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

You really need to see this: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/201...et-neutrality/

That article basically tells us that corporations are now able to legally rip us off or otherwise sites could simply be blocked. That means any and all video sharing sites, this one, it's really up to them. This is something that could be nearly as bad as SOPA so we really need to rally against this. Even if you don't live in the US, if it's stopped here, and it turns out to be profitable, other regulations in other countries protecting the consumer could also be lost. We need to fight this somehow.

This is why Kim Dot Com is working on a new internet.

Good. Net Neutrality is a misnomer. Real neutrality is the government staying out of this altogether.

The Internet has thrived precisely because government has kept its hands off it; this is the opposite of that.

I'm not understanding, are you saying this is a good thing or a bad thing in your opinion.

I think the legislation dying is a good thing. I think net neutrality is a bad thing, even though the intentions behind it are probably well meaning enough.

So you are okay with internet providers chaging their users crazy amounts of money to use services like netflix and youtube, only after forcing those companies to pay more for the same agreement they have now, only after ridding the internet of small business' only at the call of the government, so the government will no longer be involved with the internet? Please tell me you aren't okay with being legally robbed by corporations.

I think that's what's known as a loaded question.

Let's try it this way: are you okay with coffee shops charging $50 for a cup of coffee? Because there's absolutely no law stopping them from doing that right now. In fact, there are hardly any laws stopping businesses from doing all sorts of things that would completely alienate their customers, and yet they don't. The same market forces apply here, and they protect us a whole lot more effectively and fluidly than government declarations.

I don't see a connection with the comparison you made. According to a few sources on youtube, Verzion and AT&T are already making new, more expensive plans that net neutrality wouldn't let them have. The whole reason this even started it because those two companies were looking to make more profit by borderline extorting us. Coffee isn't that expensive because people can always find alternate places selling it for cheaper. With internet providers, this is more than half the time not the case unless you want to go with a local provider which barely functions on a good day, and the providers know this. It's all for money, so we are going to get screwed around with for the sake of their profit.

One of the ways things like coffee become widely available is because some business does something stupid and others rush in to capitalize. Can you imagine just how quickly people would flock to an ISP that didn't do these things if the others started to? The "sake of profit" is precisely what stops us from getting screwed around, because the incentive to break ranks is massive. The only thing that could even potentially work is outright collusion, and we already have laws against that.

This is without even getting into the bandwidth applications, because there are lots of perfectly legitimate reasons to throttle certain kinds of bandwidth for efficiency reasons, which this law would presumably make impossible. Which makes this a great example of how business regulation protects not the consumer, but the preexisting businesses in the industry from the threat of competition.

Also, could you elaborate on "According to a few sources on youtube"?

For most things, like coffee, you would be right with this Yoda but I feel like access to every corner of the internet is more of a unique resource that should be thought of differently. More ISPs competing for business would be great though, for sure.

I'm not sure why the uniqueness of the resource would change the incentive structure. The point of the comparison wasn't the importance of the thing, but the mechanisms which drive businesses to serve consumers.

No I understood what you were doing. But I think a much easier comparison is phone and cable tv carriers. The same giants have had these strangleholds on regions with their tiered packages and whatever else and it's not like a bunch of mom and pop cable companies have sprung up and had runaway success stories. Most people just complain and accept it. The necessary infrastructure abd contracts and so on make this a different kind of deal than selling most other goods.

So I guess I believe, as far as this aspect of it goes, even if it may be the "right" thing to scrap this kind of legislation, it won't benefit the average consumer. From my point of view the current internet model is sustainable and people are making money so what's the problem anyway?

I also personally have lots of more conspiracy theoryish problems with big businesses being able to control who gets what information but uh I'm not gonna try and argue those into coherence.

Interesting that this comes at a time when alot of people are scrapping their cable tv for streaming services....

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The problem with Kim Dotcom is that, while he has done some good things (like campaigning for Internet freedom, and against the GCSB privacy violations in New Zealand), he seems too much opportunistically motivated by self-interest to be truly trustworthy (the John Banks donation scandal, the hip-hop single, Orcon commercials etc., not to mention the money he pocketed from Megaupload). For example, how could we be assured that anyone using "his" Internet (supposing it does come into being) wouldn't be forced to pay a charge to Dotcom et al?

There will never be an internet à la payperview, no one would go for that

Far as I can tell that's one of the main reasons for this. With the law revoked providers can charge streaming sites to be used and that might extend all the way to consoles later if it doesn't now. Rip the services off, rip the customers off, gain the bills.

"Can" is different than "would," let alone "will." You don't gain bills by pissing off huge swaths of your customer base.

Also, the timing isn't really interesting, because the timing is for the legislation, not any actual problem that has materialized. And it was first proposed years ago.

In order to pass a sweeping regulatory law, we need more than "grumble grumble businesses are greedy grumble grumble." Businesses are always trying to profit in all industries at all times, but as you've probably noticed, it's that exact profit motive that usually keeps them in line. So give me an actual plausible scenario where an ISP does this and it doesn't end up equating to financial seppuku.

You are missing the point. All major providers can do this and it's money, they are going to. It's really that simple. We won't have a choice in the matter.

There is always a choice, whether or not the American people have the bravado to make another choice is the real question, and in that sense, no I don't think they will.

Second of all, you are missing the point. This hasn't even passed anywhere yet.

Why not? What law is going to stop us from changing providers?

Of course they'll do what they can to make money. That's the point; that's precisely what stops it from happening, because they won't make money doing this. If you think they will, please explain how: lay out a plausible scenario in which an ISP implements a policy that will infuriate millions of customers and not lose money in the process.