4 ms·

> "This is where the beauty of popcorn time just shines because it's the same amount of data but it's coming from everywhere." The net neutrality decision not

by roc 13y ago

> "This is where the beauty of popcorn time just shines because it's the same amount of data but it's coming from everywhere." The net neutrality decision not only opens the door to monopolists 'shaping' traffic by peer, but also 'shaping' traffic by protocol. [1] Even if your data is coming from 'everywhere', they can squeeze it down to almost-nothing. The MPAA is likely popping champagne over the prospect of finally having a tool with which to kill casual bittorrent use. [2] [1] And shaping traffic by device is also on the table. I hope game console- and platform-makers are preparing for this. [2] Yes, people could tunnel that traffic through a proxy or VPN. But the ISPs only have to kill casual use to significantly harm the network. And throttling all VPN/SSH traffic and using that as a cudgel to extract fees from more companies is also not only feasible, but perfectly in line with their incentives.

Fuxy 13y ago
True however if it was used for legitimate proposes like by Netflix what's your excuse for throttling if it's not piracy. Plus I suspect that if they ever go to such draconian lengths there would just be a lot of random protocols popping up and it will turn into another race of cat and mouse until the filters get so bloated it can't handle the traffic anymore.
- roc 13y ago
  They don't need excuses anymore. That's the point. They can just do it, and when Netflix says "hey, we use that legitimately" the ISP can say "and if you pay us, we'll loosen the restriction, for you, for the term of the contract"
- dragonwriter 13y ago
  > True however if it was used for legitimate proposes like by Netflix what's your excuse for throttling if it's not piracy. Without the Open Internet rules that were struck down, the excuse is "we're a for profit business, and (1) Netflix is a fat stream of revenue that we are enabling and we don't see a reason to do that without getting a big cut, and (2) Anyway, Netflix is competing with our streaming video services which are one of our major sources of revenue, so if our customers have degraded access to Netflix, that just makes our service that Netflix competes with more attractive, and brings us more revenue. So, considering both of those factors, its win-win for us to provide Netflix the choice of (1) give us more of your money, or (2) have your service work less-well, if at all, for our customers." This is, fairly exactly, the kind of harm that Open Internet order was designed to prevent -- to the extent that broadband providers that are also video (cable TV or internet streaming) providers discriminating against competing video services was one of the things called out to illustrated what was prohibited by the non-discrimination provision.

by roc 13y ago

Fuxy 13y ago

True however if it was used for legitimate proposes like by Netflix what's your excuse for throttling if it's not piracy. Plus I suspect that if they ever go to such draconian lengths there would just be a lot of random protocols popping up and it will turn into another race of cat and mouse until the filters get so bloated it can't handle the traffic anymore.

roc 13y ago
They don't need excuses anymore. That's the point. They can just do it, and when Netflix says "hey, we use that legitimately" the ISP can say "and if you pay us, we'll loosen the restriction, for you, for the term of the contract"
dragonwriter 13y ago
> True however if it was used for legitimate proposes like by Netflix what's your excuse for throttling if it's not piracy. Without the Open Internet rules that were struck down, the excuse is "we're a for profit business, and (1) Netflix is a fat stream of revenue that we are enabling and we don't see a reason to do that without getting a big cut, and (2) Anyway, Netflix is competing with our streaming video services which are one of our major sources of revenue, so if our customers have degraded access to Netflix, that just makes our service that Netflix competes with more attractive, and brings us more revenue. So, considering both of those factors, its win-win for us to provide Netflix the choice of (1) give us more of your money, or (2) have your service work less-well, if at all, for our customers." This is, fairly exactly, the kind of harm that Open Internet order was designed to prevent -- to the extent that broadband providers that are also video (cable TV or internet streaming) providers discriminating against competing video services was one of the things called out to illustrated what was prohibited by the non-discrimination provision.