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Comment by monochromatic | Hacker News Reader

Lack of net neutrality regulations for 25 years didn’t cause any problems. Why is this now the end of the world?

Sigh, net neutrality became a topic of conversation when it became apparent that ISP's were interfering with content they didn't like.

https://www.eff.org/wp/packet-forgery-isps-report-comcast-af...

https://www.extremetech.com/computing/186576-verizon-caught-...

These network operators are easily swayed by organizations willing to wave money at them. With the repeal everyone expects this kind of behavior to return, and extend as ISP's come up with more creative ways to leverage their networks for financial gain. I don't think anyone would mind, if the results were better networks, but the telecom industry in the US has repeatedly demonstrated that their absolute last priority when it comes to spending their profits is network upgrades. Literally everything else comes first.

See this[1] thread for some examples of where lack of neutrality can be anti-competitive and anti-consumer.

[1] https://np.reddit.com/r/KeepOurNetFree/comments/7ej1nd/fcc_u...

Lots of people are really emotionally attached to this issue, and kind of ignore this simple fact. "Net neutrality" has never been a thing and it has never prevented any of the nefarious nonsense people are imagining.

Do you think the internet is the same as it ever was? I think the internet, it's uses, and the ISPs, have all changed and that it's worth revisiting regulations applied. There are valid arguments, but the fact that we were fine without regulations previously does not mean we will continue to be as companies grow to the point where they can't be competed with anymore.

Much like the uproar over that ISP privacy law that was never in effect, I feel like this battle was lost 10 years ago and nobody cared until Trump did something.

It just makes all of this self-righteous outrage worth keeping in mind in a few years when the issue comes back up again. If the world is still spinning, perhaps we can all re-evaluate whether future doomsday predictions are worth taking seriously.

The world always keeps spinning. Just in one future you have Star Trek, and in the other, Blade Runner. Once dystopia becomes fait accompli, the beneficiaries of the status quo also benefit from the difficulty of arguing for counterfactual histories without access to a world with those histories.

But that doesn't mean nothing was lost, or that some huge chunk of human potential wasn't sacrificed. In that regard, for the people who see how things could have been, the predictions of doom were accurate.

Well no--proponents are making very falsifiable claims about what will happen without Net Neutrality. Freedom of speech on the net is at stake! Tiered Internet access! Slower speeds for small business web sites. Those will be easily verifiable.

For the rest, you're right. It's just like how we can't calculate the "huge chunk of human potential" we missed out on as a result of decreased competition and investment since the regulation was created in 2015. All we can do is guess. Who knows--maybe we would have had the Enterprise!

Do you have any other colorful ways of "crying wolf?"

Friendly reminder: it was just a couple of weeks ago when 3-4 lawyers could go to congress and talk with serious faces about what they should do to control speech posted on the internet without being laughed out of the room due to the absurdity of the proposition.

We're already one foot in the dystopia, I'm afraid. Decentralization of these services can't come fast enough.

> Lack of net neutrality regulations for 25 years didn’t cause any problems

We've had net neutrality as FCC policy with different enforcement mechanisms (changing based on court actions closing off the earlier approaches) continuosly since 2004. What 25 year period are you talking about?

25 years ago people/corporations had morals, now not so much.

Citation needed?

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