OT: Net Neutrality
November 21st, 2017 at 7:12 PM ^
Because the country was bursting with Mom & Pop Internet Companies with net neutrality in place?
The barrier to entry isn't government regs or a lack thereof. The barrier to entry is the unfathomably huge massive investment involved in building a network.
November 21st, 2017 at 6:23 PM ^
November 21st, 2017 at 6:29 PM ^
But you only complain about people thinking of governments as white knights. Governments aren't always perfect, but strong oversight will be much better for the country as a whole compared to letting the rich and powerful run amok unregulated. Why aren't you worried about the people portraying businesses as white knights?
November 21st, 2017 at 6:42 PM ^
November 21st, 2017 at 6:49 PM ^
This belongs on /r/iam14andthisisdeep. The rich and powerful will abuse their power if they aren't kept in check by *something*, and that is why government is necessary. The hard part is determining the right amount of government. Making nihilistic statements about all government being evil sure sounds deep but doesn't solve anything.
November 21st, 2017 at 7:09 PM ^
I'm pretty sure he's not saying government is unnecessary. He's saying it's not to be trusted. And it isn't.
November 21st, 2017 at 7:25 PM ^
November 21st, 2017 at 7:52 PM ^
Gladly. Keep in mind, I don't work for an ISP or anything. And I don't think what corporations want to do absent net neutrality rules is especially good. But neither do I think net neutrality is an unmitigated good.
Somebody has to lay the infrastructure, that much is given. Either corporations will do it, or government will. I don't want it to be the government. At least, and especially, not the federal government. Local government has different power dynamics, but I'd rather it not be them either. There's not much incentive to innovate - to make it faster, more capable, etc.
Net neutrality demands those companies treat all data the same, when it's not. A guy who sits in front of his Xbox all week, only getting up to shit and refill his Doritos bowl, that guy is a major bandwidth user. So is the person spending all weekend binge-watching OITNB. But they pay the same, mostly, as the little old lady who checks her email once a day. They might pay a little more for a faster Internet plan, but it's still a flat rate.
Nothing else works that way. You pay for the electricity, gas, and water you use. Trucks pay more than cars on the turnpike. I don't think people who say "regulate it like a utility" actually want that, because the government does not practice "net neutrality" in utility regulation, either. But overall, the ISPs are not actually wrong when they point out that if they can't make money investing in new capital projects and infrastructure, they're not going to do it. I don't think that's a point that should be brushed aside so easily.
November 22nd, 2017 at 11:47 AM ^
Guess what? ISPs already make a tremendous amount of money operating under net neutrality rules as they exist today. In fact, most of them have recorded record earnings and an increasing subscriber base. Here is but one example, but you can easily google others.
http://www.businessinsider.com/comcast-earnings-q1-2016-4
And the fact they cannot invest in infrastructure because of net neutrality is a HUGE HUGE lie, exposed by, surprise, the ISPs themselves in their investor earnings calls.
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/05/title-ii-hasnt-h…
- In December 2015, AT&T’s CEO told investors that the company would “deploy more fiber” in 2016 than it did in 2015 and that Title II would not impede its future business plans.
- In December 2016, Comcast’s chief financial officer admitted to investors that any concerns it had about reclassification were based only on “the fear of what Title II could have meant, more than what it actually meant.”
- That same month, Charter’s CEO told investors, “Title II, it didn’t really hurt us; it hasn’t hurt us.”
- Just a few days after the election, Cablevision and Suddenlink’s parent company Altice reaffirmed its plan to deploy FTTH [fiber-to-the-home] service to all of its customers and told investors that it remained “focused on upgrading our broadband networks to drive increases in broadband speeds and better customer experience.”
The nonsense you repeated about infrastructre is what the ISP lobby has told the public to paint a woe-is-me picture to stifle competition and innovation in favor of protecting their monopoilistic position.
This is a huge money grab, pure and simple.
November 22nd, 2017 at 12:51 PM ^
If you know anything at all about corporations, you know they want the highest stock price possible, and therefore they are constantly blowing sunshine up the asses of investors. Any pessimism on display is the bare minimum required to comply with disclosure laws and give the investors reason to believe all the sunshine. You ought to know that.
And even in the highly pro-net-neutrality link from a highly pro-net-neutrality website, there are, in that article, quotes from ISPs telling investors that Title II would be "suppressive to development."
There's every reason to believe the truth is somewhere in the middle, and if you think net neutrality actually has zero, zip, zilch, nada effect on the industry's desire to provide infrastructure that they don't get to control, you're blind as a bat.
November 22nd, 2017 at 2:29 PM ^
November 22nd, 2017 at 6:03 PM ^
There is no such thing as bandwidth hogs. It's hard to believe that this misconception about the internet still exists in 2017. This is a fundamental misunderstanding about how the internet works and there is little excuse for the continued ignorance. Please. This issue is actually important. Do some fucking research and quit with the partisan nonsense rhetoric.
November 22nd, 2017 at 8:43 AM ^
November 21st, 2017 at 6:44 PM ^
Most barriers to the competitive market are built by the government. Stop giving the government so much power and you'll see companies respond to the demands of their paying customers instead of their cronies in Washington D.C.*
*Same phenomenon at the state and local levels.
November 21st, 2017 at 6:55 PM ^
I'm sure government has placed barriers some industries, but the problem in this case is that the infrastructure necessary to set up an ISP lends itself to natural monopolies. There's nothing necessarily wrong with natural monopolies, but they need to be regulated in order to make sure they don't abuse trapped customers lacking alternatives. Which is why network neutrality oversight by the governent is important.
November 21st, 2017 at 6:12 PM ^
Their goals are different. I will take the goals of bureucracy (yes, it's actually not the boogeyman bad word people try to make it) over the corporate goals any day. Anyone who has ever taken Public Admin classes knows the difference.
November 21st, 2017 at 6:16 PM ^
November 21st, 2017 at 6:30 PM ^
November 21st, 2017 at 6:39 PM ^
November 21st, 2017 at 6:52 PM ^
November 21st, 2017 at 7:05 PM ^
Actually the greatest genocidal events of the twentieth century were peformed under the benevolent auspicies of the Hammer and Sickle.
November 21st, 2017 at 6:35 PM ^
Actually, it is exactly the boogeyman everyone makes it out to be. A bureaucracy will inevitably revert to serving and preserving itself over any other purpose over time. It has happened in every single long lived government entity in recorded history, without exception.
Not that anyone should trust companies either. They exist to make money for shareholders, no other reason. However, at least companies usually die to competitors once their bureaucracy gets out of hand.
November 21st, 2017 at 8:19 PM ^
November 21st, 2017 at 8:28 PM ^
November 21st, 2017 at 6:01 PM ^
I'm a strong advocate for Net Neutrality, and I sort of hope this thread doesn't get too political, because this should be an issue that can be discussed free of partisan line-drawing.
I do understand the arguments against Net Neutrality (old laws not designed for current technology, rules and requirements are poorly defined, limited government oversight, etc.), even though I disagree with them. But there are ways to improve existing requirements and not just throw the whole baby out with the bath water. People need to be informed on what this means for them and how they use the internet. Thanks for sharing.
November 21st, 2017 at 6:19 PM ^
I sort of hope this thread doesn't get too political
Too late for that. Every argument presented here so far has heavy political implications.
November 21st, 2017 at 6:33 PM ^
November 21st, 2017 at 6:42 PM ^
But those are political questions. It's easy to forget in today's vitriolic environment, but questions about market and government involvement and so on have direct policy implications. And they find people extremely invested in their outcomes. It's the definition of political debate. Just because people can present arguments without ad hominem attacks doesn't mean that it's not political. And just because they can present arguments without ad hominem attacks doesn't mean they will.
November 21st, 2017 at 6:54 PM ^
November 21st, 2017 at 9:36 PM ^
True. If we were all a little more like you two are on this one there would be less of a need for enforcement of the rule. You two are pretty reasonable. Good stuff. As you say, it would be nice to be able to talk about this subject on the periphery. I suspect that is why it is still up for now but we'll see.
November 21st, 2017 at 6:04 PM ^
November 21st, 2017 at 6:10 PM ^
November 21st, 2017 at 6:13 PM ^
November 21st, 2017 at 6:24 PM ^
Depends upon the level. Where I live one side basically wins every election, so classic partisan lines are irrrelevant. But a bit further upstream partisanship DOES affect everything.
Sometimes there's value in that, but it can make issues like this difficult to tease out, because very few people will change their votes based on something at this level of policy. How do I know? One need only ask oneself this: Will I vote for a politician I otherwise oppose because they are the ones that agree with my net neutrality position?
If one's answer to that question is yes, congratulations, you are in a pretty lonely position. Most people will, grudgingly or otherwise, admit that they won't change their vote on an issue like this because there are much larger issues at stake that they will not be willing to compromise on; further, people are far likelier to take a position on something like net neutrality because it is an issue for "their side" than for them to change sides over the issue.
November 21st, 2017 at 6:31 PM ^
November 21st, 2017 at 6:35 PM ^
November 21st, 2017 at 6:42 PM ^
November 21st, 2017 at 6:36 PM ^
November 21st, 2017 at 6:37 PM ^
November 22nd, 2017 at 10:50 AM ^
In theory yes, but in actuality their real loyalty lies with whoever donates substantial amounts of money to their campaign.
November 21st, 2017 at 6:08 PM ^
November 21st, 2017 at 6:29 PM ^
I would argue that consumers have more say over corporations with their dollars than voters do with their votes over elected officials.
November 21st, 2017 at 7:24 PM ^
November 21st, 2017 at 6:32 PM ^
November 21st, 2017 at 6:53 PM ^
November 21st, 2017 at 7:09 PM ^
because the big ones like Apple and Amazon that are in favor of net neutrality can use the stance for good PR, whereas the ones against it like the IPs are the ones that would benefit the most from eliminating net neutrality
November 21st, 2017 at 6:18 PM ^
....because I have some thoughts
November 21st, 2017 at 6:26 PM ^
I was thinking the same thing. "Net neutrality" can also be called "overbearing government regulation." This is very political.
November 21st, 2017 at 6:32 PM ^