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Comment by sharemywin | Hacker News Reader

you won't see it. they will force netflix to pay them more. And the charge will be passed on to all subscribers.

Why on Earth would Netflix have to pay for content served from inside their network. Netflix literally has red cache boxes inside all the ISP networks. If people stop streaming they won't go back to cable. The ISPs will all just move to metered internet.

That's fine. Then I can decide if I want to pay that price for Netflix or not. I also have Amazon Prime video, and Youtube, and etc. so I have several competing choices.

It would be more interesting if Netflix passed it on to subscribers specifically from the ISP that charges them. Then you can as a consumer make a better decision factoring in the increased price of goods with one ISP over another.

Don't kid yourself the cable companies will act like a cartel.

Because people would have to move to change ISPs, there isn't any incentive for them to compete with each other. Network infrastructure is a natural monopoly, afterall. The best you ever get is a duopoly between fiber and cable, if you're lucky.

The crux here is that consumers typically have choice between Comcast and Comcast or Spectrum and Spectrum.

That's why we need NN.

I actually think (and this should be done in addition to NN, not instead) is to encourage local city government to provide Internet access and even allowing smaller companies to lease the infrastructure to them. This would bring back competition again, and the money from leasing would cover cost of maintaining the network and maybe even bring income to the city.

As someone who lives in an apartment that has been monopolized by AT&T and forced to used 60$/month 60mbit internet, I totally agree.

I made a mistake by assuming an apartment complex built within the last 3 years would have fiber, boy was I wrong. I'll never make that mistake again.

Not if all of those services are lumped into a bundle that you pay a blanket price for each month, separate from the rest of your online services.

Yes but I'm saying I would not accept that as a customer.

People are not going to happily accept the old "bundling" cable TV model that they hate, having experienced the much more open internet model where you really only decide how much bandwidth you want to pay for.

There's a difference this time around: once online streaming became a viable option, people started more actively restricting or resigning their cable tv service. Until that point, there were few viable alternatives. There won't be anywhere to retreat this time. And it's not just your tv shows and movies, it's your online banking, a large part of your social life, your homework research tool, your livelihood in some cases, and so on.

I'm using a general "you" here. It's far more a pervasive presence in peoples' lives than cable tv was.

And I've commented as such already, it likely won't be restrictive and demanding all at once. It will be a progression likely starting with something like:

"Now that we are no longer bound by restrictive government regulations we can offer you new value-added-services that benefit you!

With [company]'s new Speed Boost(TM) packages, you can access your favourite web sites at a higher speed than your current base package allows starting at the low monthly fee of $5! (on a 2 year contract, $10/mo month over month)"

Once the customer base is accustomed, the language changes and becomes:

"Now with [company]'s new Choose What You Use(TM) bundles, we've retired our base packages and now it's up to you what you want to pay for of the internet! Another way we're saving you money!"

And so on. Marketing teams wouldn't let it look like: "Well, you're ours now, bitch." At least not that straight-forward.

Then what the hell are you going to do? The vast majority of Americans have one option for an ISP. So they're not going to have an alternative.

But your ISP owns you. They will charge YouTube and Amazon as well. You'll end up paying $120/Mo for your connection again.

And new competition will become less possible as ISPs barrier to entry becomes enournous.

I won't, because it's not worth that to me. I pay nearly $100/mo now and the value is already borderline at that price. I guess others might feel it's worth more or that they have no choice.

Right, but you're not seeing that everything else will most likely get higher charges. So you'll stop paying for Netflix and whatever else and they may or may not survive with others making that decision. Amazon will because it has all of these other revenue streams, but its AWS offerings will probably rise in price.

Free alternatives, like being able to stream Youtube, could be in danger of fees too. Google might have some sort of bargain with the government to keep it charge-free (like selling more data on its users). But any other video provider without Google's deep pockets will be in trouble, like Vimeo, Twitch, VHX, or some other company that hasn't even started up yet but might not be able to afford the double-dip.

So the policy change is a good idea because it won't affect you personally. In which case, why are you wasting our time since it doesn't affect you personally?

They will all go up in price until your cable companies monopoly price strategy is maximized.

Then you don't get Netflix, Prime, etc, because AT&T marked up the price, or you do get it, but you get less of something else because AT&T is extorting you.

Would you be "fine" if someone stood in front of your house and intercepted all your Amazon packages and added a $5 delivery fee to each?

Which all are going to have the same fees on them.

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