If you live in the US.... (Net Neutrality)

This is your future America.

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And yet the Internet grew into what we know today without any such rules in place at all.

I think the internet was better years ago without so many ads, pop-ups, clicking on 4 links before you can read an article, the methods are endless, and usually manipulative and flaky... It seemed to work more smoothly, which seems odd considering this laptop is much faster than what I used five or ten years ago.. I can't think of anything made in the last few years that I use.

Because the internet was different back then compared to now. Now they see the possibilities of making more money.

I understand that it could most likely stay the same because providers wants to keep a level playing field. But the options are there for slowing websites, blocking sites entirely and more. Consumers should be free to make their own decisions about content.So why give them that option?

People invested billions of dollars in startups in the early oughts, so it's been literally decades since people realized the "possibilities of making more money." So why hasn't this alleged Internet dystopia come to pass?

Well, first, just in general I think "let's make a very broad rule against this just in case" is a really bad legal philosophy. Big, sweeping rules always, always, always have unintended consequences, so laws should be clearly necessary and clearly targeted. This is the opposite of that: it's a huge sweeping law over a hazily-defined speculative threat that has never materialized. And worse, it applies to an area that has thrived specifically because it's been largely left alone.

On a more issue-specific level, the answer is: bandwidth. Bandwidth is finite and the demand for it is increasing at an exponential rate. So what happens when there's not enough to go around? Answer: it has to be throttled. It has to be managed. And you can't do that effectively unless you can make decisions based on content. For example, if you throttle video, it's basically unusable. Nobody wants to watch a show or a movie that stops every few seconds. But it's not such a big deal to have images or text delivered a little slower. So at times of peak usage, it'd be sensible to prioritize one over the other. But hey, that's discriminating based on content! That'd be illegal.

There are only two reasons these sorts of ala carte Internet packages would become a reality:

1) Actual bandwidth constraints, in which case, no law is actually going to give us more bandwidth, and the law in question would simply reduce our ability to manage the issue, leading to slow-downs for everyone even when common-sense prioritization could alleviate much of the problem.

2) Actual demand, because some people actually do want to pay less and get less. For example, I know elderly people who use Facebook and basically nothing else. It's kinda nuts that they're paying the same cost as a 19-year-old who's torrenting an entire seasons of Game of Thrones every day. They're basically subsidizing that kid.

So, when you say why give them (the ISPs) the option: I say, what right do we have to deny consumers the option to pay for what they want, if they want it? This law is basically saying "there's only one valid Internet plan, and there should be a law against anyone who wants a different one because they use it differently than I do."

Two very relevant comparisons come to mind, as well:

First, cell phones. It'd be nuts to say everyone had to have an unlimited data plan, right? So why is that same logic okay here? In fact, we're actually seeing cell phone promotion plans now where certain things, like Netflix, don't count against data usage. Would that even be legal under this rule?

Second, cable. How many people have you heard bemoan the fact that when we purchase cable we have to pay for all sorts of channels we don't use? I've heard tons, and they're overwhelmingly people who also support net neutrality. But with the Internet, the logic is completely flipped: suddenly having that option is not just unnecessary, but so bad that it must be made illegal!

I seem to agree with Yoda with this stance on this, Net Neutrality in the first place seemed to be a government fix to a problem that didn't really exist. Access to the internet has only grown over the past 20 years. I'm not surprised that more government involvement is the popular opinion today, but I'm surprised that I see people straight up calling for the nationalization of the internet; which I think would be atrocious treating the web like a public utility. I'm all for transparency with these huge telecommunication companies, but I don't think price fixing is the answer to a more efficient, accessible internet.

Though, if the opposite is going to be true, and all this "sky is falling" rhetoric becomes reality, hopefully dismantling net neutrality destroys the streaming market as we know it and causes movie rental stores to open up again.

I think the internet is too large and unknown (future) to fall into more control. I don't think any of us know enough to answer this properly.

Oh wait, it's only America?



Though for real, if this does come into play, I'll feel so sorry for the Americans.

Because it's been a recent issue where they are losing people to the internet for content that that make the most money from.

Has the internet changed in your opinion? How has it affected you, if at all?

Comcast owns Hulu, it makes sense for them to want to throttle rival content provider Netflix so people flock to their side, or simply make them pay a premium, which makes subscription costs go up. Either way the consumer gets the short end of the stick.

Comcast was fined by the FCC for charging customers for content they never even bought in the past. It makes sense they would want to charge people for things they use now, if they tried to charge them for things they didn't then.

Except they would be paying more than they do now. Right now they pay based on their speed and bandwidth...not for the extra content.

Again, everything is free to everyone. You'll be paying more for less.

Completely different. I have a data cap on my internet. I have a data cap on my cell phone. It's content driven that would be blocked not data as you try to argue here.

Second, cable. How many people have you heard bemoan the fact that when we purchase cable we have to pay for all sorts of channels we don't use? I've heard tons, and they're overwhelmingly people who also support net neutrality. But with the Internet, the logic is completely flipped: suddenly having that option is not just unnecessary, but so bad that it must be made illegal![/quote]

Again I reiterate my previous statement. Content. There are channels people cannot access because they would have to pay more. With the internet the access is already there. People pay for speed, not content, which is what TV packages are. I have the basic cable plan with Bell and I get channels I do not want. There are channels out there I do want, but that would mean paying more money. The internet cannot be compared to television as I do not communicate with family, friends and share ideas, content and whatever through television.

Are you fine with paying extra to keep this site in the "fast lane".

I think the idea of having to pay extra to access things is corporate greed. It boggles my mind that you are against an open internet. If someone has to pay extra to access Wikipedia, which is a wonderful website full of educational information, but that person can't afford it, then they are at a disadvantage. Not affording HBO won't hurt anyone...maybe just socially.


The picture that I posted is from Portugal. It's already happened.

Are you saying they didn't want more money before? Because the entire argument here is predicated on how relentlessly greedy corporations are, yet it asks people to buy the idea that they never decided to charge more without this law, even though they could have. That doesn't wash.

The absence of these things all the way up until 2015 is a massive problem for the kinds of over-the-top rhetoric net neutrality advocates are spreading around right now.

I don't wanna brush this off, but it's a very broad question and I can't say I see how it ties back into this issue, so can you explain what you're asking/why?

Have you noticed that everybody and their mom's dog is starting a streaming service? If that's happening now, in absence of this throttling, why do you think there's insufficient market demand to incentivize streaming alternates in a world where it does start happening?

Something like this is always going to be my follow-up question, by the way: every time you posit that some ISP is going to do something you (and others) hate, the next question is always going to be: and how are customers and competitors going to respond to that? Because the nightmare scenarios people are sketching out all seem to rely on the idea that we're bound to our ISPs for life.

Again, the idea that they'd like to make more money is not in dispute, and is in fact the entire point. Massively pissing off your entire customer base has never made anyone more money. Usually not even in the short run, and never in the long run.

That's not my argument. My argument is that the rules also end up applying to data management. I've already explained how in one regard: throttling based on content type is necessary and rational, and sites like Twitch already do it internally to create the best experience.

The other problems are a bit more indirect, but still important: I mentioned earlier that some cell phone carriers are partnering with streaming services like Netflix so that anything streamed through them doesn't count towards data usage. It's a cool idea that consumers seem to like: nothing unfair or sneaky about it, yet it would seemingly be illegal under this law. Does that seem right to you?

Ditto if somebody's grandparents just want to use Facebook to talk to their family, without having to think about data caps, or without paying $60-70 a month for all sorts of stuff they'll never use. Wouldn't even be legal to offer this as an option, even with an unrestricted choice as well. Does that seem right to you?

The fact that they provide different services doesn't change the fact that the underlying economic realities are the same.

But let's take another plan that lets you "communicate with family, friends and share ideas." Cell phones. Have you ever been on a cell plan that gave you unlimited minutes to a certain group of frequently called people? Or how about free "in network" minutes? Same thing. That's discrimination based on content. Would consumers be better off if those promotions were illegal?

Nope, but I bet I won't have to.

If someone is against a law saying that all food items must cost $1, are they "against" food being cheap?

If my argument is that X won't happen, I'm not sure I understand the goal of any response that consists of "are you really okay with X?"

I wouldn't be okay with movie theaters charging a billion dollars per ticket, either. And hey, there's no law that says they can't. But they won't.

Moderate debunking I found in 20 seconds.

Do you think anyone passing that image around, by the way, has any idea what the broadband infrastructure is like in Portugal, anyway?

Your strawman arguments are frustrating. I can see that we are not going to get anywhere with this.

The internet has thrived because the Open Internet Rules weren't enforced until 2015? ISPs have barely touched this stuff.


EDIT 1: Pardon, said 2005, wasn't implemented until 2010.

EDIT 2: Dammit, now I'm seeing 2015. When was what implemented by who and when?

EDIT 3: Okay, so it was concocted in 2005, implemented on telecommunications networks 5 years after that, and the Internet fell under that classification 5 years after that.

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For the record, if Twitter (which I am now apparently banned from) and Reddit are any indication, most people are overwhelmingly pro-Net Neutrality (which at the very least means Comcast's constant lying adverts haven't succeeded to fool enough people).

I am ostensibly pro-Net Neutrality, but I am open to more capitalist arguments, especially provided if my concerns resting on the pre-existing monopoly of internet infrastructure by ICANN and legislative ability of the FCC are allayed.


EDIT: Interesting to see my own ISP legitimately (unlike Comcast) defend Net Neutrality: https://ting.com/blog/mobile-industr...y-protections/

Ting is a lovely ISP by the way.

I think I may be in to net-neutrality. Although I'm not entirely sure I know what it even means. As Omni just showed when it was even started is hazy. And as Chris has pointed out (I think rightly) these businesses that "throttle" your speeds or jack up prices if they so choose will always suffer their own economic problems if they choose to do so. I mean, if any of these guys were to say to their customers that they were going to double their prices there's just too many other options out there. I was getting on the internet for free back when we still had phone-jacks and could easily do so again.

Now, if I get a call and say they tell me its gonna cost me an extra 50 bucks a month to keep streaming all the so-called illegal content and whatever the hell else I use my computer for... then I will gladly pay it. I also think less is better with the internet. If whatever has been implemented hasn't even been in effect for very long, how do we know we're going to miss it?

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Well until right now, I thought net neutrality was kinda being malleable on the internet.

Ending net neutrality would be awesome: suppose that in the future commoners could get an "internet plan" that costs half the price but only includes facebook, amazon, netflix, google and it's sites, mainstream newspapers and apple's sites plus email.

Such a cheap and restricted plan would mean most people would choose to pay less and be blocked from accessing the rest of the web. Hence erasing the plebs away from the cool sites and making the internet again only for the tr00 nerds like it was 20 years ago and is supposed to be!

In Brazil it became ilegal to restrict data (in gigs per month) on internet service a couple years ago. Prices just went up in response and nobody liked. I actually don't know if I have any data restrictions in the US plan I use (like 300 gigs per month or so).

Why are you banned from Twitter, Omni?

I have no opinion on this, kinda know where i lean but i don't think i'm informed on it enough right now to have a strong opinion. Wouldn't have posted here was just curious why Omni was banned since there's truly vile people on there tweeting constantly with massive followings.

Sorry you feel that way. I really don't see where I've made any straw man arguments, but if you care to elaborate I'd be happy to clarify or, if I'm unable to do that, retract.

My best guess is that anything which seems this way is really just me disputing the premise itself. This may seem weird or unfair, but if it does, I submit that this is just a reflection of how insular this debate is. And that insularity is why I'm bothering to reply at all: because I'm genuinely shocked at how uncritical and incurious many people (not necessarily you!) are being about this, mindlessly sharing doomsday scenarios without seeking out any counterarguments, or even asking themselves why this stuff hasn't happened already.

I don't expect to really convince anyone of anything here, but I'd be pretty content with getting a few people to at least acknowledge that this isn't some kind of Frodo-and-Sauron level struggle between good and evil for the Soul of the Internet, which is how a lot of people are framing it.

Example: