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Comment by anonu | Hacker News Reader

Im strongly in favor of net neutrality. But let's just play devil's advocate here a bit to temper the end-of-the-world view on all this: what if there is good that comes out of this "Internet Freedom Act"... One potential outcome is increased fragmentation, competition and choice via multiple smaller ISPs. Potentially a good thing?

Maybe we will see alternative protocols or network technologies that can bypass typical network controls - further strengthening the Internet's resiliency.

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How would getting rid of net neutrality lead to this?

Free Markets... a shift away from control by a few big players to a more distributed and even playing field - where we aren't at the mercy of oligopolies. Instead of net neutrality imposed by the government - we vote for it with our decision of ISP and with our dollars.

You didn't answer the question. How does getting rid of a policy made in 2015 in response to ISPs abusing their overwhelming control of the market lead to this future? ISPs have only consolidated their power further since then. Most people have no choice in ISP.

The 2015 policy was not made in response to anything but fear - the same sort of fear mongering heralded in countless articles across the web. Since those rules were implemented investment in infrastructure has fallen, not risen, due to increased uncertainty about the regulatory situation.

Repealing these rules won't help matters, and it won't result in the horror stories almost everyone here seems to think it will. The recent tendency of the Executive to legislate creates a regulatory climate that shifts on the whims of whichever administration happens to be in power. Why would Verizon or Sprint go through the hassle of building their Evil Empire when the Warren administration will just tear it down and imprison their execs when she wins the presidency in 3 years? They won't. Smart business will allocate their resources conservatively and pander to the party most likely to place restrictions on them.

Some of what you're saying is false. Investment has increased since 2015, not fallen. And these policy changes were made in response to real - not imagined - abuses, such as specific ISPs blocking VoIP, AT&T blocking Skype on iPhones, and Verizon blocking Google Wallet.

This article has some good context on this: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/22/opinion/courts-net-neutra...

I don't see how this will change the game when physical infrastructure is the control point. Anything that happens in the application space would be subject to the control of whitelists of IPs. Even 3rd party proxies would be powerless.

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