3 ms·

And once this new company that limits everything that is not Facebook, Twitter and Netflix gains a large market share, how will any new company ever compete wit

And once this new company that limits everything that is not Facebook, Twitter and Netflix gains a large market share, how will any new company ever compete with Facebook, Twitter and Netflix?

greggyb 12y ago
How did HBO compete with NBC? How do we have any channels besides PBS for that matter? How does any paid app compete with any free app? Why do we have netbooks when a a Raspberry Pi costs $35 and (the 2 at least) can do everything most consumers do on a computer? Your question carries with it the assumption that an ISP should be responsible for ensuring the success of application and website developers. Would you make the analagous argument that cable (television) providers have a responsibility to ensure high production values of television shows? Would you argue that a road-crew is responsible for the quality of your destination? These are all means of accessing something, and the content you get via the means of access need not be the purview of the provider of the means of access. Furthermore, my hypothetical is only to show a possible consequence of limiting the bargaining choices of multiple firms in a market with competition. To go a bit broader, your question makes it clear that we have very different views on net neutrality. I view rate-limiting as entirely neutral. There is a price at which I would be happy to accept a rate-limited connection. There is also a ceiling at which I would not choose a completely unthrottled connection. I would not like a rate-limited connection to be my only choice, but depending on price, I would also not like a completely unthrottled connection to be my only choice. Ultimately, though, my stance comes down to choice. I want more choice. By limiting the terms which I may legally choose to enter into a contract with a service provider, I am made worse off.
- comex 12y ago
  A closer analogy in the road-crew case would be a crew introducing obstructions to or closing lanes in roads that exit toward particular destinations, based on how much money the owners of businesses located at those destinations paid them. If the crew wanted to do their job and maintain the roads as the road conditions required, keeping their sights on the piece of infrastructure under their purview rather than butting into the logistically irrelevant question of the drivers' ultimate destinations, then sure, they shouldn't be responsible for the experiences at those destinations. But if they do butt in, one may certainly look askance at their business practices. Indeed, to take the analogy even more literally, you'd practically be saying that it wasn't a certain governor's responsibility that drivers suffered from his decision to arbitrarily close bridge lanes as a political move. To be fair, obviously roads are maintained by the government and thus form a monopoly, while you're arguing that these decisions can be positive only in the presence of competition. But I find it hard to see why such dysfunctional maintenance would be encouraged in any situation.
  - greggyb 12y ago
    Thanks for at least engaging with this instead of downvoting with no response. I would argue that you are putting a negative spin on the analogy, so I'll put the corresponding positive spin on it to balance out. For the road crew, we expect them to give us ready access to the places we most want to go. Imagine a highway - we would judge it a poor highway indeed if there were no exits within 10 miles of a large city. Similarly we do not expect the highway crew to give us equal access to some rural area, even though someone might one day build a fine resort out there. We don't judge a road by how well it gives access to things not yet built, but how well it gets us to the places we want to go. Using that spin, we should actively encourage ISPs to make paid fast lanes, akin to a tolled expressway, with preferential access to the most common web destinations. I do not agree with that conclusion. What I do think is that focusing on whether or not a company is allowed to perform any sort of rate-limiting ignores the much bigger issue that competition has been historically stifled in the ISP sector. Many (most?) municipalities offered exclusive franchises to cable (television) providers which made competitive entry illegal. Those cable providers are now our locked-in ISPs. If we must have government action, it seems to me that the best course is to allow freer entry into the market - this looks like allowing competitors rights-of-way to lay wire, allowing access to utility poles (based on my recollection the majority are not owned by telecoms - I should be fact checked on that, though), and dissolving any exclusive franchise agreements. Rate-limiting, as I started this entire thread with, is just a red herring. (Final pedantic point - road work is done by a multitude of private firms contracting for the government - it is monopsony not monopoly.)
    - kazagistar 12y ago
      The reason his analogy is more accurate then yours is because adding exits has a meaningful additional cost. Providing preferable service to certain sites is not building better networking infrastructure to those places, it is just worsening the existing service to everywhere else.

And once this new company that limits everything that is not Facebook, Twitter and Netflix gains a large market share, how will any new company ever compete with Facebook, Twitter and Netflix?

greggyb 12y ago

How did HBO compete with NBC? How do we have any channels besides PBS for that matter? How does any paid app compete with any free app? Why do we have netbooks when a a Raspberry Pi costs $35 and (the 2 at least) can do everything most consumers do on a computer? Your question carries with it the assumption that an ISP should be responsible for ensuring the success of application and website developers. Would you make the analagous argument that cable (television) providers have a responsibility to ensure high production values of television shows? Would you argue that a road-crew is responsible for the quality of your destination? These are all means of accessing something, and the content you get via the means of access need not be the purview of the provider of the means of access. Furthermore, my hypothetical is only to show a possible consequence of limiting the bargaining choices of multiple firms in a market with competition. To go a bit broader, your question makes it clear that we have very different views on net neutrality. I view rate-limiting as entirely neutral. There is a price at which I would be happy to accept a rate-limited connection. There is also a ceiling at which I would not choose a completely unthrottled connection. I would not like a rate-limited connection to be my only choice, but depending on price, I would also not like a completely unthrottled connection to be my only choice. Ultimately, though, my stance comes down to choice. I want more choice. By limiting the terms which I may legally choose to enter into a contract with a service provider, I am made worse off.

comex 12y ago
A closer analogy in the road-crew case would be a crew introducing obstructions to or closing lanes in roads that exit toward particular destinations, based on how much money the owners of businesses located at those destinations paid them. If the crew wanted to do their job and maintain the roads as the road conditions required, keeping their sights on the piece of infrastructure under their purview rather than butting into the logistically irrelevant question of the drivers' ultimate destinations, then sure, they shouldn't be responsible for the experiences at those destinations. But if they do butt in, one may certainly look askance at their business practices. Indeed, to take the analogy even more literally, you'd practically be saying that it wasn't a certain governor's responsibility that drivers suffered from his decision to arbitrarily close bridge lanes as a political move. To be fair, obviously roads are maintained by the government and thus form a monopoly, while you're arguing that these decisions can be positive only in the presence of competition. But I find it hard to see why such dysfunctional maintenance would be encouraged in any situation.
- greggyb 12y ago
  Thanks for at least engaging with this instead of downvoting with no response. I would argue that you are putting a negative spin on the analogy, so I'll put the corresponding positive spin on it to balance out. For the road crew, we expect them to give us ready access to the places we most want to go. Imagine a highway - we would judge it a poor highway indeed if there were no exits within 10 miles of a large city. Similarly we do not expect the highway crew to give us equal access to some rural area, even though someone might one day build a fine resort out there. We don't judge a road by how well it gives access to things not yet built, but how well it gets us to the places we want to go. Using that spin, we should actively encourage ISPs to make paid fast lanes, akin to a tolled expressway, with preferential access to the most common web destinations. I do not agree with that conclusion. What I do think is that focusing on whether or not a company is allowed to perform any sort of rate-limiting ignores the much bigger issue that competition has been historically stifled in the ISP sector. Many (most?) municipalities offered exclusive franchises to cable (television) providers which made competitive entry illegal. Those cable providers are now our locked-in ISPs. If we must have government action, it seems to me that the best course is to allow freer entry into the market - this looks like allowing competitors rights-of-way to lay wire, allowing access to utility poles (based on my recollection the majority are not owned by telecoms - I should be fact checked on that, though), and dissolving any exclusive franchise agreements. Rate-limiting, as I started this entire thread with, is just a red herring. (Final pedantic point - road work is done by a multitude of private firms contracting for the government - it is monopsony not monopoly.)
  - kazagistar 12y ago
    The reason his analogy is more accurate then yours is because adding exits has a meaningful additional cost. Providing preferable service to certain sites is not building better networking infrastructure to those places, it is just worsening the existing service to everywhere else.