Hacker News Reader

Comment by abtinf | Hacker News Reader

A few years ago, I considered starting regular donations to the EFF. Unfortunately, I did not realize they had taken pro position on state intervention and control of the Internet, a concept generally described with the orwellian phrase "net neutrality." This position directly contradicts much of the their advocacy that I wanted to support.

View on HN

I am glad you commented, so that others could rebut your misguided position.

It's not usually kosher to comment on voting here, but I think in this case it's worth making an exception to help keep you readable: I un-did my downvote of you because I hope that others who, out of innocent ignorance perhaps, currently share your position, will be able to read your comment (I don't want you to go to full invisibility) and then read and consider the responses to it.

I would advise anyone who agrees with this guy (abtinf) to really think it through a bit. The "regulation is bad therefore ALL regulation is bad" trap is easy to fall into. Even if you are a strict libertarian, net neutrality is a case where regulation is stopping really bad things from happening, and, though it sounds paradoxical, enabling MORE freedom, not less.

While there is potentially an argument to me made that a hostile government could use this expanded power to "regulate" for some nefarious purpose, you have to actually go that far for it to be an argument.

For example {hypothetical} "Net Neutrality gives alphabet-soup-agency a form of super-DMCA that I don't trust them to have"

It is unfortunate that your experiment of encouraging rebuttal didn't work out. When it comes to this issue, emotion and politics trump reason.

If you really think that's how it is, I encourage you to learn more about what net neutrality is before commenting further on it.

When it comes to this issue, emotion and politics trump reason.

Right. You're describing your own view there.

> net neutrality is a case where regulation is stopping really bad things from happening

I'm fairly anti-regulation and I from what I understand, net neutrality is a (federal) regulatory solution to a problem created by explicitly by (state + local) regulation.

I honestly don't understand why people think that net neutrality is a better solution than a (currently non-existant) federal policy to remove state and local regulations that created ISP oligopolies which limited internet freedom in the first place.

Unless you can guarantee everybody will have access to multiple ISP:s (effectively impossible unless the backbone owners for your area offers open access to their network), net neutrality is pretty much necessary to guarantee that people can communicate freely.

You don't have regulation forcing companies to share infrastructure with competitors in the US? Like the electrical grid or water pipes?

Building things from scratch to compete with an established competitor at that scale is nearly impossible, you'd never see any new players entering the market if they had to build a new grid.

Why is net neutrality different?

>I honestly don't understand why people think that net neutrality is a better solution than a (currently non-existant) federal policy to remove state and local regulations that created ISP oligopolies which limited internet freedom in the first place.

You'd have to break up the oligopolies first, right?

It does not sound like you understand what net neutrality is. Have you read their statement on it [1]?

[1] https://www.eff.org/issues/net-neutrality

It's only state intervention in that it limits the potential tyranny of corporate behemoths to abuse the citizenry and subvert free markets.

And why must the government insert itself into free speech issues by passing radical regulations like the first amendment? For shame!

Please reread what the FCC's "net neutrality" is, and specifically ask yourself how exactly those powers are a negative in any way. If the information you have in mind is nothing more than vague platitudes like "state intervention and control of the internet" you shouldn't be making decisions based on it.

So you're taking the "pro-corporate control" position instead. Brilliant.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com