9 ms·

Etsy CEO to Businesses: If Net Neutrality Perishes, We Will Too

147 points by bfeld 12y ago

rayiner 12y ago
Its odd to talk about net neutrality as something that might "perish" as if it ever existed for more than the couple of years before the FCC's order was struck down.
- libraryatnight 12y ago
  To me that makes its death all the more untimely.
- revo13 12y ago
  I would propose that it did exist as sort of a defacto state of the internet. Only in recent years have the telcos begun looking for revenue grown, leading them down the path of treating their subscriber base as some sort of resource to be bargained off to the highest content provider/bidder, while still charging large sums of money for the customer to have a connection.
  - Bahamut 12y ago
    That's not true (about the recent years) - there has been a lot of lobbying spent by the telcos and big cable for at least the past 10 years. Every time someone influenced by their lobbyists have tried to bring a bill to Congress to authorize them to charge for consumption, Congressmen have found that it was an immensely unpopular action and it would fail. The only reason why the actual charging started happening recently is because the FCC lost a court battle stating that with how they chose to regulate companies, they did not have the authority to impose net neutrality.
    - revo13 12y ago
      I realize it isn't only a recent years activity. However, when it was floated 10+ years ago, it was met with a certain air of hilarity. The groundwork has since been laid (including that court decision) to get us where we are today with respect to providers starting to get bolder in their operations and lobbying efforts, to the extent that certain assumed beliefs about the behavior of the Internet are being threatened in a legitimate way.
  - wrkng 12y ago
    yep that's right -- it was the de-facto state of affairs basically from the beginning of time until now
- dragonwriter 12y ago
  > Its odd to talk about net neutrality as something that might "perish" as if it ever existed for more than the couple of years before the FCC's order was struck down. The FCC Order was motivated by a desire to preserve what was seen by many as the status quo ante that was, at the time the order was adopted, perceived to be under threat as big providers began discriminating against certain remote endpoints and applications. Mandated neutrality may only have existed for a short time, but the mandate wasn't the origin of neutrality it was an effort to preserve/restore what was perceived as pre-existing neutrality
  - wrkng 12y ago
    yes exactly this point is at the heart of the misleading rhetoric of the anti-NN crowd
  - rayiner 12y ago
    If the status quo ante was in place for decades, why do we need new laws to preserve it now? I don't see the apocalyptic future neutrality advocates envision. I think there is a battle over Netflix because its such an outlier in terms of bandwidth usage, and because their stance on peering was at odds with the accepted understanding of free peering (the "status quo ante"). I don't think the ISP battle with Netflix can be generalized.
    - dragonwriter 12y ago
      > If the status quo ante was in place for decades, why do we need new laws to preserve it now? Because the voluntary behavior which maintained the status quo ante was observed to be changing. > I think there is a battle over Netflix because its such an outlier in terms of bandwidth usage While things like the attempt by broadband providers (largely also cable/IP TV providers) to impose anticompetitive discriminatory pay-for-access on competing video services were already on the horizon when the original FCC Open Internet Report and Order was issued (which is why such acts against competing video services were specifically called out in the Order in discussion of how its more general non-discrimination and non-blocking provisions would be applied), discrimination against particular edge providers isn't the sole focus of, or even really the main behavior change that motivated, net neutrality efforts. Blocking/discrimination of particular lawful end-user applications is at least as important in both aspects (of course, application-based discrimination and edge provider based discrimination overlap, since often an application is tied to a particular edge provider.) > I don't think the ISP battle with Netflix can be generalized. The issue, concerns, and specific behaviors at issue both predate the "ISP battle with Netflix" and have always been more general than it. Its not a matter of generalizing that battle, that's battle is simply today's most visible current manifestation of a general set of behaviors (Comcast's bittorrent blocking was the most visible recent exampe at the time FCC Open Internet Order.)
KaiserPro 12y ago
This is going to draw a lot of negative points here, but its important to note that the issue of net neutrality is an issue because of the lack of competition in the states. If BT (largest ISP in the UK) tried to pull any of the stuff that's been going on, they would have been fined, and users would have left in droves. All the major ISPs here in the UK have multiple CDN node on the edge of their network, simply because its cheaper and easier to do so. The other important thing to note about the netflix vs ISP battle is that it is still cheaper to pay the ISP money to install their own CDN than it is to use akamai(who already have CDN blades on the edge). The problem in the States is that end users have no choice, and there is no working mechanism for imposing fines on companies that are doing anti-competitive things. So I'd suggest that net neutrality is actually a side show here, the real culprit is monopolies. An example that I've bumped into, is trying to buy a decent network connection in redwood city. I naively assumed that it would be simple cheap and quick to procure a 1gig line. It took six months (not for legals but for actual installation), didn't work properly for the first 3 weeks. It also cost 3 times more than the connection in London.
- ianlevesque 12y ago
  I don't see why that'd draw negative points. Most of us know that's the root issue, where we disagree is in deciding whether we should pretend we will somehow magically acquire more competition with the invisible hand of the market, or whether to give up and regulate some improvements into the failed market we have.
  - cornewut 12y ago
    I'm optimistic that we'll find a solution - "community broadband", "shared WiFi" etc. The problems we are seeing are because corporations are already failing as an infrastructure.
    - innguest 12y ago
      Corporations are failing because the government is setting them up for failure through regulation. It's not easy to start an ISP and as your sibling poster noted, it is not because of technical issues, but the laws that are in place.
el_duderino 12y ago
The proposed FCC rules are simply one more nail in democracy's coffin. Our country is slowly but surely being transformed into a plutocracy run by aristocratic oligarchs.
viggity 12y ago
We haven't had net "neutrality" in the history of the internet and call me crazy, but it seems to have done just fine. "Net Neutrality is just left wing populism run amok" http://blog.erratasec.com/2014/07/eff-lies-about-netneutrality.html#.U8qSxfldUcA http://blog.erratasec.com/2014/07/eff-lies-about-netneutrali...
- Afforess 12y ago
  You are so misinformed as to be a public menace. Edit: to downvoters, menace means one who causes peril. How is my usage incorrect? The parent is spreading incorrect facts and encouraging internet fast lanes. That is perilous.
  - macspoofing 12y ago
    I think you're being downvoted because you haven't given any reasons why he's a public menace and specifically in what way he's spreading incorrect facts. You can't just call him names and leave it at that.
    - Afforess 12y ago
      I didn't call him a name, I said he is a menace. He could be a otherwise intelligent phd holding user. But right now he is waving a preverbal gun around clueless to the danger he is causing. Menace isn't an insult.
      - macspoofing 12y ago
        You didn't say WHY he's menace. You didn't give any reasons for anything you stated. // *proverbial
- praptak 12y ago
  Of course we had it. Neutrality was the de facto state of the internet pretty much from the start. We just didn't have laws against greedy fuckers destroying it for own profit.
- 12y ago
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
sararschreiber 12y ago
this amused me, because I remembered this: http://www.slideshare.net/danmckinley/design-for-continuous-experimentation http://www.slideshare.net/danmckinley/design-for-continuous-... Slide 42 onwards talks about etsy a/b testing "improvements" in speed and the effect on sales: "Meh" is the conclusion.
- ohitsdom 12y ago
  This presentation from Etsy's Lara Swanson is pretty strongly in the "performance matters" camp: http://laraswanson.com/design/ http://laraswanson.com/design/
keithpeter 12y ago
I'm in the UK so our problems are a bit different e.g. the speed available for any service depends on the last mile; you can get a cable connection and pay for pointless services that you don't want as a package; you might win the Fibre to Cabinet post code lottery, or you stay on adsl over copper at around 2.4Mbits/sec; or you ditch the land line and pay for mobile. I wish the campaign well.
- michaelt 12y ago
  It isn't only the cable connection that comes with services you don't want; there's no ADSL or FTTC without a landline and the associated line rental.
  - keithpeter 12y ago
    True! And in the UK I have never seen 'internet only' landline either.
wrkng 12y ago
For folks who really want to dive into the technical arguments here, I highly recommend this paper by the new FCC CTO (and UCI CS prof) Scott Jordan: http://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/168/88 http://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/168/88 This addresses ALL of the concerns raised on this thread about incentives, competition, various arguments for/against net neutrality, and it finally proposes what I consider to be a very fair solution. I just read it yesterday and am planning to write up a summary blog post, unless someone else beats me to it.
- NSAID 12y ago
  That's a great paper and addresses some of the concerns I've had about net neutrality. Given the push away from traditional cable/telephony infrastructure to IP based services, it seems misguided if your ISP cannot also guarantee high quality VoIP service simply because internet and voice are coming over the same wire. From the paper: Table 2. Effect of policy goals upon an ISP offering VoIP. Is it acceptable if … … a carrier blocks a competitor’s VoIP traffic? no … a carrier doesn't block a competitor’s VoIP traffic, but doesn't offer QoS to competitor’s VoIP subscribers while using QoS for its own VoIP subscribers? no … a carrier gives a broadband subscriber who uses a competitor’s VoIP service the choice of (a) best-effort transport of their VoIP traffic as part of the basic broadband package, (b) enhanced performance for their VoIP traffic for an additional 1¢/min paid by the subscriber, or (c) enhanced performance for up to 500 minutes of their VoIP traffic for an additional $5/month paid by the subscriber? yes … a carrier gives a VoIP competitor the choice of (a) best-effort transport of their VoIP traffic as part of the subscriber’s basic broadband package or (b) enhanced performance for their VoIP traffic for an additional 1¢/min paid by the VoIP provider? yes … a carrier charges different VoIP competitors different prices for QoS? no … a carrier charges VoIP competitors a uniform price for QoS, but a different price than charged to its own affiliates? no

147 points by bfeld 12y ago

Its odd to talk about net neutrality as something that might "perish" as if it ever existed for more than the couple of years before the FCC's order was struck down.

libraryatnight 12y ago
To me that makes its death all the more untimely.
revo13 12y ago
I would propose that it did exist as sort of a defacto state of the internet. Only in recent years have the telcos begun looking for revenue grown, leading them down the path of treating their subscriber base as some sort of resource to be bargained off to the highest content provider/bidder, while still charging large sums of money for the customer to have a connection.
- Bahamut 12y ago
  That's not true (about the recent years) - there has been a lot of lobbying spent by the telcos and big cable for at least the past 10 years. Every time someone influenced by their lobbyists have tried to bring a bill to Congress to authorize them to charge for consumption, Congressmen have found that it was an immensely unpopular action and it would fail. The only reason why the actual charging started happening recently is because the FCC lost a court battle stating that with how they chose to regulate companies, they did not have the authority to impose net neutrality.
  - revo13 12y ago
    I realize it isn't only a recent years activity. However, when it was floated 10+ years ago, it was met with a certain air of hilarity. The groundwork has since been laid (including that court decision) to get us where we are today with respect to providers starting to get bolder in their operations and lobbying efforts, to the extent that certain assumed beliefs about the behavior of the Internet are being threatened in a legitimate way.
- wrkng 12y ago
  yep that's right -- it was the de-facto state of affairs basically from the beginning of time until now
dragonwriter 12y ago
> Its odd to talk about net neutrality as something that might "perish" as if it ever existed for more than the couple of years before the FCC's order was struck down. The FCC Order was motivated by a desire to preserve what was seen by many as the status quo ante that was, at the time the order was adopted, perceived to be under threat as big providers began discriminating against certain remote endpoints and applications. Mandated neutrality may only have existed for a short time, but the mandate wasn't the origin of neutrality it was an effort to preserve/restore what was perceived as pre-existing neutrality
- wrkng 12y ago
  yes exactly this point is at the heart of the misleading rhetoric of the anti-NN crowd
- rayiner 12y ago
  If the status quo ante was in place for decades, why do we need new laws to preserve it now? I don't see the apocalyptic future neutrality advocates envision. I think there is a battle over Netflix because its such an outlier in terms of bandwidth usage, and because their stance on peering was at odds with the accepted understanding of free peering (the "status quo ante"). I don't think the ISP battle with Netflix can be generalized.
  - dragonwriter 12y ago
    > If the status quo ante was in place for decades, why do we need new laws to preserve it now? Because the voluntary behavior which maintained the status quo ante was observed to be changing. > I think there is a battle over Netflix because its such an outlier in terms of bandwidth usage While things like the attempt by broadband providers (largely also cable/IP TV providers) to impose anticompetitive discriminatory pay-for-access on competing video services were already on the horizon when the original FCC Open Internet Report and Order was issued (which is why such acts against competing video services were specifically called out in the Order in discussion of how its more general non-discrimination and non-blocking provisions would be applied), discrimination against particular edge providers isn't the sole focus of, or even really the main behavior change that motivated, net neutrality efforts. Blocking/discrimination of particular lawful end-user applications is at least as important in both aspects (of course, application-based discrimination and edge provider based discrimination overlap, since often an application is tied to a particular edge provider.) > I don't think the ISP battle with Netflix can be generalized. The issue, concerns, and specific behaviors at issue both predate the "ISP battle with Netflix" and have always been more general than it. Its not a matter of generalizing that battle, that's battle is simply today's most visible current manifestation of a general set of behaviors (Comcast's bittorrent blocking was the most visible recent exampe at the time FCC Open Internet Order.)

KaiserPro 12y ago

This is going to draw a lot of negative points here, but its important to note that the issue of net neutrality is an issue because of the lack of competition in the states. If BT (largest ISP in the UK) tried to pull any of the stuff that's been going on, they would have been fined, and users would have left in droves. All the major ISPs here in the UK have multiple CDN node on the edge of their network, simply because its cheaper and easier to do so. The other important thing to note about the netflix vs ISP battle is that it is still cheaper to pay the ISP money to install their own CDN than it is to use akamai(who already have CDN blades on the edge). The problem in the States is that end users have no choice, and there is no working mechanism for imposing fines on companies that are doing anti-competitive things. So I'd suggest that net neutrality is actually a side show here, the real culprit is monopolies. An example that I've bumped into, is trying to buy a decent network connection in redwood city. I naively assumed that it would be simple cheap and quick to procure a 1gig line. It took six months (not for legals but for actual installation), didn't work properly for the first 3 weeks. It also cost 3 times more than the connection in London.

ianlevesque 12y ago
I don't see why that'd draw negative points. Most of us know that's the root issue, where we disagree is in deciding whether we should pretend we will somehow magically acquire more competition with the invisible hand of the market, or whether to give up and regulate some improvements into the failed market we have.
- cornewut 12y ago
  I'm optimistic that we'll find a solution - "community broadband", "shared WiFi" etc. The problems we are seeing are because corporations are already failing as an infrastructure.
  - innguest 12y ago
    Corporations are failing because the government is setting them up for failure through regulation. It's not easy to start an ISP and as your sibling poster noted, it is not because of technical issues, but the laws that are in place.

el_duderino 12y ago

The proposed FCC rules are simply one more nail in democracy's coffin. Our country is slowly but surely being transformed into a plutocracy run by aristocratic oligarchs.

viggity 12y ago

We haven't had net "neutrality" in the history of the internet and call me crazy, but it seems to have done just fine. "Net Neutrality is just left wing populism run amok" http://blog.erratasec.com/2014/07/eff-lies-about-netneutrality.html#.U8qSxfldUcA http://blog.erratasec.com/2014/07/eff-lies-about-netneutrali...

Afforess 12y ago
You are so misinformed as to be a public menace. Edit: to downvoters, menace means one who causes peril. How is my usage incorrect? The parent is spreading incorrect facts and encouraging internet fast lanes. That is perilous.
- macspoofing 12y ago
  I think you're being downvoted because you haven't given any reasons why he's a public menace and specifically in what way he's spreading incorrect facts. You can't just call him names and leave it at that.
  - Afforess 12y ago
    I didn't call him a name, I said he is a menace. He could be a otherwise intelligent phd holding user. But right now he is waving a preverbal gun around clueless to the danger he is causing. Menace isn't an insult.
    - macspoofing 12y ago
      You didn't say WHY he's menace. You didn't give any reasons for anything you stated. // *proverbial
praptak 12y ago
Of course we had it. Neutrality was the de facto state of the internet pretty much from the start. We just didn't have laws against greedy fuckers destroying it for own profit.
12y ago

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

sararschreiber 12y ago

this amused me, because I remembered this: http://www.slideshare.net/danmckinley/design-for-continuous-experimentation http://www.slideshare.net/danmckinley/design-for-continuous-... Slide 42 onwards talks about etsy a/b testing "improvements" in speed and the effect on sales: "Meh" is the conclusion.

ohitsdom 12y ago
This presentation from Etsy's Lara Swanson is pretty strongly in the "performance matters" camp: http://laraswanson.com/design/ http://laraswanson.com/design/

keithpeter 12y ago

I'm in the UK so our problems are a bit different e.g. the speed available for any service depends on the last mile; you can get a cable connection and pay for pointless services that you don't want as a package; you might win the Fibre to Cabinet post code lottery, or you stay on adsl over copper at around 2.4Mbits/sec; or you ditch the land line and pay for mobile. I wish the campaign well.

michaelt 12y ago
It isn't only the cable connection that comes with services you don't want; there's no ADSL or FTTC without a landline and the associated line rental.
- keithpeter 12y ago
  True! And in the UK I have never seen 'internet only' landline either.

wrkng 12y ago

For folks who really want to dive into the technical arguments here, I highly recommend this paper by the new FCC CTO (and UCI CS prof) Scott Jordan: http://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/168/88 http://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/168/88 This addresses ALL of the concerns raised on this thread about incentives, competition, various arguments for/against net neutrality, and it finally proposes what I consider to be a very fair solution. I just read it yesterday and am planning to write up a summary blog post, unless someone else beats me to it.

NSAID 12y ago
That's a great paper and addresses some of the concerns I've had about net neutrality. Given the push away from traditional cable/telephony infrastructure to IP based services, it seems misguided if your ISP cannot also guarantee high quality VoIP service simply because internet and voice are coming over the same wire. From the paper: Table 2. Effect of policy goals upon an ISP offering VoIP. Is it acceptable if … … a carrier blocks a competitor’s VoIP traffic? no … a carrier doesn't block a competitor’s VoIP traffic, but doesn't offer QoS to competitor’s VoIP subscribers while using QoS for its own VoIP subscribers? no … a carrier gives a broadband subscriber who uses a competitor’s VoIP service the choice of (a) best-effort transport of their VoIP traffic as part of the basic broadband package, (b) enhanced performance for their VoIP traffic for an additional 1¢/min paid by the subscriber, or (c) enhanced performance for up to 500 minutes of their VoIP traffic for an additional $5/month paid by the subscriber? yes … a carrier gives a VoIP competitor the choice of (a) best-effort transport of their VoIP traffic as part of the subscriber’s basic broadband package or (b) enhanced performance for their VoIP traffic for an additional 1¢/min paid by the VoIP provider? yes … a carrier charges different VoIP competitors different prices for QoS? no … a carrier charges VoIP competitors a uniform price for QoS, but a different price than charged to its own affiliates? no