost of upgrading the pipes that were saturated as a direct result of Netflix traffic onto the ISPs, and therefore onto consumers. So customers who NEVER used Netflix are paying more. Strictly speaking, there's nothing stopping AT&T from hiking prices to $499/month in areas they have effective monopolies. They don't. Prices are reasonably competitive even there. You can't invent a doomsday scenario (the world is ending in 2012!) then when it doesn't come to pass you merely adjust the timeframe (the world is ending in 2030 for real this time!). That's what those arguments were, dishonest doomsday predictions which repeatedly failed to come to fruition.
transfire 2y ago
We are so fucked.
- 0xy 2y ago
  Ah yes, just like the time from 2017-2020 when the Trump Administration ended net neutrality and the internet disintegrated into paid bundles and speed limiting (net neutrality proponents swore that ISPs would implement these). [1] Oh wait, none of that happened. It was a lie from the start. [1] https://blog.flashrouters.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Net-Neutrality-Packages-900x755.png https://blog.flashrouters.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Net... [1] https://i.huffpost.com/gen/1567010/original.jpg https://i.huffpost.com/gen/1567010/original.jpg
kittikitti 2y ago
They should ban TikTok, Meta, Snapchat, X, and all of these social media apps that have AI that cause real societal harm. If they take away net neutrality, then be honest about which type of internet traffic needs to be shut down.
ChrisArchitect 2y ago
[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42578237 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42578237
alexfromapex 2y ago
Let's take the best thing that's happened to humanity and ruin it with corporatism...truly unbelievable if this ruling doesn't get overturned.
- ndileas 2y ago
  The internet is probably good on balance. The best thing to ever happen to humanity...forget it. The best thing to happen to humanity is most likely the practical harnessing of electricity for light and industry.
justwool 2y ago
Look at the comments here that are all the middle fucking management and senior leadership bozos with centrism fueling their holier than thou speed run of boot licking. “Well actually this is good for you”
sys_64738 2y ago
Doesn't say which court. It could be one of those loon district courts in TX for all we know.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
blasphemers 2y ago
This thread shows how much people misunderstand the key issue about this ruling. So many people talking about net-neutrality as if it was ever something actually implemented, when it was just a federal agency applying rules not designed or written for the internet and calling it net-neutrality. Net-neutrality is important, but it should be properly written into a law instead of just applying old regulations to the internet that were designed for a completely different system.
- alcide 2y ago
  Could you expand on this further? It would really provide some hope for me if there was a silver-lining. I’m concerned that this is a step in an inevitable beginning to the corporatization of the internet.

156 points by rmason 2y ago

Duplicate: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42578237 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42578237

> Brendan Carr, a Republican member of the FCC who Trump has tapped to lead the agency, said he was pleased the court had invalidated the Biden administration's "Internet power grab". War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength. We're truly in the post-truth age.

vouaobrasil 2y ago

Net neutrality is crucial for a free internet. This will be even more important for the future, because without it we will have tighter and tighter controls over the internet. A lack of neutrality will, among other things, allow secret deals between service providers and big platforms that will squeeze out the independent internet and accelerate a total commercialization of all aspects of the internet. Large businesses are becoming a greater liability than ever before. Although I applaud net neutrality advocates, something greater must be done: the takedown of large corporations and rebuilding them from scratch.

bko 2y ago
Is there any evidence that this is taking place since it's been over 7 years since it's repeal? And that it's harming competition? I'm skeptical of introducing federal intervention preemptively as it seems like a natural extension would be censorship. If some regulatory agency is telling ISPs to allow legitimate content equally, it's not that much of a stretch to imagine they'll forbid "illegitimate" content. Think cheap fakes and other misinformation.
- Analemma_ 2y ago
  This is a difficult demand to meet, because (as many people have said) the main causalities of net neutrality are the companies and platforms which never get started because potential founders rationally calculate that they can’t compete with existing zero-rated services when ISPs play favorites. Lack of NN has massive opportunity costs for innovation, but these are difficult to quantify.
- Hendrikto 2y ago
  Yes we do have evidence. For example ISPs throttling specifically Netflix, and trying to extort money from them, when the customers already paid for the service. And continuing to do so, after Netflix offered to host middleboxes in their datacenters, to discredit their fake arguments. They are not doing that for service quality, but out of greed. We should have had comprehensive broadband and fiber in every home for decades, but ISPs would rather throttle you, and charge you more for worse service, rather than make overdue investments in infrastructure. Or ISPs not counting their own streaming services towards the data cap, but counting their competitors. Very anti competitive. We need net neutrality.
  - bko 2y ago
    I don't exactly feel bad for Netflix, but can you provide a link? Let me see if I understand. ISPs are extorting Netflix. And Netflix is hosting middleboxes that improve quality, but they don't actually care about improving quality, they are greedy, by not wanting to be extorted by the ISPs? And we don't build out fiber because ISPs would rather throttle you and they can't do two things at once. But doesn't throttling and extorting companies like Netflix give them more revenue to build fiber? Or somehow the new fiber and customers they could get somehow prevents their ability to throttle? No offense but this is the typical unpersuasive argument for net neutrality I hear. It's just non-sensical and all over the place. It makes no logical sense. Maybe there's a better argument, but so much of what I hear is this and it leads me to believe that proponents are just rooting for a sports team. The equivalent of arguing with a ref after a call against your team.
    - 2y ago
phkahler 2y ago
>> the takedown of large corporations and rebuilding them from scratch. They are actually destroying themselves. Enshitification is killing Microsoft, Google, Netflix, Facebook, and more. Just build solid alternatives focused on user satisfaction instead of profit so people have viable alternatives. You can't build anything great from scratch in less than 10 years.
- auc 2y ago
  You say this, but their share prices are pretty much straight lines up the last 10 years (other than a short lived dip during Covid).
  - dartos 2y ago
    Pretty sure tech stocks boomed during covid.
    - Schiendelman 2y ago
      Certainly, but they did also have a short-lived drop, as GP mentioned.
- vouaobrasil 2y ago
  We don't really need to build from scratch in less than 10 years. We don't really NEED something as good as netflix, google, or Facebook. We need smaller, better alternatives. Ask yourself this: imagine Facebook and Twitter going down for good. Would society be worse off? Probably not. We'd quickly find alternatives. Maybe they wouldn't be as fully featured but they'd work.
  - sydbarrett74 2y ago
    If Facebook disappeared tomorrow, I would argue that the world would be vastly better off.
- sofixa 2y ago
  > Enshitification is killing Microsoft, Google, Netflix, Facebook, and more Based on what metric?
Hendrikto 2y ago
> takedown of large corporations absolutely > and rebuilding them absolutely not
- AdrianB1 2y ago
  Given enough time and slack, they will rebuild itself, no matter what. Corporations and cancer, they keep coming back.
  - Hendrikto 2y ago
    That’s what antitrust law is for. We just need to actually enforce it.
    - AdrianB1 2y ago
      Antitrust laws in US rarely works. I have no idea if the problem is bad law or bad enforcement, but the results are bad.
      - palata 2y ago
        Isn't it the case that the US has just mostly stopped enforcing antitrust laws in the last 3-4 decades? That would explain why they don't work.
      - ajmurmann 2y ago
        What are examples where antitrust laws should have been applied but aren't?
      - johnnyanmac 2y ago
        from my glimpse, it's bad enforcement and outright sleazy lobbying or conflict of interest. the laws can be better, but I find it hard to imagine any actual court case ruling in Google/Amazon's favor in anything. Apple is a bit harder and that may be where the laws are a bit outdated. But EU is setting a good precedent when that comes around.
    - 2y ago
AdrianB1 2y ago
I fully agree with what you wrote. The question is: current laws are fit for purpose? There are many things that are wrong and supported by laws or things that can be improved but existing laws forbid that. Is this a question about net neutrality or a question about how can/should be implemented? Same about corporate powers, especially in US where consumer protection seems to be a lot weaker than in EU, even if US has a lot more regulations.
- vouaobrasil 2y ago
  Good points. I do feel like the current laws are still insufficient, and will ultimately fail due to the corporate control of the internet/governments. More drastic solutions are probably needed. Much better anti-trust laws perhaps to combat the excessive power of big tech, maybe.
  - sumtechguy 2y ago
    The issue is the government has been ignoring for nearly 4 decades passing proper laws. They have been deferring to these groups to make fiat laws and calling them regulations. Laws not passed by the congress or senate. The current ruling exactly because the supreme court has basically said 'hey congress do your job and we are not deferring to these made up laws anymore'. It is going to be very messy for a long time. I got ganged up on when this was first done in the FCC. I said it will flip flop depending on who is in power and what their motivations are. Here we are 15 years later and that is exactly what happened. Until Title III is written there will be no real change. We should not let the executive branch have law judge and jury authority. It was not designed that way, it fundamentally breaks the separation of duties. We should also not let the congress and senate and judiciary cede their authority because it is convenient at the moment.
    - michaelmrose 2y ago
      If you look at who we elect and how there is no reason to believe they will every be capable of drafting laws on complex subject matter nor revising them to keep up with the times. Adopting a strategy that wouldn't have worked in 1980 and probably wont work in 2080 unless the country is literally torn down and rebuilt from the ground up doesn't seem like an effective strategy. The supreme court has never just been a cold arbiter of law and they certainly aren't acting thus now. The intention isn't for congress to do their job the purpose is to gut regulation so that the parties who hired the justices by proxy can profit.
pjmlp 2y ago
We are already beyond that, with countries closing down Internet access, and geopolitics going back to the cold war days.
FollowingTheDao 2y ago
This is where boycotts come in. Time to actually suffer to get what you want people.
- afavour 2y ago
  I think this understates how essential internet access is these days. It would be very, very difficult for a lot of people to simply boycott their internet provider. Like, “not able to do your job” difficult. Few people are going to risk their job for net neutrality rules.
  - FollowingTheDao 2y ago
    > It would be very, very difficult for a lot of people to simply boycott their internet provider. As I said; "Time to actually suffer to get what you want people." But I am not just talking about the providers, I am talking about compaines like Facebook and Google. But my Grandfather was a coal miner in PA and they had strikes that led directly to some of their deaths by murder by agents of the coal companies, so do not talk about losing your job would be hard.
    - afavour 2y ago
      You don't see the difference between miners striking to improve their livelihoods and striking for net neutrality rules? I'd think it would be obvious far fewer people are prepared to do the latter. The stakes simply aren't as high.
      - FollowingTheDao 2y ago
        People here seem to think net neutrality effects their livelihood...
  - johnnyanmac 2y ago
    This isn't a first (or hundredth) shot. it's a boiling frog. They won't even know their internet is slower and blame the website.
CivBase 2y ago
I'm pro net neutrality, but if it's ever going to work we need the legislature to do their job and put it into law. They either need to broaden the powers of the FCC or - better yet - enshrine net neutrality itself as law.
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  This is a part of the windfall from Chevron and all according to plan. Tear down the executive structures and have a congress in conflict. Leave the rest to "states rights" for their motte. When in reality we're giving the keys for private corporations to do whatever they want. we'll likely see similar moves with the Department of Education this year.
  - CivBase 2y ago
    Congress is no more in conflict now than it has been for the last two or three decades.
assimpleaspossi 2y ago
>we will have tighter and tighter controls over the internet. Years ago, I said this might happen. Way back when, there was no FCC and the airwaves were the Wild West and anyone could throw up an antenna and call themselves a broadcaster. The internet is too wild and you all know it. I, too, want to be able to put together my own web site to hold content or sell my wares but, as psychologists now warn, the harm this "anything goes" content has caused us needs to be tamed.
smsm42 2y ago
> because without it we will have tighter and tighter controls over the internet. Were you paying attention for the last 10 years? We already have tighter and tighter controls over the internet. Pretty much every government on the planet is itching to institute internet censorship, and many already did. Major content providers are tightly working with the governments to ensure no information disapproved by the government is allowed on their platforms. States are instituting digital ID schemes to control access to sites (and if you think it's only about porn you're still not paying attention). People are regularly deplatformed and banned from major internet services for expressing controversial opinions. Are you trying to scare me with something that had already happened? > something greater must be done: the takedown of large corporations and rebuilding them from scratch. Ah yes, of course, only the glorious proletarian revolution will save us. How does it go? Le monde va changer de base: Nous ne sommes rien, soyons tout! Please wake me up when that happens. On the second thought, please don't, I'd rather not see it. We had enough of it in the last centrury, thankyouverymuch.

bko 2y ago

I remember the intense response to the FCC repealing Obama era net neutrality rules on 2017. The proponents of NN argued all these anti consumer and anti competitive practices that this will cause. It was framed as getting ahead of some of these abusive practices. Now it's 7 years later. I haven't followed it closely but personally have not noticed many harmful or obvious exploiting of the removal of NN. Am I just not seeing it? Do I have to wait longer? Were they waiting for this to become more permanent? What am I missing?

__alexs 2y ago
The impact was mitigated somewhat by states adding their own NN legislation. There has definitely been an increase in zero rating certain services like Spotify etc which creates new barriers to entry for smaller businesses though.
- ANewFormation 2y ago
  Any link to carriers 0 rating Spotify? I believe you but am also in the same boat of looking for literally any downside to net neutrality being canned. That said even this would hardly count as a negative for users though you're spot on about it hurting competition for other streaming services - on the other hand it's a way for ISPs to compete. Hmmm... still haven't formed an opinion on this issue yet.
  - arccy 2y ago
    positive for users of spotify, relative higher cost for users of other streaming services, cementing spotify's market position.
    - michaelmrose 2y ago
      Which since spotify has turned to shit is in turn bad for consumers.
- vitorbaptistaa 2y ago
  This is very common in Brazil. Most carriers give free WhatsApp and Facebook access. As many Brazilians are in the cheapest plans, this basically mean that that's all they can access on their phones.

boh 2y ago

I always found it interesting that the big tech firms are so adamant about internet "freedom" when they've pretty much done everything they could to govern people's experience of that internet. I'm sorry if the "think about the small businesses" defense coming out the most valuable companies in existence seems a little thin. This isn't a David and Goliath fight as much as it is Godzilla vs Mothra--big companies fighting over who gets a bigger share of the profits. The net hasn't been neutral in a long time, irrespective of what the FCC has been doing. This isn't "we the people" vs big business. it's big business vs big business. "We the people" lost the fight a long time ago.

justwool 2y ago
What even nonsense is this? Other than I think therefore I type. Please can you actually explain how this is just big business vs big business? When this solidifies practices that allow major parties to unfairly dominate? Do you even understand what net neutrality rules are/do?
- ysavir 2y ago
  I think their point is that the effects of removing net neutrality mirror the effects already seen on large platforms, which is how most people use the web. Twitter, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, etc already have very opinionated views on what content can be on their platforms, and which content gets shown to users vs which gets lost in the mist of cyberspace (or is shadow banned). So the competition we're seeing here, between providers and tech platforms, is a competition over who gets to have this form of control over the media.
- boh 2y ago
  They make the companies you want to work for slightly less profitable. I guess that counts as immoral. I'm just sick of this grass roots lobbying that we're all supposed to take seriously as a fight for freedom.
disambiguation 2y ago
My reaction as well, the modern FAANG internet is far from free, and probably never will be again - arguments of content moderation aside. Regardless, the net neutrality movement was always about big tech protecting themselves from ISP bridge tolls, though I'm sure those costs will be passed on to consumers.

blfr 2y ago

Biden administration are the very same people who pressured social media companies into censorship[1]. Tens of seemingly serious people swearing that Hunter's laptop story is misinformation. Who cares if your traffic gets a little more or less shaped when the platforms you're accessing are all neutered? Who cares how much Netflix has to pay for bandwidth when Amazon can just delete entire platforms, like they did with Parler? "So-called open internet advocates" is the right phrase here because the Internet borne by these rules was anything but open. This policy is very much like the cookie warning in the EU, completely failed to deliver meaningful benefits. [1] https://x.com/mtaibbi/status/1598829996264390656 https://x.com/mtaibbi/status/1598829996264390656

sofixa 2y ago
> Biden administration are the very same people who pressured social media companies into censorship[1 Your link indicates that Twitter/affiliates donated money to Democrats (which is of course trivial to understand why - tech company from the Bay Area, of course most of its employees will slant progressive), not that "Biden pressured social media companies into censorship". Care to provide a real source for your conspiracy theory? And weren't there investigations by republicans in Congress that found nothing wrong in the whole laptop story? Why are you still stuck on it?

sgt101 2y ago

Cue FAANG buying telcos. Effectively, AT&T returns (by a very strange and expensive route). It will be very interesting to see what effect this has on networks globally.

yieldcrv 2y ago

I can’t wait till federal agencies that I don’t like get weakened with these deference rulings At the moment I find it difficult and risky to achieve “standing” to getting the court challenges and then further take it to appeals But I suspect it will get easier as the government stops even bothering with appeals court after these trial court cases get so consistent

Rob-N-da1purCnt 2y ago

[flagged]

aaronmdjones 2y ago
Have you heard of punctuation? How about paragraphs?

ethagnawl 2y ago

Do DoH and DoT make the classic, pathological case of providers prioritizing traffic to certain domains much more difficult or even impossible?

daneel_w 2y ago
Realistically the "speed limits" are not imposed in name resolution, as that would offer only a temporary delay.

bandrami 2y ago

I live in a non-net-neutral country (Sri Lanka). As far as I can tell the impact of the lack of net neutrality is that Meta pays for the portion of my phone data bill that accesses Meta properties. I've not yet heard a convincing explanation of why this is bad.

mexicocitinluez 2y ago
Granted, Google is getting worse but a quick search will outline the reason: "Net Neutrality policies are a national standard by which we ensure that broadband internet service is treated as an essential service. It prohibits internet service providers from blocking, throttling, or engaging in paid prioritization of lawful content. By classifying broadband service as a “telecommunications” service under Title II of the law, the FCC restores its oversight of internet service outages, national security threats in broadband networks, and consumer protection and regains key tools to promote broadband deployment." I am admittedly not educated about Sri Lanka, but here in the US, companies fuck people over regularly. And as such, it's often important to even the playing the field. If you want to create your own search engine, but Google decides to partner with every major ISP in the country and pay to throttle your site you'd probably find the whole "Why do we need net neutrality" arugment pretty convincing. It's hard for me ot understand the position that we should just let these enormous companies do whatever they want and either you're a paid shill commenting on posts like this or just honestly don't have a clue.
- bandrami 2y ago
  Hold on, that isn't really an accurate description is it? I'm originally from the US, and carriers have always been able to block or throttle customers for basically any reason. That's not a net neutrality question. Net neutrality is about where (to use an American example) Netflix can run fiber directly to Comcast in return for Comcast not metering their customers' Netflix traffic.
  - swores 2y ago
    It's also about throttling - Net Neutrality doesn't mean ISPs can't ever throttle users, it means they can't do it differently depending what the users are accessing, either everything is throttled or nothing is.

jvanderbot 2y ago

At least in urban USA, I don't think the issue will be necessarily things like "Free access to Spotify", as most folks don't have data cap limits on home internet anymore. I definitely think ISPs will downgrade access to home VPNs. They probably really enjoy watching what sites you visit, and are probably strongly pressured to do so.

blueflow 2y ago
What is a "Home VPN"? Like a layer 2 proxy where you use a 3rd party AS as exit?
- jvanderbot 2y ago
  Personal VPN services, as opposed to those that provide access for workplaces. They can be differentiated by src/exit IPs.
0xy 2y ago
Given all of the proponents of net neutrality's wild ideas for what ISPs would do if net neutrality was abolished were completely and utterly wrong when the Trump Administration ended net neutrality, what makes you think this new prediction is accurate? As an example, net neutrality proponents widely predicted that ISPs would begin offering 'bundles' (for example pay separately for social media sites, pay for video sites etc) [1]. None of it happened. It was just a lie. [1] https://blog.flashrouters.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Net-Neutrality-Packages-900x755.png https://blog.flashrouters.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Net... [1] https://i.huffpost.com/gen/1567010/original.jpg https://i.huffpost.com/gen/1567010/original.jpg
- ParetoOptimal 2y ago
  Is it not a huge regression that the power was given to ISPs to implement this at any time?
  - 0xy 2y ago
    No, since that's how peering agreements are supposed to work. Generally speaking, two parties build a peering pipe between each other, let's say it's 100Gbps. All is good. Now, fast forward a few years and this peering line is reaching capacity. Who should pay? Should it be Party A who uses 70% of the capacity or Party B who uses 30% of the capacity? Net neutrality forces Party B to pay, which is totally against the spirit of the internet and these agreements. Net neutrality is nothing more than a corporate handout to freeloading cheapskates like Netflix who started this entire outrage because they refused to pay for peering upgrades (as their peering agreements mandate). Net neutrality literally shifted the cost of upgrading the pipes that were saturated as a direct result of Netflix traffic onto the ISPs, and therefore onto consumers. So customers who NEVER used Netflix are paying more. Strictly speaking, there's nothing stopping AT&T from hiking prices to $499/month in areas they have effective monopolies. They don't. Prices are reasonably competitive even there. You can't invent a doomsday scenario (the world is ending in 2012!) then when it doesn't come to pass you merely adjust the timeframe (the world is ending in 2030 for real this time!). That's what those arguments were, dishonest doomsday predictions which repeatedly failed to come to fruition.

transfire 2y ago

We are so fucked.

0xy 2y ago
Ah yes, just like the time from 2017-2020 when the Trump Administration ended net neutrality and the internet disintegrated into paid bundles and speed limiting (net neutrality proponents swore that ISPs would implement these). [1] Oh wait, none of that happened. It was a lie from the start. [1] https://blog.flashrouters.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Net-Neutrality-Packages-900x755.png https://blog.flashrouters.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Net... [1] https://i.huffpost.com/gen/1567010/original.jpg https://i.huffpost.com/gen/1567010/original.jpg

kittikitti 2y ago

They should ban TikTok, Meta, Snapchat, X, and all of these social media apps that have AI that cause real societal harm. If they take away net neutrality, then be honest about which type of internet traffic needs to be shut down.

ChrisArchitect 2y ago

[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42578237 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42578237

alexfromapex 2y ago

Let's take the best thing that's happened to humanity and ruin it with corporatism...truly unbelievable if this ruling doesn't get overturned.

ndileas 2y ago
The internet is probably good on balance. The best thing to ever happen to humanity...forget it. The best thing to happen to humanity is most likely the practical harnessing of electricity for light and industry.

justwool 2y ago

Look at the comments here that are all the middle fucking management and senior leadership bozos with centrism fueling their holier than thou speed run of boot licking. “Well actually this is good for you”

sys_64738 2y ago

Doesn't say which court. It could be one of those loon district courts in TX for all we know.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

blasphemers 2y ago

This thread shows how much people misunderstand the key issue about this ruling. So many people talking about net-neutrality as if it was ever something actually implemented, when it was just a federal agency applying rules not designed or written for the internet and calling it net-neutrality. Net-neutrality is important, but it should be properly written into a law instead of just applying old regulations to the internet that were designed for a completely different system.

alcide 2y ago
Could you expand on this further? It would really provide some hope for me if there was a silver-lining. I’m concerned that this is a step in an inevitable beginning to the corporatization of the internet.