I mean, God knows I’m not going to use a Google product, so I’m sticking with Firefox anyway, but Mozilla certainly doesn’t do themselves any favors.
When corporations cannot manage themselves, the government must interact by rule of law. An example of that is the sale of frequencies such as 4G. Or the prohibition of usage of certain frequencies because the government uses them for military purposes. You may agree or disagree with some of these, but they serve a purpose which in the end can be deducted to being useful for the people (ie. the military, in the end, serves the purpose to protect the people).
If the government protects the interest of the [all] the people, equally, which they do in the case of net neutrality then the government uses its vast power to keep the corporations on a leash so that [all] the people can benefit. That is not anarchism, true, because the government uses its authority against very powerful monopolies/duopolies or other power vacuums with commercial interests. It is akin to the old GPL vs BSDL debate. And if you had that debate on Usenet or Slashdot there was no consensus precisely because there's the camp who believes in an authority and the anarchistic one.
Hint: maybe stop being condescending.
Also, I'm from EU and I'm split on GDPR. On one side I acknowledge its benefits and where it's coming from (the industry is known for highly morally dubious practices), on the other hand I don't agree on principle with the implication that users don't/can't have free will to enter into (however unfair) contracts these companies wish to use.
In a capitalist society such apathy leads to a survival of the fittest.
I can give many examples of contracts which would be unfair. For example, a minor cannot consent to a contract because they're a minor. That is fair to protect minors (at age of ~20 a person is physically an adult and around ~25 the brain is fully grown). I can apply your logic "on principle" there as well. Principles like these lack nuance which realistic situations demand because they are not black and white.
These companies have lawyers who spend 40+ hours a week crafting contracts from which it's impossible to determine what are your rights for the average person. Good for you for not having a bad experience yet, but once you do you'll want a recourse that's more than just 'tough luck'.
I know where this thinking comes from - is this absolutist "I should be free to do whatever" mentality, which ignores the fact that you rely on the fact of people not being able to do that daily.
Are you of the opinion, for example, that simply leaving your house gives anyone who dares a free pass to enter it? I mean, you're technically free to take it back from them once you get back and if they're stronger, better equipped so you don't manage to? Well, tough luck, I guess.
it is a response to an industry which failed to regulate itself
All my friends and family live in my state so I guess I don't have a choice and have to live my whole life in my motherland
Also, your definition of "voluntary" as "the victim could conceivably have done something to prevent it but didn't" is very unusual and completely useless. By that definition, if someone poisons your food with a poison that is detectable with a test known in the literature, and you then eat it without testing it first, you have voluntarily let yourself be poisoned. If you get shot because you didn't wear bullet-proof clothing, then you voluntarily let yourself be shot. That's neither what "voluntary" normally means, nor would it in any way be a useful definition, as essentially everything that happens to you would have to be considered voluntary.
"The classic example is the telephone, where a greater number of users increases the value to each. A positive externality is created when a telephone is purchased without its owner intending to create value for other users, but does so regardless. Online social networks work similarly, with sites like Twitter and Facebook increasing in value to each member as more users join." [1]
I know people who are not on facebook. They made the decision. They have free will.
I never gave Facebook permission, directly or implied, to track my circle of past friends or make assumptions about my personal interests.
The standard experience will need to adhere to privacy laws. GLHF with GDPR in 2 weeks :)
Being transparent, opaque, and using opt-in.
> Pretty much everything websites do with your data are from voluntary exchange.
Not at all. If it were voluntary, I'd visit a website and it'd say: "by using this website, you consent that we sell your profiled data to company A for purpose X."
1) They don't word it like that, they word it extremely vague.
2) Its obfuscated and opt-out (adblocker is opt-out).
3) If we knew beforehand what exactly was done with our data we could knowingly consent. We don't know exactly what is being done with our data. To whom is it sold? For what purpose?
4) On the websites where I bought a subscription/premium the ads are turned off but the tracking is NOT.
Are you joking or are you in denial that much? We have no control most of the time, especially "normal" users. Ad blockers or JavaScript blockers may help, but they are not normal.
Privacy issues are not (yet) a billion dollar business
Well, no, because if they oppose everything government does, they'd oppose corporations, too, since they are a thing government does.
I don't think it's pedantic to point out that many (but not all) people who voice “anti-government” attitudes are fine with particular government interventions.
> it's that they oppose every piece of government regulation, regardless of merits
That doesn't really change the issue; corporations (and even more the only motivation to form them) are products of government regulation.
> so basically everything the government does that isn't unchecked capitalism.
This, on the other hand, is spot on; it's just the idea they it somehow corresponds to the absence of government activity (or even particularly regulatory activity) that is wrong: the service of capitalism is an active, regulatory pursuit of government.
Independent hackers need net neutrality; otherwise access to their innovations and startups will be limited, and their access to the Internet from which they get ideas, inspiration, and collaboration, will also be limited. I wonder how that spirit would survive if people only had access to major commercial websites. EDIT: Imagine the FOSS project with no budget to buy access, and any project that challenges the status quo (political, corporate, etc.) and is given no or minimal access. Where would hacker culture and the world be without those projects?
I agree that it's a loss that we have to turn to government, but it's better than no net neutrality at all. Net neutrality used to be accomplished by cooperation, good faith, and maybe even enlightened self-interest (something U.S. corporations often lack). But the stakes on the Internet are now in the trillions of dollars and (long ago) it has attracted the greedy and power-hungry, who are not going to cooperate and act in good faith. That's why democratic government exists, to give that power to ordinary citizens, distributed fairly via the vote. At least that's the theory in some places:
all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed
> begging for the government to control and regulate
That would be, desiring all citizens to control and regulate via their representatives, rather than having a few powerful citizens make the decisions on their own.
They'd still need to pay the corporate ISPs to carry or to not completely deprioritize traffic from hackerISP, or else nobody else could reach the hackers' great websites, services, ideas, etc. If hackerISP carried things the corporates didn't like, they could still throttle or kill access to it or to individual domains, protocols, etc.
And how will hackerISP pay for nationwide infrastructure? That's going to need a pretty wealthy independent hacker. Maybe if Linus, Woz, Paul Allen (is he a hacker?), and a few others committed their fortunes to it, they could buy and deploy the fiber and the hardware ... but then there are operations, maintenance, upgrades ...
Depending on where you live, ISPs do not need to own their own infrastructure. For a bit more information into how this can work, I'd recommend taking a look at local loop unbundling:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local-loop_unbundling
Also, GP is alluding to things that have already happened in the past, in the wild west days of the Internet it was more common for small ISPs to get started (even with competition from the big ISPs like AOL and CompuServe).
So, you are in favor of regulation forcing last-mile operators to allow competitors to use their infrastructure at a competetive price set by the regulator without any discrimination based on the data transmitted, right?
> Also, GP is alluding to things that have already happened in the past, in the wild west days of the Internet it was more common for small ISPs to get started (even with competition from the big ISPs like AOL and CompuServe).
Which didn't compete on the last mile, as the access medium was a telephone line. Consumer ISPs in those days didn't have to have a last mile, they simply used the monopoly's last mile of telephone wire.
Perhaps you're unaware, but there's a long history of government grants to fund telecommunications infrastructure, the growth is not solely due to private companies. Here's a recent example from my country (the UK), I'm fairly confident I could find equivalent stories from where you live:
https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2017/07/uk-gov-start-4...
So no, I have no problem with local loop unbundling when it's partly tax payer money funding the network improvements.
Some of what government does is formalize things people come up with on their own and provide various institutions for reinforcing and administering those things. Property itself, for example.
The relevant policy proposals where net neutrality is concerned mostly formalize the operating considerations that the "independent hacker culture of the 90s" came up with. When some private stewards of net infrastructure defect from those considerations to plans that have significant drawbacks and no plausible benefits beyond profit margins, it seems reasonable to trust institutions that are accountable to the public in a different way.
"Government control" also doesn't seem like a particularly apt characterization of net neutrality policy, but who knows, maybe you also characterize the FDA as government control of what you eat and assault laws as government control of your actions.
Do you have any credible affirmative proposal/suggestion
Free markets only work when there's competition.
There were no incumbents.
The current free market situation has created monopolies in many areas. How would you propose that "freer markets" would solve this?
What we are seeing now is that people literally have to build their own non-profit mesh networks (as in NYC), just to get around the monopolies. If there was actual competition, that would have been necessary.
The current free market situation has created monopolies in many areas
This isn't exactly new information, if you haven't noticed the problem by now, you must have been living under a rock.
There are hundreds of credible reports and articles about this problem.
Last-mile networks are natural monopolies, building even only two networks necessarily causes half of the capacity to be unused, which is extremely inefficient, which is why it doesn't happen (among other reasons).
ISPs that own the last mile connections obviously don't want to share infrastructure with their competitors, because that would break their de facto monopolies. The only sensible solution is to regulate them into selling access to competitors.
It has worked extremely well here, fostering genuine competition, based on pricing and features, not just simple access.
Not everything needs to be a business
Some things can be a public good.
Complex laws around data recording and reporting might count as RC because of the resources involved (S-O for example). But net neutrality? Not seeing it.
And the same thinking has led to GDPR and FOSTA, and to ignore that is to ignore a pretty sad change in people's opinion: the government is now more trustworthy than tech companies in protecting people's use of the internet.
And maybe sadder is that this new thinking is probably warranted, but let's not make excuses. Warranted or not, NN needs to be called out for what it is.
Local governments make deals with ISPs to get coverage to a certain % of the population in exchange for exclusivity. Adding NN to the deal is just negotiating terms in an existing agreement. If we had a free-r market or some competition that might be a better way to get what we want, but we don't.
So why aren’t we fighting for that? My problem with NN is not the idea, but the pro-government politics of those so loudly supporting it. I trust free markets far more than I trust governments. If Nancy Pelosi or Maxine Waters were in charge of American internet — I find that pretty horrifying.
Because it is an inherently unstable equilibrium. Having two communication networks (of the same level of service, so this does not apply to adding a next-generation network with far higher bandwidth than the exiting network) is as economically sensible as having two power grids or two competing sewer pipes: It necessarily almost doubles the costs (because what dominates the costs is laying the cables, not buying the uplink). A link that is unused because the house is using the competitor's network still has nearly the same costs for the network owner as if the house were using their network. Which means the best strategy for the established network is to undercut the new competitor in order to kill it. The marginal costs of connecting a customer are minimal, while losing too many customers to the competition would allow them to do the same thing to you. That's why people generally wouldn't invest in such a network in the first place.
Competition works at the backbone level, as there is enough traffic overall to fill the pipes of multiple competitors. But last-mile networks consist of links that are either used and paid for, or unused with no option to sell the capacity to somebody else, so there is a natural tendency towards a monopoly (which is also in a way in the interest of the customer: Building two networks necessarily doubles the cost, which ultimately the customers have to pay for).
Also, they are in charge of the American internet anyway. One law regulating some aspect of the internet does not in any way change how much power people have over some other aspect. If people can make a law banning hacker news, they can do so without NN regulation existing beforehand.
Yes, it absolutely is! Just like other basic utilities, such as water, power and sewers. I wouldn't trust private companies with those services, either.
So maybe some rules,laws are needed, just that the ones you do not agree are bad and the ones you agree with are essential.
Didn't you hear in school a story where some guys went to live in a forest and they agreed to have no rules, then some started to do some bad things and they started added a few rules, then more rules because there were needed to prevent bad things, in the end they got similar rules as in the place where they started.
If I pirate your software, or use your patents,trademarks, copyrights then the companies,startups will appeal to government to put me in place instead of appealing to free market.
I doubt there were IP rights back in the days for hammer, wheels, farming tools etc..
The free market has it's benefits but you always need some regulation so it stays free and balanced, otherwise you can get in a not that free market situation (and you can't always blame the government because of missing competition)
So have a free market, but keep the eye out, if an monopoly appears break it, if FB tries to buy a small competitor, don't allow it, if company X is playing by the laws but it does damage to the society you change the law so the damage stops.
In case you are still confused, here's the definition of 'regulation':
> to control or direct by a rule, principle, method
Or maybe there's more to the word, particularly in context, than the shortest dictionary definition you were able to find.
It was said a few gajillion times, but let me repeat it once again. Here is the real problem: it's singular.
My ISP works reasonably well for me, because I have at least 5 other non-wireless options whom I can pay if I'm not satisfied.
It is this simple, and I've heard that it works not only where I've lived but in other cities and countries as well.
And if all my options collude, then there is government to call.
The ISPs can filter what you request and host, simple as that. And if you want to start a business, better hope it doesn't compete with any of the ISP parent company's holdings, because they have every right to scuttle access to it. Want to make the best new Netflix? Stay away from any ISP even tangentially associated with Hulu - which might be every ISP in your area. Even if you pick a small, independent ISP, the peering issue remains.
Within the SLA.
It all depends on whenever you can be rejected as a customer or not, and whenever the offering must be public or each peer negotiates for their own terms, though.
I’m just waiting for all of the dystopian horror we’ve been promised, but still not seeing it. When are the ISPs going to start charging small websites to allow their traffic? When has legitimate traffic been throttled because of the content? Citations and examples needed — and post-NN examples are all that count.
Any proof at all that someone making the next Netflix is getting harmed? Because NN is already gone. So where is all of this horrible stuff happening. We were promised an internet catastrophe and it hasn’t happened yet. And before NN— what happened then? That was when the actual Netflix was getting started and somehow Netflix was able to be born without NN.
But prices seem to be going down.
Stop spreading FUD. It isn’t happening. Things are getting better in fact. Markets are more powerful than governments.
I was paying for 100 Mbps from my ISP back when this was going on, but YouTube and Netflix were unusable in prime time. Those were the two high bandwidth services I was paying my ISP for, but my ISP held my video streaming for ransom and got away with it because I had no other choice for high speed Internet.
Independent hacker culture is the exact thing at risk here without government intervention. Else, you'll end up with the fragmented Verizon hacker culture and the Comcast hacker culture and the... Goddess forbid Google / Facebook / Amazon hacker culture, each with its own non-independent thought.
As an aside, Why are regulations that prevent bad actors from damaging society, thought of as unnecessary control in the US (see the other big ___ control issue)?
Certain European governments in the past century made regulations to “protect” society — and that resulted in millions of people killed or displaced. China’s Firewall is design to protect society against “bad actors,” and it instead suppresses the free speech of an entire nation.
“Bad Actors” to you are innovators, hackers and freedoms fighters to someone else.
Trust in government is the stupidest thing a society can ever do. We need governments for sure, but it should be a government with extensive limits to their power and it should be viewed with an attitude of suspicion. But, it seems like people instead are relying upon government to be replacements for parents instead.
That is absolute nonsense, especially for last-mile services, such as electricity, water, sewage, cable and internet.
Nobody is going to dig redundant infrastructure, because the entrenched monopoly will simply freeze out any new competitors. It even happened to Google Fiber, despite their gigantic moneybags and public support.
There is no choice when an entrenched monopoly can eliminate all competitors, thanks to the monopoly position.
Free markets are not the solution to every problem, or even to most problems.
Wrong.
> Trust in government is the stupidest thing a society can ever do. We need governments for sure, but it should be a government with extensive limits to their power and it should be viewed with an attitude of suspicion
Right. And this is where the devil lies in the details. It is not impossible to define clearly the extent and limits of government regulations. It isn't rocket science. Hell, some countries already have these.
But if you're mind is already made up and you firmly believe America is the greatest damm country in the universe and every principle it holds dear (or claims to hold dear, via gratuitous mental gymnastics to rationalise the opposite), there's no point in convincing you otherwise.
Agreed, but free markets rarely exist. There are almost always market forces that prevent them from being free. The broadband internet market is Exhibit A. Most consumers have only one choice of broadband, and very few have more than two choices. In many markets, there is effectively no competition, which allows the utility to act as a monopoly and due whatever it wants.
I would be okay with dropping net neutrality if every American had 5 choices for internet service. But that's not what happening here. In the US we have a handful of companies that act as monopolies (the exact opposite of a free market), and exert the market control power for richer profits.
Any free market proponent would agree that this is not just unfair, but economically inefficient.
If you have a better solution, I want to hear it.
EDIT: Also, this whole U.S. right-leaning libertarian, (assumed based on your comment), thing of not wanting to involve the government in anything ever is so strange to me - you rely on them every day to enforce your property rights, ensure you have clean water in your tap etc. I understand that in many ways it can be very dysfunctional, but you have to evaluate on a case by case basis. Involvement in foreign military interventions, most would agree is pretty bad, firefighters are very good, so are roads etc.
Ultimately, if we accept that the government has a monopoly on the use of force, then we must also see that if something positive is to be destroyed by the 'free' market, then we must redirect that government monopoly to enforce that that doesn't happen.
In an age where many don't have a second choice for an ISP
I am in France and have exactly 1 ISP where I live. Not everyone in Europe is in a big city. And even in big cities, not every ISP is available at your house even though they advertise that they are in the area.
1. There are a lot of competing networks in the ground. Like, there are five cables reaching your house owned by five different ISPs that you can choose from.
2. There is one cable reaching your house, but the owner doesn't care too much about making money themselves, so they allow competitors to use it at a price where they can compete with the owner.
3. There is one cable reaching your house, but the government regulates the price at which the owner must rent it out to competitors without any restrictions on what the competitor may transmit over it.
(I work at a former state monopoly telco/ISP, specifically with wholesale business, where we sell other service providers access to our networks, as mandated by government regulation)
But don't be surprised if you find that the competition is a result of a sort of network neutrality regulation.
Since many ISPs also have cable bundles they have an active interest to block services like Netflix. So... do you see the horrendous picture? Shouldn't we, as citizens, be able to tell ISPs they have to provide everything to us EQUALLY and not block content?
The libertarian fantasy of 90s internet is dead and buried, repealing Net Neutrality is just pissing on it's grave.