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Comment by legitster | Hacker News Reader

I think the idea that Comcast is going to change their pricing model around tiered access is patently ridiculous

- They are already extracting near maximum value from monopolistic pricing

- Services like this were tried before Net Neutrality, and they failed pretty dramatically

- Bad PR could lead to future litigation

- Most Importantly This process has only shown that it could be completely reversed again with the next administration. So they don't want to rebuild future revenue models knowing that the rules can be reversed again in 4 years at the drop of a hat.

The whole thing is really about Comcast's ability to shake down other companies to pay for their infrastructure improvements. It's really expensive to sell a $5 a month plan to a million users. It's really cheap to get $500 million dollars out of Netflix to pay for your line upgrades. And for the next 4 years, they have a blank check to shake down companies in the background.

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You underestimate Comcast’s ability to fail spectacularly.

When the economy was crashing in 2008 they were neck and neck with Countrywide in a consumerist poll for worst company in America. Countrywide won, but barely, and they basically broke the global economy.

Comcast will do every single thing they can to destroy the internet and turn it into Cable TV packages once the Trump administration deregulates the industry.

In a few years when we have a new administration we can put the band aids back on.

> They are already extracting near maximum value from monopolistic pricing

Not true. When you remove net neutrality, you open up new possibilities for price-discrimination for the monopolist and they can extract more revenue for providing the same service.

Simple illustrative example: Suppose for the sake of argument that almost all VPN users are willing to pay an extra $1 / month for VPN access. Then Comcast can make strictly more money by charging everyone exactly the same as before except VPN access costs an additional $1/month.

(Also, I know you didn't bring it up, but there are lots of important free speech NN issues as well as economic ones, for example, Comcast might easily decide to completely block sites like Wikileaks.)

If they truly have monopoly pricing, and almost all users were willing to pay an extra $1 for VPN, they are already charging you for it.

In fact, it would be worse for them, because if everyone is paying as much as they can bear for internet, and they have given some the option to opt out of an unneeded service, then they will lose money.

Assuming they have total monopoly power.

They are literally the only provider for a large number of Americans. Many Americans only have 1 provider. It's been proven numerous times that they raise rates if competition doesn't exist and lower them when it does. You'd literally have to be willfully ignorant of the facts to say that Comcast won't just add fees because they can. They've done it numerous times already.

That's my whole point. Comcast is already charging you for whatever they want. If they think everyone in their area will pay an extra $15 for Netflix, they will just raise everyone's price by $15. Bundling and tiering not required.

Ah, but what if only half the people want to pay an extra $15 for Netflix? If they raise everyone's price by $15, the other half will cancel service or go to a lower tier. So this won't work. However, without net neutrality, they can charge the Netflix-watchers $15 more and not charge the other people any more.

Sorry, my example was not clear enough.

Only a small fraction of people use VPN, so the monopoly price in a world with net neutrality basically ignores those people and charges the optimal price for everyone who does not use VPN.

However, in a world without net neutrality, the company is able to charge a different price to those who want VPNs and those who don't (this is price discrimination). So it keeps charging the old price to everyone else, but adds on a surcharge only to those users who want a VPN. In this simple example, it makes an extra dollar per month per VPN-user.

So the solution is removing the monopolist power, not implementing more government regulations of the internet.

1. I don't see that this follows. Would you suggest the same for water companies, electric companies, roads?

2. Unfortunately that isn't the choice we have before us. It doesn't make sense to make awful decisions on the premise that, in some fantasy ideal world, the decisions wouldn't be awful.

> It's really cheap to get $500 million dollars out of Netflix to pay for your line upgrades. And for the next 4 years, they have a blank check to shake down companies in the background.

This.

The consumers aren't the direct targets here, at least not for wired networks. The first targets would be the content providers. You want to push content to the millions of Comcast subscribers? Pay up. Naturally, the content providers won't get stuck with the bill and eventually roll it over to the customers. But that would be them billing you more, not the ISPs directly, which is easier for them.

There are known examples of this behavior -https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140718/06533327927/level....

In today's networks, a LOT of the traffic is streaming video, especially from YouTube and Netflix. Ten years ago it was BitTorrent, and back then "Fast Lanes" meant "Slow lanes for BitTorrent because it's congesting our network". The story here is that as the Internet matured and connectivity became a ubiquitous, off-the-shelf product, the money went into content. So content producers are fairy profitable, but the network operators feel like they've been left out - they're the ones carrying all of this expensive content, but they don't get a slice of the money.

That's not to say that companies like Comcast won't try to get more money out of consumers too, but that's trickier since the customers are used to a certain type of service and getting them to pay more for more of the same would be an uphill battle.

> They are already extracting near maximum value from monopolistic pricing

Source? If push came to shove, e.g. if I were threatened with a price rise or disconnection, I would pay up to 10x more, maybe even more, for my Internet.

You must be very unusual then, because as I pay for our family to have access, and between unlimited data mobile and low-tier fiber, it's about $300-$350/mo. There is no way I could ever pay $3500/mo. I would sooner simply go back to the 1990's, reading books at home and occasionally using Internet cafes for surf time.

I depend on the Internet for my income. I'd feel the pinch. But if I had to pay the equivalent of my rent a month, and had literally no other choice, I'd bite.

Where do you guys live? I WFH all the time and only pay $35 for internet and $35 for cell.

Somewhere that Comcast doesn't have competition. I'm guessing you're on Charter or Time Warner.

I'm on Comcast. But there is some competition. Plus, we can live very comfortably without cable and on 55mb/s.

I'm in an area with competition. Comcast doesn't offer a 55mb/s plan. They offer a 25mb/s plan starting at $75/mo which is their only plan that doesn't force you into buying television as well. That's right, the internet only plan forces you into buying television and all the fees that come with it.

Well, that's cellular (Verizon) + fiber (Fios), which includes "rental" fees and the like, for a family of three. So not just straight access.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_price

Under monopoly pricing, then they could already be charging you 10x right now if they thought it would make them more money. Repealing net neutrality not required. If this is about price discrimination, there are better ways to extract extra value from richer clients.

But I do want to point out that their monopoly power actually shrinks if you include WiMax based ISP services. Their coverage in the boonies is actually pretty good and pricing is competitive. Even if Comcast is the only real physical option, I often use the threat of switching to negotiate better deals.

Where on this planet can you get 300Mbit service* over wireless?

*Actual real 300Mbit/s that you can watch multiple 4k streams over all day like you can via HFC.

Unpopular Opinion (but similar): If the ISPs win and the rules get rescinded, I think we are looking at their ultimate poison pill. An egregious push like this ends up stoking an unprecedented backlash at about the time that we see a bit of a swing in midterm elections that create less conservative leaning legislation and we finally get rules written that promote localized community broadband and essentially the end of their monopoly. As stated, I think they are pretty much making money like a monopoly now and as they push further I think they are gonna get "Ma 'Bell'd."

Another unpopular thought:

https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/tenth_amendment

I think net-neut advocates who really think there's a dark star in the offing for the web should be pushing utility-style muni networks. They're wasting time and money trying to shove the FCC into their view of the marketplace here, and shedding longer-term credibility by refusing to countenance two realities:

1) Broadband is becoming a more competitive industry, not less

2) FANG have parochial business motivations too re: their pro-net neutrality, and they are no more angelic than Comcast's.

Defocusing on national rulemaking and incubating muninet successes in rising cities would do more for their desired outcome.

> https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/tenth_amendment

The internet is textbook interstate commerce, and therefore not subject to the 10th amendment. You're getting internet from an ISP who's likely headquartered in another state, who's delivering content from a provider in a third state, and routing that traffic through a half-dozen other states. It would be an absolute mess if every state could say what constitutes "network neutrality" and the ISPs had to deal with different laws at every routing hop.

You are right, but that isn't at all why I referenced 10A.

I referenced it because, in the U.S., the residuary (or "police") power resides in the states. Large ISPs have tried to fight municipal broadband in the courts, but [the point I am making here] is that states and municipalities have extremely broad discretion in terms of what projects they can undertake. And building a local ISP is something they certainly can do.

> 1) Broadband is becoming a more competitive industry, not less

Would love to see a citation for this, most people (my view is US-centric) have the choice of 1 or 2 local broadband wireline providers: the cable company and/or the local telco. This hasn't changed since... ever. Having a third provider is very, very uncommon.

> The whole thing is really about Comcast's ability to shake down other companies to pay for their infrastructure improvements. It's really expensive to sell a $5 a month plan to a million users. It's really cheap to get $500 million dollars out of Netflix to pay for your line upgrades. And for the next 4 years, they have a blank check to shake down companies in the background.

I agree, that’s what the have in mind, but I doubt their greed will stop there.

Not to mention: https://xkcd.com/1865/

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