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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 populi

by 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.
revo13 12y ago
I wouldn't describe the current treatment of Netflix by numerous service providers as "Fine". I am on AT&T Uverse and I have to route my Netflix traffic through a private VPN service in order to get HD quality video. Why? Because AT&T is holding me hostage, in the interest of negotiating with Netflix on the other side of the table for extortion fees. I pay for a certain level of access to the Internet. I expect to be able to access ANY site or service without the telecom getting in the way of that. I dread the day where I have to pay AT&T additional fees on top of my base internet package to access Netflix fast (call it the AT&T Internet Movie Package). Or alternatively, Netflix charges me a surcharge on my bill because I am an AT&T subscriber. I really can't believe you are so deluded to think that there is not a problem brewing here that has the potential to ruin the Internet as we know it (both as a consumer and a business owner).
- rayiner 12y ago
  I don't see what's unfair about ISP's charging Netflix when the ISP's are the ones that spent billions building the networks that made Netflix possible in the first place. Netflix is particularly unsympathetic in my eyes, because its just a middle man. Almost all the real value (the content, and the wires that deliver the content to consumers) is created by other people.
  - everythingswan 12y ago
    I don't really like the term middle man for this. They repackage and sell a service. They have solved a problem better than anyone else. That is real value. Just because the product or service is a derivative of something else doesn't mean it doesn't have real value. Fantasy football, for example. Should we look at fantasy football sites because they just repackage NFL stats? In this situation, we should just let AT&T/Bell dictate all things internet, since they laid the foundation with their lines. I think the point has some weight, but there's a lot more at stake than a simple service fee.
    - pyre 12y ago
      > In this situation, we should just let AT&T/Bell dictate all things internet, since they laid the foundation with their lines. ... at a time when the government guaranteed their profits. I think that's an important point to remember when a business built off of years of government-granted monopoly starts complaining about government regulation.
wdewind 12y ago
That's a really great blog post. Thanks for sharing it. I encourage everyone to read it - it's not long and may open your mind about net neutrality a bit.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
mikeash 12y ago
I just adore the "government is trying to destroy the free market" rhetoric when it applies to the internet. Do these people not know anything about the history of the internet, or do they merely choose to ignore it?
- at-fates-hands 12y ago
  I find it rather ironic that people who suddenly care about net neutrality actually saw nothing wrong with the Fairness Doctrine. Just in case: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairness_Doctrine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairness_Doctrine
- bcoates 12y ago
  The history of the Internet as the most successful radical deregulation since the abolition of serfdom, or some other history of the Internet?
  - mikeash 12y ago
    What deregulation, exactly?
    - bcoates 12y ago
      The 1990s transition from the US Internet infrastructure being a government run research project to the multiple privately owned networks. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Science_Foundation_Network http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Science_Foundation_Net...
      - mikeash 12y ago
        That wasn't regulation, was it? It was originally a government project that they then opened up. There wasn't any regulation preventing private equivalents, and indeed there were quite a few private computer networks with similar capabilities. They all failed once the internet opened up, because the government-sponsored, government-run network was ultimately much superior.
pdonis 12y ago
The post you linked to confuses "fast lanes" with CDNs. They are not the same thing. CDNs are about making more copies of content and locating them closer to users, in order to make the average route to users shorter. There's nothing in that that is inconsistent with net neutrality: traffic from a CDN server to a given user doesn't get to the user any faster than any other traffic over the same route. "Fast lanes" are about privileging some traffic over other traffic over the same route. That is what is inconsistent with net neutrality. Also, the post makes an invalid assumption about how upgrades to networks get paid for: > Forcing Comcast to upgrade their network to support Netflix means forcing the majority of low-bandwidth customers to subsidize the high-bandwidth customers. No, it doesn't. Comcast can simply charge users more for more bandwidth usage. Again, there's nothing in that that is inconsistent with net neutrality, as long as Comcast (or any other ISP) charges just for bandwidth. Then Comcast uses the extra money it gets paid for more bandwidth, to upgrade its network so it can carry more bandwidth. People who don't use the extra bandwidth (like me) pay a lower rate for our service, so the upgrade is really being paid for by precisely the right people, the ones who need the higher bandwidth. But what Comcast wants to do is charge more for Netflix bandwidth than for other kinds of bandwidth. (It's actually charging Netflix instead of Netflix's users, but that doesn't change the essential point.) That is what is inconsistent with net neutrality. The post does make one good point: > government regulators...won't allow another company [besides Comcast] to come in and lay a fiber optic network unless that company agrees to lay fiber everywhere -- even the poor areas of town This is a good point, but it's completely separate from the Comcast-Netflix question. I agree that governments should not expect for-profit corporations to provide a service that isn't profitable. If governments want to make sure that everybody has Internet access, then governments should provide it themselves. And local governments have indeed tried to do exactly that--to build municipal fiber networks that cover entire communities. The problem is that every time a local government tries to do that, Comcast and the other major ISPs have kittens and say that they will be driven out of business and file lawsuits. This tells me that the corporations actually prefer the current regulatory regime, because it allows them to buy protection from competition. If we had a sane court system, that wouldn't matter too much since the lawsuits would just be thrown out; but that doesn't happen.
- pyre 12y ago

by viggity 12y ago

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.

revo13 12y ago

I wouldn't describe the current treatment of Netflix by numerous service providers as "Fine". I am on AT&T Uverse and I have to route my Netflix traffic through a private VPN service in order to get HD quality video. Why? Because AT&T is holding me hostage, in the interest of negotiating with Netflix on the other side of the table for extortion fees. I pay for a certain level of access to the Internet. I expect to be able to access ANY site or service without the telecom getting in the way of that. I dread the day where I have to pay AT&T additional fees on top of my base internet package to access Netflix fast (call it the AT&T Internet Movie Package). Or alternatively, Netflix charges me a surcharge on my bill because I am an AT&T subscriber. I really can't believe you are so deluded to think that there is not a problem brewing here that has the potential to ruin the Internet as we know it (both as a consumer and a business owner).

rayiner 12y ago
I don't see what's unfair about ISP's charging Netflix when the ISP's are the ones that spent billions building the networks that made Netflix possible in the first place. Netflix is particularly unsympathetic in my eyes, because its just a middle man. Almost all the real value (the content, and the wires that deliver the content to consumers) is created by other people.
- everythingswan 12y ago
  I don't really like the term middle man for this. They repackage and sell a service. They have solved a problem better than anyone else. That is real value. Just because the product or service is a derivative of something else doesn't mean it doesn't have real value. Fantasy football, for example. Should we look at fantasy football sites because they just repackage NFL stats? In this situation, we should just let AT&T/Bell dictate all things internet, since they laid the foundation with their lines. I think the point has some weight, but there's a lot more at stake than a simple service fee.
  - pyre 12y ago
    > In this situation, we should just let AT&T/Bell dictate all things internet, since they laid the foundation with their lines. ... at a time when the government guaranteed their profits. I think that's an important point to remember when a business built off of years of government-granted monopoly starts complaining about government regulation.

wdewind 12y ago

That's a really great blog post. Thanks for sharing it. I encourage everyone to read it - it's not long and may open your mind about net neutrality a bit.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

mikeash 12y ago

I just adore the "government is trying to destroy the free market" rhetoric when it applies to the internet. Do these people not know anything about the history of the internet, or do they merely choose to ignore it?

at-fates-hands 12y ago
I find it rather ironic that people who suddenly care about net neutrality actually saw nothing wrong with the Fairness Doctrine. Just in case: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairness_Doctrine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairness_Doctrine
bcoates 12y ago
The history of the Internet as the most successful radical deregulation since the abolition of serfdom, or some other history of the Internet?
- mikeash 12y ago
  What deregulation, exactly?
  - bcoates 12y ago
    The 1990s transition from the US Internet infrastructure being a government run research project to the multiple privately owned networks. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Science_Foundation_Network http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Science_Foundation_Net...
    - mikeash 12y ago
      That wasn't regulation, was it? It was originally a government project that they then opened up. There wasn't any regulation preventing private equivalents, and indeed there were quite a few private computer networks with similar capabilities. They all failed once the internet opened up, because the government-sponsored, government-run network was ultimately much superior.

pdonis 12y ago

The post you linked to confuses "fast lanes" with CDNs. They are not the same thing. CDNs are about making more copies of content and locating them closer to users, in order to make the average route to users shorter. There's nothing in that that is inconsistent with net neutrality: traffic from a CDN server to a given user doesn't get to the user any faster than any other traffic over the same route. "Fast lanes" are about privileging some traffic over other traffic over the same route. That is what is inconsistent with net neutrality. Also, the post makes an invalid assumption about how upgrades to networks get paid for: > Forcing Comcast to upgrade their network to support Netflix means forcing the majority of low-bandwidth customers to subsidize the high-bandwidth customers. No, it doesn't. Comcast can simply charge users more for more bandwidth usage. Again, there's nothing in that that is inconsistent with net neutrality, as long as Comcast (or any other ISP) charges just for bandwidth. Then Comcast uses the extra money it gets paid for more bandwidth, to upgrade its network so it can carry more bandwidth. People who don't use the extra bandwidth (like me) pay a lower rate for our service, so the upgrade is really being paid for by precisely the right people, the ones who need the higher bandwidth. But what Comcast wants to do is charge more for Netflix bandwidth than for other kinds of bandwidth. (It's actually charging Netflix instead of Netflix's users, but that doesn't change the essential point.) That is what is inconsistent with net neutrality. The post does make one good point: > government regulators...won't allow another company [besides Comcast] to come in and lay a fiber optic network unless that company agrees to lay fiber everywhere -- even the poor areas of town This is a good point, but it's completely separate from the Comcast-Netflix question. I agree that governments should not expect for-profit corporations to provide a service that isn't profitable. If governments want to make sure that everybody has Internet access, then governments should provide it themselves. And local governments have indeed tried to do exactly that--to build municipal fiber networks that cover entire communities. The problem is that every time a local government tries to do that, Comcast and the other major ISPs have kittens and say that they will be driven out of business and file lawsuits. This tells me that the corporations actually prefer the current regulatory regime, because it allows them to buy protection from competition. If we had a sane court system, that wouldn't matter too much since the lawsuits would just be thrown out; but that doesn't happen.

pyre 12y ago