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Comment by objectivistbrit | Hacker News Reader

No, you are the one who has redefined freedom. Freedom originally meant that you could deal with whoever you wanted on whatever terms both parties could agree on. It didn't mean the government regulating private businesses to ensure some specific outcome.

I understand why HN wants net neutrality: the majority here think that ISPs have undeserved control, and so the government needs to step in to ensure a level playing field. Still, if someone advocated "search engine neutrality", arguing that the govt should regulate Google's search results to ensure everyone had a fair chance, there would be uproar. Similarly, if someone argued for "platform neutrality", holding that every startup that offered some kind of API had to register with the gov't to ensure their services were equally available to all others, the insanity would be obvious.

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  arguing that the govt should regulate Google's search 
  results to ensure everyone had a fair chance

Except they do. [1]

  there would be uproar

No there isn't.

Additionally, you are completely free to use another search engine and the barrier to switch is minimal. ISPs have come to a détente where they do not build infrastructure in the territories of other ISPs, leading to situations where someone like me -- who lives in Berkeley, home of one of the original 4 'IMPs' of the protointernet -- has zero choice in ISPs if I want >20mbps, which means I have no recourse if my ISP chooses to deny me access to services that do not cowtow to their connection demands.

[1] https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2013/01/googl...

Freedom originally meant that you could deal with whoever you wanted on whatever terms both parties could agree on. It didn't mean the government regulating private businesses to ensure some specific outcome.

The idea that organizational entities, whose entire existence is a construct of law, should have the same "freedoms" as human beings is a fairly startling definition of the word. These constructs (aka businesses, etc.), by definition, are far imbalanced in perception, goals, power, and resources relative to individual humans. What "freedoms" we do allow them, are for laudable goals: so that organizations of humans can come together to do more for society than those individuals might do alone. But the idea that the same concept of freedom that applies to individual human beings also applies to a fictional construct created to serve society is preposterous. Such a laissez faire definition seems more like anarchy than any useful form of freedom.

ISPs benefit substantially from government regulation. Just one example: they have sued (successfully) to stop municipal broadband projects.

Were they not already benefiting from other forms of regulation that ensure their monopoly status, I would be more sympathetic to their "we are being regulated to death" arguments. As is, they are arguing for regulation only insofar as it enables them to extract rents.

The difference is a question of infrastructure. If your ISP trottles your connection you have maybe one local competitor (doing the same thing) or live without internet. Utilites are treated as public works; imagine if the power company charged higher rates depending on what electronics were used.

There simply is no comparison to regulation at a platform level and I wish people would stop using that straw-man every time they rush to defend the poor telecoms and their "freedom".

Power companies do charge different rates depending on what electronics are used.

Energy utility rate structures are both complex and unique to the individual company, but at a high level different classes of consumer pay different rate plans, such as residential vs. commercial/industrial vs. agricultural, and which is ultimately determined by the type of and quantity of certain electronic devices installed on premise as is normal for that class.

With that said, as a residential consumer there is little chance that you could ever legally or physically install one of the devices at your home that would necessitate being charged a CI or agricultural rate.

And interestingly enough those rates are all regulated by very heavy weight local/state and federal regulatory commissions.

That's tiered pricing based on quantity consumed, isn't it? Which is already very much allowed for ISPs.

Net neutrality is a completely different thing. Without it, it'd be as if the electric company could charge more if you used this 700 watt toaster than if you used that 700 watt toaster.

A power company can't charge you extra or give you a discount because you used an LG washer, because LG is a competitor to their sister company GE, or something like that. That's exactly what Net Neutrality regulations were trying to enforce. Without enforcement, you have things like Comcast or TMobile giving extra speed to their own streaming portals, or charge other service providers for higher speed tiers. I don't understand why there is so much contention regarding this, regardless of political affiliation.

63% of Americans have at most one ISP available to choose from if they want broadband service (see http://www.esa.doc.gov/sites/default/files/competition-among...).

Your "freedom to deal with whoever you wanted" is kind of limited in a market where only there's only one potential counterparty to negotiate with.

Since when does "freedom" only apply to the government and not to any other powerful institutions? Are slaves free if they are held in captivity through a private slave owner's actions instead of through government enforcement?

> Freedom originally meant that you could deal with whoever you wanted on whatever terms both parties could agree on

As defined where, "originally"? (serious question)

Freedom doesn't necessarily have anything to do with dealing unless you redefine it with extremist libertarian ideology.

The freedom to make fair and reasonable contracts among parties that all fully understand the terms and do not have a massively imbalanced power dynamic is certainly one I, and many others support and think is fundamental.

The ability to force people into unfair contracts with you under duress by abusing your economic power is not and has never been "freedom" in any sense of the word (rather, it's the opposite of freedom, slavery or indentured servitude) unless you have some kind of sick Ayn Rand redefinition of it where it is nothing more than a code word for the notion that the people who happen to currently have wealth should not be questioned, stopped, or denied anything they wish no matter the consequences.

> Freedom originally meant that you could deal with whoever you wanted on whatever terms both parties could agree on.

That's certainly a way of phrasing the 18th Century liberal view, but I'm pretty sure "freedom" wasn't first used by 18th century liberals.

> > Freedom originally meant that you could deal with whoever you wanted on whatever terms both parties could agree on

Please could you provide a time and place in history where this has ever been the case?

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