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Comment by craftyguy | Hacker News Reader

My ISP is capable of denying services to me, its customer, based on principle (e.g. it conflicts with their business model). Ergo, they regulate what I can/cannot do. Without government regulation to say "bad ISP, bad", they can regulate my ability to access services and charge me more to slowly peel back that regulation.

In case you are still confused, here's the definition of 'regulation':

> to control or direct by a rule, principle, method

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> My ISP

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.

Absolutely this. Competition is the best regulation there is because it responds directly to the customer.

Competition is only the best regulation if the majority of the customers both know and care about correcting for the issues that regulation would usually cover, which is not true here (a maximum of 16 million legitimate comments were filed by the public on the FCC's decision, less than 10% of the 280 million or so internet users in the US), and so your comment is irrelevant, even ignoring the government-enforced regional monopolies that many ISPs have as a result of buying off local politicians.

Yeah, true. The best way towards safe food and drugs certainly is by relying on the expertise of the average customer to figure out what's dnagerous and what is not. Who is better equipped to judge the biological long-term effects of some mislabeled, contaminated food than your average customer?

Counterpoints: Tobacco. Cocaine. Morphine. Heroin. Laudanum. Alcohol. Car seatbelts. Leaded gasoline, paint, and glassware. Mercury (in hats, as a toy). Radon (in water), X-rays (for shoe fitting!), and Uranium (dentures).

Ok, and right now I'm "regulating" my fingers into typing a comment.

Or maybe there's more to the word, particularly in context, than the shortest dictionary definition you were able to find.

Well it's a widely accepted definition[1], so it's a bit ironic that you fail to understand there's more to the word, particularly in context. Popular synonyms include things like "restrict", "restrain", "control".

1) https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/regulate

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