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Comment by stcredzero | Hacker News Reader

Logician and Philosopher Raymond Smullyan had a story about this in one of his books. He had gone on a trip with a woman with a little girl. The adults wanted to eat at colorful local cafes, while the girl wanted to eat at McDonalds. He suggested that they vote, and the little girl replied, "That's no fair. I'd lose!"

Our republic isn't designed just to do what the people want. It's intentionally designed so that good people can sometimes do something unpopular in the public interest. For this to work, it's incumbent on the voting public to elect good people.

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Yep, there's a reason populism is commonly derided even in democratic societies. The founding fathers and "The Federalist Papers" [1] talked heavily about this problem (aka the influence of the "lowest common denominator" in popular voting).

Where these popular ideas do matter is in the marketplace. The entire tech industry, including some of the wealthiest companies in the world, will most certainly rebel against any attempt by ISPs to threaten net neutrality. And there will similarly be a revolt by customers.

Google Fiber was created merely to promote the deployment of fiber, Net Neutrality is a far bigger issue than fiber to both the tech industry and ISP consumers.

Even without FCC rules it will still be very dangerous for any ISP to make any significant changes to how the internet works.

The most likely scenario is that a few mobile internet providers may offer niche small packages of limited internet to mobile users for $5-10/month (which so far is the only real world example of "net neutrality" being violated in the world, by a Portuguese ISP)... basically a way to offer cheaper packages to some users who can't afford full broadband. This is basically the only thing I could see ISPs getting away with. I highly doubt any ISP would risk limiting the internet for any average home broadband users. Most American ISPs are public companies who still have worry about their bottom line.

The backlash even without FCC laws will be a significant deterrence.

[1] https://www.wikiwand.com/en/The_Federalist_Papers

> which so far is the only real world example of "net neutrality" being violated in the world, by a Portuguese ISP

How would you describe Comcast's throttling of bittorrent or Rogers throttling of all encrypted traffic in Canada?

Apologies, I should clarify, my Portuguese ISP example is the only real world example of the "TV-style limited internet packages" being deployed by a real-world ISP (which is the primary scenario nearly ever pro-net neutrality article warns about).

> Comcast's throttling of bittorrent

Were these FCC laws blocking Comcast from throttling Bittorrent traffic?

Canada was also the first country to throttle bittorrent traffic as well and the adoption of encryption in Bittorrent clients was largely able to bypass this issue AFAIK (I haven't experienced any slow downs in years in Canada since I toggled "force encrypted peers").

> Rogers throttling of all encrypted traffic in Canada

Source? I used Rogers for years and I've never heard of this problem.

Your example from Portugal is a mobile plan where you can buy additional data.

https://www.wired.com/2008/09/comcast-disclos-2/

""Comcast's practices are not minimally intrusive, as the company claims, but rather are invasive and have significant effects," the commission said, demanding an end to the practices by year's end."

This was under the Title I classification that was struck down by the verizon lawsuit, where the court said that the way to enforce these rules within the FCC's existing powers was via Title II.

As for Rogers, http://www.michaelgeist.ca/2007/04/rogers-packet-shaping/

Comcast and Verizon both throttled netflix for a while, before getting smacked. What do want to bet that's back in force, as soon as tomorrow perhaps? They've got all the code from last time ready to go.

https://ecfsapi.fcc.gov/file/7521304546.pdf

There's been no actual proof of throttling. Congestion is not proof of throttling.

> only real world example

[Citation needed]. Whatsapp has virtually no competition in Brazil because most carriers do not count it toward the data cap.

>there will similarly be a revolt by customers.

ISPs already do incredibly unpopular things, but it doesn't hurt their bottom line because their customers don't have other provider options. What are they going to do, go without internet?

Comcast is one of the most hated companies in the US, but you wouldn't know it by looking at their stock price. The free market is not a solution here.

> ISPs already do incredibly unpopular things

Have they pissed off the entire tech industry and attempted to fundamentally change how the internet works?

Having poor customer service, high fees, etc seems like a far cry from completely changing how internet billing works and whitelisting websites/throttling the entire internet.

What is the "entire tech industry" really going to do when the ISPs decide to fundamentally change how the Internet works? It seems like access to consumers, which the ISPs control, is pretty important for a large segment of the tech industry.

...I guess we'll have to see, won't we?

But first the ISPs have to actually do the things that we were warned they would do if the FCC scraped these laws. No ISP has yet announced or even proposed any specific future changes.

I'm not even sure what being "wrong" here will look like in practical terms:

- Are average home broadband internet plans going to have their internet filtered unless they pay more for 'unlimited'? With TV-style "grouped" packages?

- What websites (tech companies) will be included in these hypothetical filtered packages?

- Will they (Netflix/Disney/Facebook/Google/etc) let the ISPs include their brand(s) in marketing these new non-neutral plans? Will they let the ISP include their website in any throttled package in technical terms?

- Will ISPs be launching the new plans perfectly in sync with other ISP companies, for the 80% of Americans who have more than one ISP option, so they won't hemorrhage customers to competitors when they completely revamp their billing? Will they grandfather existing users?

...there are far too many questions to properly give you a answer about how the industry will respond.

When/if that actually becomes a reality then it will be easier to guess how the trillion dollar industry will react and if the ISP customers will sit idly by with no recourse... at the moment I'm confident there will be plenty to do to make business/life for Comcast/ATT shareholders uncomfortable if they ever were dumb enough to mess with how the internet works for the average American.

Three days and no answer to my questions? This is the third time I've posed these questions on HN/Reddit and not a single 'activist' has given me an answer.

That's exactly why I'm not buying this idea that these FCC policies were what's stopping ISPs from disrupting 'net neutrality'.

If you actually dig into the details it doesn't make much sense and is extremely risky. Yet I seem to be one of the very few who is actually challenging this stuff on rational grounds rather than "herr derr I support republican policies and want to be a contrarian".

The reality is that not every situation calls for government intervention. Especially extremely hypothetical situations which have never even been tried in the market place.

This is equivalent to regulatory "pre-crime" enforcement...

In the past, people getting really mad at ISPs has not changed anything. I don't see any reason to believe that people getting really really REALLY mad is going to change anything either. There's no mechanism for it to.

Customers "being mad" at ISPs is hardly what I'm saying is stopping them. It's merely a minor part of the problem. See my other comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15926116

The customers revolting is not a matter of influencing Comcast/ATT/etc, it's a matter of influencing Google/Apple/HBO+Disney/Netflix etc etc etc.

People love to trivialise this counter-point as merely "oh ISPs dont have competition therefore the market can't fight this problem", which is incredibly reductive and misses the forest for the trees.

> The free market is not a solution here.

That's not the problem. The problem is that this is not a free market. The ISPs have effective control of the federal government and many state governments, and use that control to block competition from e.g. municipal ISPs. If the free market were actually allowed to operate, it would very likely solve the problem.

I didn't say the free market is a problem. I'm not a communist; I like the free market and I agree with your comment.

However, like you said, it's not a free market and it won't be for the foreseeable future. Fantasizing about that changing isn't a solution either. At the moment, government regulations are the best tools we have to protect consumers.

Why don't you consider T-Mobile's "Binge On" plan to be a violation of net neutrality? I recall it being something like: Netflix data is free, other data is $10/GB.

It seems exactly the same as that widely-quoted Portuguese example, which also let you pay a data rate for sites that weren't in their special packages. This happened in the US because net neutrality was weak and never really applied to mobile carriers.

mobile carriers were specifically excluded from net-neutrality rules.

I know.

I'm pointing out that the Portuguese non-neutral mobile carrier is no different than our US non-neutral mobile carriers.

It would be but wireless providers weren't covered under net neutrality, it only covered wired connections.

> The entire tech industry, including some of the wealthiest companies in the world, will most certainly rebel against any attempt by ISPs to threaten net neutrality

Have you noticed not many tech companies have complained? Did telecom win by attrition, or did they negotiate after the last failure?

I think you are ignoring the main financial motive for this change - ISPs want to shake down Google, Facebook, and other successful internet companies. Customers won't see this directly. It will have indirect effects by increasing costs for the companies they use, but not in an obvious way that will cause a revolt. In financial terms, this dispute is mainly about these giant companies battling over who gets the fat profits Google and Facebook are currently taking home.

This is pretty disingenuous because one elected official is oftentimes overloaded with multiple responsibilities. In this case the FCC chairman was appointed by the president (Barack Obama). Are you implying that the REAL way to deal with the Net Neutrality issue is that we need to become single-issue voters with respect to net neutrality next presidential election cycle? That seems a bit silly, and yet seems like the only reasonable way to affect change in this situation by "playing by the rules". It would be a lot less anxiety producing if people had a more direct way of affecting FCC rules without having to possibly sacrifice some other completely unrelated issue they care about (such as Supreme Court appointment, or health care direction, etc. etc.).

It would be a lot easier to get behind the idea that we should elect "good people" if we weren't concentrating so many responsibilities to the one magic "good person" we get to choose.

Are you implying that the REAL way to deal with the Net Neutrality issue that we need to become single-issue voters with respect to net neutrality next presidential election cycle?

No. I'm not trolling either. Raymond Smullyan's stories are meant to be like Zen Koan. My factual and historical observations are much the same. It's more like a Rorschach blot.

It would be a lot easier to get behind the idea that we should elect "good people" if we weren't concentrating so many responsibilities to the one magic "good person" we get to choose.

Our world is considerably more complex than it was in 1800.

To clarify Pai was appointed to a Republican seat on the FCC by Barack Obama, but was designated Chairman by Donald Trump.

To further clarify, the FCC rules state that Only three commissioners can be of the same political party at any given time. Pai was Obama's nomination but he was not Obama's choice. He was McConnell's choice.

https://www.fcc.gov/about-fcc/what-we-do

Ajit Pai is an appointee, not an elected official.

Appointed by a candidate who lost by 3 million votes

Do you mean Trump? President Obama appointed Pai.

EDIT: I am not factually incorrect, so could you please explain why you are downvoting?

> Appointed by a candidate who lost by 3 million votes

Obama won by ~5 million and ~10 million votes in 2012 and 2008, respectively.

The appointment was chosen by a Republican congress.

Designated as Chairman by Donald Trump - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajit_Pai

Obama Designated Tom Wheeler chairman, and he put in place the regulations that Pai dismantled today - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Wheeler

That's not true. He was appointed in 2012 by Obama and confirmed unanimously by the Senate. Trump merely renominated him to keep the position for another 5 year term.

No, Trump selected him to be the chair, he didn't merely renominate him.

But, in any case, Obama nominated him but did not choose him so much as he choose not to violate long-standing precedent as to how the seats that cannot (because the 3 members of one party limit has been reached) be from the President’s party are selected.

Now, he could have violated that precedent, but that wouldn't have likely gotten someone else into the seat, just given up any chance of Senate confirmation.

Obama still made the decision to nominate him. Plain and simple. And Trump did renominate him for another 5 years. Yes, he elevated him to chairman, but he still gets the same 1 vote, so it doesn't matter. Not quite sure what point you were trying to make.

But it's predictable that one party would have appointed someone like him and not the other.

Except Obama originally appointed him to the commission, Trump just promoted him.

People keep saying this like he's the person who chose Pai. The way these commissions work is:

- it's staffed by members of each party

- each party's leaders (typically in the Senate) choose the people who will be appointed

- the President typically rubber-stamps those appointments

- the President at the time really only gets to choose which member of the commission is the Chairman

So if you want to blame someone for Pai, you should be blaming Senator McConnell for telling President Obama "here's the Republican we want you to put on the commission".

The general point being: it goes back to elected officials.

Not disagreeing with you - I'm taking issue with the parent poster who wanted to blame this on trump. There's plenty of blame to go around in our government, but it doesn't all fall on Trump (as the post I replied to implied)

True, but the parent poster didn't blame it on Trump, he blamed it on the Republican party:

> But it's predictable that one party would have appointed someone like him and not the other.

It is fair to blame this vote on Republicans, given that the vote fell along "party lines".

The FCC was not against net neutrality under the Obama administration

Ajit Pai was appointed to the FCC by Obama, your elected official, and was designated FCC Chairman by Trump, your other elected official. So it looks like you voted wrong twice in a row!

who was appointed by an elected official (Pres. Barrack Obama)

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

I'm simply pointing out that we empower and trust the "good people" we elect to choose "good people" they appoint.

While technically correct, your comment is misleading because the seat legally belonged to the Republicans and he was chosen by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Obama could have rejected the nomination but anyone that the Republicans have a say in will be anti-net neutrality.

Appointed by President Obama allegedly as a sort of "Olive Branch" to the Republicans.

I really wish the Democrats had just started firing broadsides at Republicans in the last decade, given that the Republicans clearly can stomach the lowest of the low political gamesmanship.

> Appointed by President Obama allegedly as a sort of "Olive Branch" to the Republicans.

It was an “olive branch” to Republicans in much the same sense as the British sovereign offering the leader of the party that has secured a majority the opportunity to form a government is an “olive branch” to that party; it is, through combination of law (limiting the number of members of one party, and mandating Senate confirmation before a nomination becomes an actual appointment) and established custom (as to how nominees that are not of the President’s party are chosen), a requirement that, if violated, would produce a major crisis.

It's not an olive branch. The President is required to appoint no more than 3 members of one (his own) party, and 5 total. The chair is then designated by the President.

Yes, but I took the OP to mean that you could press your congressional rep to sponsor or support a Net Neutrality bill that would override agency regulations.

All these allegories are well and good. Explain how repealing net neutrality is in the public good, as that's what your post suggests

Start with https://www.recode.net/2017/12/14/16777356/full-transcript-a..., and maybe read through the several hundred pages of arguments and citations at http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2017...

Sure, it's easy to drown people with a link and a 210 pages document, but can you briefly explain it with your own words and voice your opinion for us?

Personally I defer to economists http://www.igmchicago.org/surveys/net-neutrality-ii

Wait just a gosh-darn minute there...

"Considering both distributional effects and changes in efficiency, it is a good idea to let companies that send video or other content to consumers pay more to Internet service providers for the right to send that traffic using faster or higher quality service."

I believe Netflix and YouTube and what-not already pay their service providers for the bandwidth they use.

Actually they peer directly with last mile ISPs, in some cases for free

Neither Netflix nor YouTube would exist if they had to pay for bandwidth at the rate consumers do. If Netflix was sending everything over the regular internet, it would literally break - the only reason Netflix can stream as much as it does is because of caching close to consumers.

Well, I’m a sucker. I just read your very lengthy first link and learned absolutely nothing. The entire statement is questionable anecdotes, unreasoned conclusions and baseless declarations of what is good.

What about this text did you find valuable? Please share.

>So it’s no surprise that the Wireless Internet Service Providers Association, which represents small fixed wireless companies that typically operate in rural America, surveyed its members and found that over 80% “incurred additional expense in complying with the Title II rules, had delayed or reduced network expansion, had delayed or reduced services and had allocated budget to comply with the rules.” Other small companies, too, have told the FCC that these regulations have forced them to cancel, delay, or curtail fiber network upgrades. And nearly two dozen small providers submitted a letter saying the FCC’s heavy-handed rules “affect our ability to find financing.” Remember, these are the kinds of companies that are critical to providing a more competitive marketplace.

It's intentionally designed so that good people can sometimes do something unpopular in the public interest.

Except in this case, it is not in public interest

And you believe that Ajit Pai is "one of the good people" doing the "good thing" against public interest?

Funny because I believe Ajit Pai is a corporate shill doing what his Friends at Verizon wanted and I am sure he is hoping the land a nice 6 figure job in the private sector in a couple years....

This move today for the FCC has absolutely nothing to with public interest

"In the public interest"

Key phrase. There is zero evidence that repealing Net Neutrality is anywhere close to the public interest.

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