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Comment by fortythirteen | Hacker News Reader

I'm interested in whether one of the two extreme sides of this debate will admit they were wrong when their prediction doesn't pan out.

Either we wind up with a tiered, cable package style internet or we don't. I'm in the "we won't" camp", but I'm also more disturbed by the monopolistic nature of ISP's that the regulations emboldened.

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I agree. I don't think we're going to get tiered packages. It's not good PR. There's a lot more to these predictions though. I think what's going to happen is that that the ISP's that own media content (the big ones, Comcast, AT&T, Dish, etc.) are going to be able to bully out both ISP and digital streaming competition.

Comcast isn't going to charge their customers more, they're going to charge Netflix more (to not throttle them). Netflix will have to raise prices, making Comcast's streaming service more attractive.

This is going to lead to consolidation of media and Internet companies, with less competition in both. Startups will have a harder time to succeed.

Think about how many households subscribe to Netflix and/or Amazon. Imagine how John Q. Public can be persuaded to complain to his ISP when Netflix puts a big banner in the app that says "your internet provider is stopping us from streaming Thor Ragnarok in HD."

If ISP's weren't a near monopoly, complaining might actually accomplish something. Realistically, those complaints are just going to fall on deaf ears.

"Hey, my service sucks and I'm not going to do business with you anymore! Cancel my service!"

5 minutes later

"So I spoke with the 1 other ISP in my county, and they charge even more insane rates than you. Thank god the free market allowed me to pick you and your superior service! LONG LIVE THE FREE MARKET!"

The fact of the matter is, there isn't enough competition in the sector for a free market approach to function. The government needs to go Bell Labs on the ISPs (and probably a few tech companies while we're at it).

netflix came to be a multibillion dollar business without these laws. more likely, we'll get more consumer friendly options over diverse, specialized 'types' of ISPs, thanks to caching, as we have seen like free music streaming on t-mobile or free netflix on flights. or more vital/cool things like guaranteed rates for remote medical monitoring through partnerships

Netflix came to be in an environment where custom and the threat of regulation stood in for actual regulation.

So what has changed? Why add regulation if there hasn't been any proven need yet? In my opinion the bad PR is more of a threat then regulation

Verizon sued the FCC to force them to regulate in more legally enforceable ways.

That sounds like a good thing. I am not familiar with the case though so not giving Verizon too much credit yet

in 2005, the FCC unanimously adopted a set of what we would now call net neutrality principles to protect customers under the new "information services" regulatory framework. Verizon successfully argued the FCC couldn't enforce those principles under that system, so in 2015 the FCC reverted to the stronger "telecommunications services" framework.

ISPs' actions and stated intentions prove the need. Other posts go into the details, so I won't repeat them.

PR only matters when there's meaningful competition. For most American households, there isn't.

> Either we wind up with a tiered, cable package style internet or we don't.

I don't follow this closely, but is this really the "against" position? I thought the premise was less that ISPs would offer tiered packages to the consumer, and more that ISPs would do deals with content companies, such that the consumer just sees slower speeds to sites that didn't pay up (and has no say in the matter apart from finding a new ISP (hah!)).

> and has no say in the matter apart from finding a new ISP

And that has nothing to do with NetNeutrality™. In fact NetNeutrality™ put in place an expensive regulatory process that often priced out small competitors.

> In fact NetNeutrality put in place an expensive regulatory process that often priced out small competitor

Could you please show how Net Neutrality was an expensive regulatory process. And then also show how it priced out small ISPs? Lastly, how is Net Neutrality as a concept a trademark?

Without above it comes over as an opinion, not fact.

Look at TechCruch's[0] weak argument against this (#4). They even have have to admit that it "potentially" does hinder competition, but claim temporary exemptions negate this. They use a single small ISP from SF (which has more resources than any other town in the world) as an example of it not being an issue.

You may not agree with either conclusion, but you must admit that it is the most weakly dismissed argument against added regulations.

[0] https://techcrunch.com/2017/05/19/these-are-the-arguments-ag...

> And that has nothing to do with NetNeutrality™.

The post you're replying to didn't suggest it does. Please don't do that thing people do where they pick out some random bit of a post to reply to as a hook to make an unrelated argument for the side they prefer.

How does it price out small competitors, no additional work needs to be performed to adhere to net neutrality guidelines afaik, as net neutrality is the default state after laying lines as I understand it.

And what if we get tiered internet... and consumers like it? "All the websites I use for one low price? Wow!" Internet nerds assume the public at large shares their romantic ideals of the open web but that might not be true.

Yeah the general public can be really stupid at times.

Count me in. I never watch HD video, which is a huge % of all the traffic of every ISP. I wish I could pay less money for an internet connection that was cheaper in exchange for not being able to watch HD video.

Do you really want a slower connection, or just a smaller data package? I'm ok with the latter - pay for what you use. The former, especially if it's bundled by content provider, worries me.

You can already do this.

This is already happening here in the Czech Republic with some of the mobile carriers. They exclude some websites or services from the mobile data limit, spinning it exactly as you said: as a service to the subscriber. Looks like an obvious neutrality violation to me, but the current EU legislation seems to be too weak to strike it down immediately. What’s worse, the media don’t seem to care.

And we all know Czech is the trendsetter for all things technology.

What I meant was that (a) companies are already spinning this as an advancement for the consumers and (b) consumers seem to be happy about it so far.

Exactly, most internet consumers like that their internet experience is extremely centralized. For them it's an entertainment system and the more centralized it is the simpler and more fluid it is.

Who cares that monopolized content delivery enables large scale surveillance and manipulation with dire socioeconomic consequences?

Isn't that already the case though, regardless of net neutrality? Seems the large scale surveillance and manipulation will happen, whether it is legal or not.

I think that dystopian vision falls apart when you factor in porn, because that's the #1 use and no ISP is going to add a porn tier. People will flip their lid when they can't get to pornhub.

I'd be shocked if things change immediately. Several states are implementing their own Net Neutrality regulations since FCC ceded regulatory authority on the issue, this looks like a transient situation that galvanizes further support for net neutrality to me. I don't think this is settled until Congress actually passes a law; considering how popular net neutrality regulations are, if Democrats win the House, it could happen in 2019 with bipartisan support in the Senate.

One counterpoint: 20-states have anti-municipal broadband legislation, because "reasons". I don't think we can really trust the states here to be looking out for the citizens.

Tiered packages are not the issue. Three issue is that service providers and large incumbent internet content providers will be in a position to block smaller competitors from access to customers.

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