4 ms·

It's not a question of morality. What it boils down to is which side are you on. Do you care more about ISPs and their ability to do whatever they want in order

by pbz 12y ago

It's not a question of morality. What it boils down to is which side are you on. Do you care more about ISPs and their ability to do whatever they want in order to maximize their profits, or do you care more about the health of the ecosystem (Internet)? In your hypothetical, if an ISP could come with an offering that would hurt the ecosystem (by favoring X against Y, and hence not allowing the Internet to be a leveled playing fields) but offer some savings for its customers then I would be against it. It's far more important to maintain a leveled playing field than save a few pennies here and there. However, looking at other developed countries and their offerings, we can certainly conclude that what we get now is the worst of both worlds -- expensive monthly cost and throttling -- so there's plenty of room for improvement (cheaper service) while maintaining net neutrality.

greggyb 12y ago
I do absolutely agree with you that ISPs are in a poor state in the majority of the US. I think a lot can be done to improve it. I disagree strongly that net neutrality is the most important or most effective lever to push on. As I have made clear, and as I think is fairly obvious to anyone who has moved between various ISP markets in this country, I believe that the quality of internet service is positively correlated with the number of providers in an area. I have cheap and reliable internet with three ISPs. None of the three throttle their connections in this market, and one has just introduced 10Gbps fiber to the home. The fiber provider is actively expanding, but even if you don't live on a street with access, you can get cheap reliable service from either of the remaining two. I think it would be better for any individual in the US who cares about their internet access to move their markets in a direction from one ISP to more ISPs (like the area I live in) than to pass a law enforcing net neutrality and forbidding any kind of rate-limiting. I do care about ISPs being able to offer me as many types of service as possible, and me being allowed to choose the service I prefer. Again, my general preference is for unlimited internet, but my preferences are bounded by costs. Another hypothetical: Suppose I am willing to pay $15 for internet access, and the only service an ISP is willing to offer at that price is throttled in some way (data cap, certain sites slower, whatever scheme). If you eliminate this as an option, then you have eliminated my access entirely, because $15 is my limit. In this way, marginal customers may be harmed by net neutrality. I am not convinced by the argument that the internet will be ruined if some internet service contracts are rate-limited in some way. The biggest threat to the next (Google|Facebook|Twitter) is not any ISP, but (Google|Facebook|Twitter) existing and having a large network effect for its services. And to be honest I have not seen much more argument beyond this point. Even if I were to accept this argument, I think the pathetic internet connections that some people in the US have (there are people still on dialup and <5Mbps isn't that rare in rural areas based on my experience) would provide a bigger impediment to the-next-big-thing reaching all of its potential market than any rate-limiting. Multimedia content, especially, is awful on a slower connection. And no regulation of rate-limiting will do a thing to increase speed and reliability of networks - at absolute best it has 0 effect. Forgive me if this is a misinterpretation, but you seem to jump from my hypothetical of _one_ ISP out of >1 in a market offering _a_ plan that is rate-limited in some way (what if it is just a data limit? This does not favor any portion of the web over another.) to there being no un-rate-limited service contracts available. I find this incredibly unlikely, primarily due to the huge unpopularity of rate-limited plans among a vocal minority of internet users. Finally, I am quite confident that two ISPs fighting for my dollars are more likely to offer me something I want than two ISPs fighting for a favorable interpretation of some regulation.
- pbz 12y ago
  I'm not arguing for less competition, far from it. If anything, the lack of competition is probably the main cause of the current situation. However, net neutrality is the bare minimum. We should also advocate for more competition, just not at the expense of neutrality. Imagine we would let a grocery store lax the quality control on their products. They could sell more for cheaper, but the number of people who would get sick (or die) would increase. In a similar way, allowing ISPs to fiddle with throttling would have far negative effects for everybody. (it's not a direct analogy so please don't try to break it, that's not the point). The $15 price range you mention is very doable, with much faster speeds than we currently have AND without having to compromise on neutrality. Our worldwide ranking is pretty depressing -- compared to what we could/should have. All these foreign ISPs are able to offer cheaper and faster connections without messing with neutrality. If ISPs must segment their offerings in any way then let them do it by speed (which they already do) or by how much data you can download/upload per month, but not by compromising net neutrality.
  - greggyb 12y ago
    I think we'll just have to disagree on the actual import of rate-limiting. I do agree that competition is very important. What I'll leave it with is this: prohibiting rate-limiting at best does nothing to increase competition among ISPs (I have not seen any arguments against this), whereas rate-limiting behavior is something I've never seen in a market with multiple viable ISP choices (by which I mean that dialup and satellite are not close enough to broadband to count). As I started this entire thread with, rate-limiting seems like a red herring.

by pbz 12y ago

greggyb 12y ago

I do absolutely agree with you that ISPs are in a poor state in the majority of the US. I think a lot can be done to improve it. I disagree strongly that net neutrality is the most important or most effective lever to push on. As I have made clear, and as I think is fairly obvious to anyone who has moved between various ISP markets in this country, I believe that the quality of internet service is positively correlated with the number of providers in an area. I have cheap and reliable internet with three ISPs. None of the three throttle their connections in this market, and one has just introduced 10Gbps fiber to the home. The fiber provider is actively expanding, but even if you don't live on a street with access, you can get cheap reliable service from either of the remaining two. I think it would be better for any individual in the US who cares about their internet access to move their markets in a direction from one ISP to more ISPs (like the area I live in) than to pass a law enforcing net neutrality and forbidding any kind of rate-limiting. I do care about ISPs being able to offer me as many types of service as possible, and me being allowed to choose the service I prefer. Again, my general preference is for unlimited internet, but my preferences are bounded by costs. Another hypothetical: Suppose I am willing to pay $15 for internet access, and the only service an ISP is willing to offer at that price is throttled in some way (data cap, certain sites slower, whatever scheme). If you eliminate this as an option, then you have eliminated my access entirely, because $15 is my limit. In this way, marginal customers may be harmed by net neutrality. I am not convinced by the argument that the internet will be ruined if some internet service contracts are rate-limited in some way. The biggest threat to the next (Google|Facebook|Twitter) is not any ISP, but (Google|Facebook|Twitter) existing and having a large network effect for its services. And to be honest I have not seen much more argument beyond this point. Even if I were to accept this argument, I think the pathetic internet connections that some people in the US have (there are people still on dialup and <5Mbps isn't that rare in rural areas based on my experience) would provide a bigger impediment to the-next-big-thing reaching all of its potential market than any rate-limiting. Multimedia content, especially, is awful on a slower connection. And no regulation of rate-limiting will do a thing to increase speed and reliability of networks - at absolute best it has 0 effect. Forgive me if this is a misinterpretation, but you seem to jump from my hypothetical of _one_ ISP out of >1 in a market offering _a_ plan that is rate-limited in some way (what if it is just a data limit? This does not favor any portion of the web over another.) to there being no un-rate-limited service contracts available. I find this incredibly unlikely, primarily due to the huge unpopularity of rate-limited plans among a vocal minority of internet users. Finally, I am quite confident that two ISPs fighting for my dollars are more likely to offer me something I want than two ISPs fighting for a favorable interpretation of some regulation.

pbz 12y ago
I'm not arguing for less competition, far from it. If anything, the lack of competition is probably the main cause of the current situation. However, net neutrality is the bare minimum. We should also advocate for more competition, just not at the expense of neutrality. Imagine we would let a grocery store lax the quality control on their products. They could sell more for cheaper, but the number of people who would get sick (or die) would increase. In a similar way, allowing ISPs to fiddle with throttling would have far negative effects for everybody. (it's not a direct analogy so please don't try to break it, that's not the point). The $15 price range you mention is very doable, with much faster speeds than we currently have AND without having to compromise on neutrality. Our worldwide ranking is pretty depressing -- compared to what we could/should have. All these foreign ISPs are able to offer cheaper and faster connections without messing with neutrality. If ISPs must segment their offerings in any way then let them do it by speed (which they already do) or by how much data you can download/upload per month, but not by compromising net neutrality.
- greggyb 12y ago
  I think we'll just have to disagree on the actual import of rate-limiting. I do agree that competition is very important. What I'll leave it with is this: prohibiting rate-limiting at best does nothing to increase competition among ISPs (I have not seen any arguments against this), whereas rate-limiting behavior is something I've never seen in a market with multiple viable ISP choices (by which I mean that dialup and satellite are not close enough to broadband to count). As I started this entire thread with, rate-limiting seems like a red herring.