Net neutrality is dying with a whimper
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The issue at hand is clearly about a government that is utterly unresponsive to its people.
That doesn't mean that it's going to work on Trump and Pai in the same way, but arguing that activism "doesn't work" based on this one data point is silly. It does work, sometimes. The details matter.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Anti-Corruption_Act
> government that is utterly unresponsive to its people.
But is there a way that we can make it near impossible to not have net neutrality? As far as I'm aware, there is no solution that doesn't allow for someone to obtain control. Fixing the human factor is difficult, but is there a clear way to bypass it?
Isn't that what is meant by "not being heard"?
There is one thing that just enough politicians do understand, however, and that's money. In their pockets. From ghouls who will profit handsomely when online access in the USA becomes effectively equivalent to shitty cable-tv service.
- You can get all the shopping sites, and your ISP's streaming service in the base package. - Third-party Music Sites with Music Extra. - Third-party Video Sites with Video Extra.
Then there is the Several speed levels of the Unlimited plan starting at just $999/month.
Personal blogs, websites and Open Source project sites will be restricted to the top 5%. Everyone else will have to just deal with canned media from the big corporations and ISPs.
Instead, they will squeeze outside media and tech companies behind the scenes and will stifle competition (and innovation) out of view of the consumer.
"Want 4K Content, Use HULU and it will not count toward your 1TB limit"
"Want unlimited music, Our new Xfinity Music Service is now allows you to enjoy all the music you want with out worry about going over your data cap"
Then ofcourse will be fast lanes
"Tired of your 4K movie buffering, Try the new Xfintiy On Demand, Guaranteed not to buffer"
There will be strange bedfellows to be had in this particular fight.
For what it's worth, they aren't actually cutting health care. There's a reason they can't get a repeal through even though they control both houses of congress and have a rubber stamp waiting in the white house.
The thing about human mind is that there is no way to truly stop the way it reasons other than to counter it with reason. You can't really change someone's mind by smacking them in the face until their mind is changed take for instance.
Alt-right movement would have come around with or without Internet and with or without widespread censorship. In fact there is already widespread social and technological censorship against alt-right views, and this is one of the biggest reasons why they have an appeal.
A bunch of my Libertarian friends have to do the same, our opinions aren't really understood or accepted by a lot of liberals, so artful trolling at heavily moderated internet groups and communities is something they all learn to do sooner or later.
Yes, IF there is a moderation of opinions on the internet at the network level (which I don't believe would happen), then controversial opinions like that of alt-right are the ones which would suffer disproportionately more. However, that is much easily handled rather than having govt level laws regarding the control of the Internet.
The the efficiency of the market only works when there is an actual market. We have none. Not even Google could break the Telco strangle-hold on the market. (Google Fiber has basically folded) In an environment like that, removing regulation only serves the incumbent monopoly.
Healthy competition would be great, but it's not realistic anymore. At this point we need our government to stand up for us.
Trump voters were (mostly) Romney voters.[1] Clinton lost by failing to galvanize voters who turned out for Obama in prior elections[2] and neglecting to campaign in Rustbelt states.[3]
[1] http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/11/09/behind-trump...
[2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/omribenshahar/2016/11/17/the-no...
[3] https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/11/trumps-...
There's a real hatred for the elite class right now in America, some idiots thought Trump was that answer but he IS an elite. Bernie was the answer but the DNC thought they could quash him, now he's the most popular member of congress - and more progressives are running and winning than ever before.
2020 will be interesting to see if he runs again, if he does he'll probably be the next president. Even Nate Silver has said that Bernie is currently the front-runner for 2020 much as Clinton was in 2013.
They absolutely did not. There was absolutely no evidence of such things happening. There was no mass conspiracy.
Seriously, more Democrats wanted Clinton than Bernie. That's why she won. Get over it.
There is no grand conspiracy. Stop kidding yourself. More Democrats preferred Hillary over Bernie. End of story. The reason is obvious: Bernie Sanders is not a democrat. Bernie Sanders is a democratic socialist. He joined the Democratic party solely for a larger support base and because the Democrats align more with his ideals than Republicans do.
It is absolutely no surprise that the DNC establishment preferred an establishment candidate who had long been a prominent member of the party. Not some coat-tail hanger-on using the predominantly liberal base of a party that he only nominally belongs to. He does not represent the interests (arguably) of the majority of the Democratic party voters. That's why he lost.
I'm guessing for every outspoken Bernie/Bust person there were 2-3 more people who voted 3rd party or abstained...as a result...
It was an ugly primary, and if you don't think the DNC cheated then you haven't watched any of the news... DNC chair was fired because of it, CNN anchor got in hot water for GIVING CLinton the questions to the debate before hand... that's not conspiracy because it's fact...
I disagree, I think the case can be easily made but it is being drowned out by the ISP's and their supporters with a MASSIVE wave of disinformation, and false information.
I have spent the majority of my time in discussions not attempting to explain why Title II is needed, but simply attempting to cut through the bullshit that has been spread.
For example the most common attack is that "the internet was fine with no regulation" and the feeling is that opposing NN means no regulation with bumper sticker "Hands off my internet" type of sayings
When In reality is a Debate over Title I vs Title II regulations, and if a Internet Service provider is a Telecommunications company (clearly yes) or a Information Services companies (clearly no)
The ISP's and their supporters have tanked any opportunity for real debate with a massive propaganda and disinformation war.. which they appear to have won
They got a stooge FCC commissioner, they have some well-paid lobbyists and they are lining the pockets of politicos in various ways to get what they want. Every once in a while some odious talking-head will say something against net-neutrality on AM radio or Fox news. That's a pretty low-key campaign if you ask me.
The fact is not enough regular people care about this issue, not enough are informed about what it really means. That's why they're winning.
None of it has reached me. The only anti-NN arguments I see are from a small handful of anarcho-capitalist friends.
If there is a threat on internet freedom, it's already there and it's Google, Facebook, Twitter etc. who can pick and choose what a user can see on the internet. In fact, they are much bigger threat in that they can filter out websites based on their contents, and make certain things impossible to search for or go viral... while ISPs, at best, can block individual IPs.
>They have made it an "internet freedom" issue when internet freedom is not a problem at all.
Example of the disinformation...
>If there is a threat on internet freedom, it's already there and it's Google, Facebook, Twitter etc. who can pick and choose what a user can see on the internet.
They can? How do they do that? I do not use Facebook or Twitter at all, and used google very very limited having transition to DDG as my search provider over a year ago...
Does facebook control my Arch Linux Computer... shit....
>> while ISPs, at best, can block individual IPs.
Please tell me your not serial....
You really believe the is "at best" all they can do... really... You just keep highlighting how successful the disinformation campaign is...
Yes.
>How do they do that?
Most people get their news from their Facebook newsfeed or their Google search results. Facebook can analyze and prioritize certain content over another. Google does the same. The best example of this is how uninformed you are about this issue.
>You really believe the is "at best" all they can do... really...
Yes. What else can they do? Most traffic is secure and the internet is moving more and more towards secure traffic everywhere. ISPs can't intercept the content of the traffic. So, they might block the IP of the server but they can't block the information if it is shared in social media for example.
>Example of the disinformation... >You just keep highlighting how successful the disinformation campaign is...
So, where is this "disinformation" you speak of? Where am I being bombarded by this idea? I haven't heard or read anything about this from any sources. It is based on my own understanding of the issue. You can read more in this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14807940 and tell me where I am wrong.
All I see everywhere is disinformation from the other side and they don't even bring up the actual issue anywhere ever. So, I am pretty much certain that they are the ones disinforming people.
That is funny right there, see the difference is people have a CHOICE to get their news from facebook (which facebook is not a news organization but anyway) or some other source
I however do not have a CHOICE in broadband internet providers, I use comcast or Nothing, there is no other option for me.
I have CHOOSEN not to use Facebook instead I use other services to communicate with friends and family, I can not CHOOSE the use another ISP as none are available
See the difference...
But continue to educate me on how uninformed I am on this issue despite my near 20 years working professionally in the field
That is unfortunate... not the fact that you don't have an option... but the fact that you are on the side of the argument which denies you that option.
I'm done here. Good luck!
However, one can easily choose to never use Facebook and not lose quintillionth of the information available on the internet. Facebook or any other such service is one of a quintillion of end-nodes that you can reach on the internet.
Comcast is the choke through which your internet connectivity comes through, and you are proposing to allow increased manipulative power to them.
As I have mentioned earlier, the only power they have is they can block access to specific site. They can't actually know or filter out what the user sees.
>you are proposing to allow increased manipulative power to them.
OK tell me a realistic case how they could use the "manipulative powers" thus gained to harm the end users.
How will Regulating ISP's under title I give me more providers? Title II regulation could if the FCC would do it force the Comcast to resell their service wholesale like in the 1990's but nothing under Title I provides the FCC the ability to do that
So explain to me exactly how Rural America that barely gets 1 provider will magically have multiple providers wanting to run separate infrastructure to their 5 homes
>I'm done here.
Yes you are... you have lost the argument, your are done here because you know this. Go tell your comcast overlords you did you best and collect your silver
Something like: "I'm sorry your provider Comcast is against Net Neutrality, as a sign of protest you will be unable to access our content on Mondays until Net Neutrality is reinstated - here are some numbers where you can contact your congressman, senators, and comcast directly to complain.
Do that --and you'll have comcast/att/verizon BEGGING to get net neutrality brought back.
One-offs raise visibility. Scheduling pain for people you're trying to convince that you're right will just make them resent you.
On one side there are Google/Facebook/Youtube and likes and on another side are Comcast/Verizon/ATT/Sprint and like. Let me see do I care if Comcast screws Google and makes it pay more? Nope. How about Netflix? Nope. Wait, do I care if NetFlix makes life hell for Verizon? You guessed it, I do not. In fact, I would like them all to beat each other up into total destruction so we can go back to the world with lots of content providers and lots of ISPs.
The average consumer is the same way. He or she hears that Google has billions of dollars in cash. He or she hears how VZ is screwing taxpayers with their broadband roll outs.
However, the battle will continue with some of the heavy hitters that have been so instrumental for creating real change: advocacy groups with good lawyers. (EFF, Fight For the Future, Public Knowledge, et al.)
They will be the ones that really take the fight to the Pai-hole. It's an uphill battle, but probably our best hope.
*edited for grammar and clarity
A few years ago, I noticed that frontier was hijacking Google searches. A search bar search for "Amazon" went straight to amazon.com, complete with an affiliate id!
I wrote a letter to the Frontier CEO, sent it via FedEx, and she called me directly within hours of receiving it. The gist of my letter was, "by behaving this way, you are bringing the debate on yourself." She was unaware her company was doing this and stopped the practice.
This is a small example that's easily detectable externally (unlike internal network traffic shaping). But we may need to cycle through a few stories like this to cut through the rhetoric.
That being said, it would make sense to me that scrapping neutrality might be the very thing needed to encourage Google to finish their fiber roll out across the US. Incumbent telecoms have incentive to restrict access to content. Google being an advertising company, has incentive to encourage the flow of content.
Google owning the internet is probably way worse in the long run but it might just be a great short term solution to the neutrality problem.
This is deeply unfair to less dense areas, though. Google Fiber is shiny and alluring, but there's other solutions for us urbanites. What I'd love to see, and would make a difference, is competition for last-mile delivery _outside_ of cities.
Let's say an ISP A wants to cover a small area with 1000 potential users. So, lets say they allocate 100gbps bandwidth for the market. So, they sell 100mbps internet to 1000 users. All of the users get 100mbps dedicated but it is expensive for them. Besides, not all users are using 100mbps all the time anyway. So, a competing ISP B could just allocate 10gbps (one-tenth of what other had) saving a lot of costs, and offer 100mbps at half the price with a condition that speeds could be lower at peak hours because if everyone is using full bandwidth (very unlikely), they will only get 1/10th of the advertised speeds (in practice, it's usually close to advertised speed most of the time). The ISP A is completely outpriced so they can either lower their prices or go out of business... and obviously they choose a similar strategy to be competitive.
This has been the case for a long time. They have optimized it with dynamic contention ratios and the like but this is basically how it works. Anyone who needs dedicated bandwidth knows that prices for those for the same speeds are very expensive compared to regular internet.
The problem with this is obviously "the problem users". Back in the days, they were the ones who would hog up maximum bandwidth most of the time using it for file sharing (seed/download all day long). In the above example, if 100 users use all the available bandwidth at all times, whole of the bandwidth is taken up all the time. So, during peak hours, when some of the other 900 joined in, the speeds were much slower than advertised.
The ISPs noticed that file sharing was using most of the bandwidth, so if they blocked it, they could improve internet experience of everyone (except for the pirates, which made a small percentage of their customer base). This is what Comcast did in 2007 by blocking bittorrent traffic. The pirates however, who also happened to be the most active and knowledgable internet users, were not happy obviously. So, two lobbies filed a case against Comcast making it a freedom issue (see Comcast Corp. v. FCC) which got a huge attention from the most active and vocal pirates.
This meant that ISPs could not differentiate between what kind of and how much traffic went through. This meant companies could offer services requiring very high bandwidth (eg. HD video streaming) and if the internet was slow, the ISPs would be the culprit (for advertising higher speeds than they were able to provide if a lot of users used such services).
Obviously, at this point, the best option for ISPs is to make internet more expensive. However, they obviously want to expand the market and rise in price could mean many users may just drop the service. So, they are going for this another option... which would allow them to charge different rates for profitable high-bandwidth using services and hence the cost would be transferred to the providers of those services and not the end customers. Obviously, those service providers (Google, Netflix, Pornhub etc.) don't want the cost to come to them (which might mean that their users would drop if they priced their services higher or entire business models to fail), they'd rather it be transferred to end users. So, they are vehemently pushing the "internet freedom"/"net neutrality" narrative when it's definitely not.
To answer your question, ISPs would be free to not use the fast/slow lane approach if they can be competitive with it.
Then they silently implement what they really care about.
[1]http://fortune.com/2017/04/20/fcc-broadcast-tv-station-owner...
[2]https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/05/01/business/dealbook/tv-s...
[3]http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/comcast-nation/FCC-announ...
[4]http://www.foxbusiness.com/features/2017/04/13/fccs-tv-airwa...
Plus Internet is far from being neutral right now. Emails got deliver depending on your server IPs. CDNs already pay to be hosted by ISPs for a fast lane. Torrents don't reach the full capacity of your bandwidth. Etc.
The case against government regulations for the Internet is easy to make: Easier to start an ISP, cheaper services for the end consumers, less government expenses to enforce all of that, etc.
Currently you buy access to the internet, and that's all internet, at equal priority. You can connect to my little $6 VPS or raspberry pi as easily as you can to Google or Facebook. And that's a great thing. If I want to get my show on TV, I have to negotiate with different channels and studios to try and get it broadcast, anywhere. And even then it would probably be on some shitty channel with tiny viewership, interspersed with ads for medication and financial scams.
On the internet I can publish on my own terms, and anybody else with an internet connection can view it, on my terms. Undermining net neutrality threatens this.
In the UK some ISPs are providing 'free unlimited access to WhatsApp'. It's just the start of a road that leads to the default model changes from paying for internet access, to most people getting free 'internet', restricted to just those companies who pay the ISP instead to provide free access. This is a slippery slope: once it starts, it will continue until smaller sites are no longer visible to people without 'premium' internet - who will be a minority. This is bad.
But I would rather take that than Internet becoming like TV, where govt can pass 'fairness doctrine' and other stuff, or restrict it significantly during war time.
I'd rather trust economic incentives to keep Internet free than political incentives. If people are willing to pay for full coverage of the War, then even though govt is pressuring ISPs, it results in a losing prisoner's dilemma for ISPs (take for instance the popularity of Al Jazeera during Iraq War).
The economic incentives are for the last-mile ISP monopolies to keep being last-mile ISP monopolies, throttling traffic in cases where it suits there interests.
Net Neutrality laws simply make it easier for govt to use this exploit. A lot of HN audience is sympathetic to Canada or UK style restrictions on News channels, where govt is the final arbiter of whether a news channel is spreading lies or not. In America, the people are allowed to do that, and sure people paid a lot of money to listen to lies by NYT that Hillary was on her way to White House (I have even defended NYT's 2016 coverage to my pissed off liberal friends who wanted to cancel their subscription after the elections), but it's their choice. We can't allow govt to control media in the name of 'fairness'.
And what about the (in my opinion, more realistic in the United States) risk of private corporations such as Internet service providers restricting what their users see? Especially when you consider in how many cases your choices are one ISP or else no Internet access at all?
I would state it another way though. Fox news is hugely profitable because it provides information to people that validates, reinforces, and legitimizes their particular social and political beliefs. It thickens the walls of their bubble. Fox news led the way with this and every other network quickly followed suit.
This does not counter the argument that if tomorrow an ISP not delivering the content you desire, then there wouldn't be a rise of a newer service/solutions (they don't really have to be a new ISP btw) which allow consumers to access the suppressed viewpoint.
I'm sorry, but this argument that "everything will work out for the better" isn't convincing me.
The example you've given is a highly successful cable channel from a different yet still heavily regulated industry. What does this have to do with common carrier status for ISPs?
nothing is created when someone hires some guards and puts up a tollbooth on an existing road.
so i guess i depends on which of these two scenarios you consider 'economic'
I don't trust economic incentives at all... The internet and cable industry is notorious for their frivolous price grabs and there's a lot of money to be made playing gatekeeper to something hundreds of millions of people use every day.
In your example the customer wants something new, and the ISP has the economic incentive of providing it because they can charge a premium. What happens when this same incentive is placed on all other services... especially services you enjoy currently. Oh your Netflix/HBO Now is slow? Well that's because you don't have the Xfinity Online Streaming Package which is an extra $18.99/month. Hey, the people wanted faster streaming speeds right? This is just economic incentive.
I posted a legitimate possibility.
You don't have to. Most people watch GoT for free either from torrents or from free streaming websites.
Spam filtering etc isn't against NN rules. No-one is delivering emails from marketing firms immediately, while holding back your emails from your aunt Mavis for an additional hour because she won't pay the premium service charge, even though they're coming from the same mailserver. All traffic that is getting delivered is being treated the same, as per NN.
CDNs aren't paying for a fast lane, they're paying to be closer to the source of the request. That just makes the hops smaller, it doesn't change the priority of the delivery. If I hand deliver a postcard to you vs putting in the mail 500 miles away, I'm not getting preferential treatment from the postoffice, I'm just closer and hence more able to deliver it faster.
Torrents are all slower than your capacity. That's a neutral network. Now, if some were unthrottled because someone paid off the ISP to do so, that would be against NN.
The law of physics will gently back off and new ISPs will be able to install infrastructure on top of the existing one?
Existing ISPs have a de facto monopoly, because there isn't unlimited space to install backbones. Given that it is impossible to change that and have a free market, the next best thing is to regulate their market and forbid them from distorting the one built on top of it.
> cheaper services for the end consumers
Don't be naive: consumers will pay the same price for a shit-tier internet, those who can afford it will pay a premium for "regular" internet.
Incumbency advantage and the arbitrary consolidation of economic power. The one clear duty of a government in regulating an economy is to ensure competition. We had the same fight about railroads, and we had the same fight about telecom in the thirties. The economic principles have not changed since then, contrary to Telecom talking points.
No net neutrality = no competition in the ISP space; any new ISP has to build out a parallel network all the way to a fair ISP. Net neutrality is what guarantees that peered traffic is fairly prioritized.
My first apartment was wired and run by an 8 man startup that operated a few contiguous apartment complexes. They connected the complexes to Comcast but dealt with all the last-mile (last block?) issues... but here's the kicker, Comcast also offered services in the area. My ISP only existed because Comcast was required to fairly prioritize their traffic. Without net neutrality, that ISP's traffic would have been deprioritized by Comcast.
A good example: like the water company suddenly saying that you're not allowed to use your water to fill reusable water bottles, unless you pay a further monthly fee, but they do have a partnership with Dasani to deliver water bottles to your door for cheaper than the store price.
Netflix alone is just not big enough by itself to outspend the half-billion or so that the Media Big 6 and the Baby Bells spent on buying politicians, ads and spin.
Now they will murder anything new by slowing it to a crawl. So to succeed, on must have superior compression- and/or a alternative infrastructure.
Or- one could try to hijack the fastlanes.
I agree that, long term, only a replacement infrastructure will be a viable solution. Unfortunately the only technology that currently has a chance is 4G/5G mobile service, and it is even more consumer-hostile.
In the mean time, we need Net Neutrality.
I always thought that the next infrastructure would be a series of wireless mesh networks. They are extremely censorship resistant and can operate on unlicensed frequencies which makes them resistant to centralized control.
I've heard about projects like https://nycmesh.net and http://guifi.net that have sprung up even while the internet was fairly neutral. That leaves me hopeful that this type of project will quickly replace wired infrastructure if it quickly becomes needed.
I'm nowhere close to an expert in this field so I would love to be corrected if I'm wrong about any of that. I would also love someone more informed than myself to talk about the current state of wireless mesh and/or 4G/5G mobile.
Mesh networks right now are great for large urban populations - megacities, dense sprawl areas, etc. But for everything in between, at least here in US where the issue of Net Neutrality is the thing - not so much.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it's odd to see people banding together to defend Google, Amazon, Netflix, etc. Although the companies on the other side are obviously scum as well.
Why would they demand only the giants to pay? They have zero interest fostering competition against their own products.
are google's search results neutral?
Because ISPs are no longer required to be dumb pipes, they've started charging their customers a premium for access to video content. This is bad for Netflix, of course, because it cuts into their subscriber base.
They crunch some numbers and come up with an amount they're willing to pay the ISPs to exclude their subscribers from this segmented pricing scheme. The ISPs accept this mutually beneficial deal, and everyone's happy, right?
What about Notflix, though? We don't have the capital that Netflix has to pay into this protection racket, so our subscribers must choose between paying the ISP video premium + our subscription fee, or Netflix's subscription fee.
That's an uphill battle and straightforwardly anti-competitive, but is also the precisely the promise of a world without net neutrality.
I also disagree with your assessment that anybody is subsidizing internet giants. All those players pay for the bandwidth they consume to dump their data into the network. The end-user pays for the other end of the connection. Everything is being paid for, proportionally to the usage.
The last-mile ISPs simply want to double-dip. Comcast thinks Netflix should pay both Level 3 AND Comcast for using the pipes, which fundamentally undermines the architecture of the internet.
I know very little about the situation, hence the naive question, that statement was based off all the websites like reddit putting up fake pay walls to show what things would be like without net neutrality.
How so? Only very large companies are able to pay for getting high enough bandwidth and speed and, more importantly, also negotiate the corresponding deals with the few networks (who already have effective monopolies in many areas). Smaller startups can hardly compete against them when their services are too slow.
I can see no reasonable story according to which giving up neutrality would be beneficial to smaller companies. The best thing a small startup can do is to bundle up with one of a few large corporations, and the result are more quasi-monopolies and cartels, of course.
New offerings would not be able to afford to pay for the fast-lanes used by the established companies, and would thus not be able to compete with them. Supporting net-neutrality is not defending Google, Amazon, Netflix, it's defending the sites that might some day replace them.
2. If NN is thrown out, and pay to play becomes the name of the game, who do you think is going to be able to pay? Google, Amazon, Netflix, etc, or some unnamed startup?