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Comment by drusepth | Hacker News Reader

Assuming the other internet packages stay how they currently are and we start seeing cheaper introductory packages offering fewer internet services, can anyone explain why this is a bad thing?

It seems to me like people who would (and can) otherwise buy internet will continue to buy internet, but people who couldn't afford it or didn't want to afford it might jump on cheaper packages. This is especially illustrated in e.g. third-world countries where we have majorities still not connected to the internet (where a super-cheap Google/Facebook/whatever package would go far), but there are still many, many people in poverty here in America that don't have access to basic things online. Offering them a cheaper plan to access just the parts of the internet they want to use seems like a win-win here.

As long as it doesn't go the other way.

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I'm going to pretend this is a real question asked in good faith in case it is.

At present the internet is more or less a neutral marketplace in which everyone pays their way to get packets from source to destination. Much of America is served by only one to two members of a small group of huge isps who have more to gain from bilking me and you than from competing with each other.

If we let a cartel of isp who are the only way you can get internet access in a reasonable fashion decide who is allowed to do business on the internet and in what fashion you will find that your basic package ends up costing more than your present open internet and any perceived discount whatsoever is outweighed by the money that people like netflix pay per subscriber for access and must necessarily recoup by charging you for.

If the media companies even let players like netflix survive instead of slowly strangling them this sucks for you and netflix but as for future players they aren't part of the in group that is allowed to do business at a reasonable rate and they just never get off the ground.

The system you are ok with would have strangled kids like youtube and netflix in their cribs.

The basic economics of it is allowing them to decide what is served and at what individualized price changes the economics of the cost of internet companies serving customers from what a competitive market can charge (internet backend) to the most a market can bear under a monopoly (the last mile).

The cost of providing an internet connection is primarily about:

1. Peak bandwidth usage

2. The cost of building (and maintaining, see above) the cables

Killing net neutrality helps with neither of those, so any significant cost reductions (if there are any) will come from bribes from content providers. And guess who'll end up paying for those...

Can you explain who you're implying? If it's other customers, I'm completely okay with subsidizing people who couldn't otherwise afford internet. Whether it's my cost going up or the quality of my service going down, that seems reasonable; I can always buy a higher tier of service if I need it.

Offering a plan that only gives access to a few sites isn't dramatically cheaper for the ISP than offering full access. So the primary way the ISPs would offer a Netflix only deal for cheaper is if Netflix paid them to do so, leading Netflix to cost more or offer worse content.

Imagine the majority of people in entire countries only having access to Facebook (eg. via Facebook's own network infrastructure) and Facebook-approved websites.

When compared to the majority of people in entire countries not having any internet access at all, this seems desirable.

That's a false dichotomy.

It's also in response to an equally-hypothetical situation, IMO (which in turn is in response to asking about giving entire countries access to some subset of the Internet, especially [and explicitly] when they don't otherwise have Internet access).

I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that some large internet companies would subsidize plans like "Facebook-only" to connect more people to the Internet (see: to their service). This in turn, well, connects those people, gives them opportunities and access to knowledge they wouldn't otherwise have, and eventually opens them up to the rest of the Internet. It's a stepping stone: obviously, all internet is better than some internet, but some internet is better than no internet. There's an alternative of just giving them the full internet for free/cheap (which I'd love to see), but is obviously way less likely.

In that sense (and, to bring things back to the comment my parent is responding to), I think that providing a cheap plan that allows access to some subset of the Internet targeted at people who wouldn't otherwise have internet is preferable to those people just not having access at all. Is that wrong of me?

> It's also in response to an equally-hypothetical situation, IMO

Repeal of Net Neutrality makes his a possibility. Yours not so much.

I think that providing a cheap plan that allows access to some subset of the Internet targeted at people who wouldn't otherwise have internet is preferable to those people just not having access at all.

I think it's not preferable. I would rather see prices driven down through demand so that full access is affordable to all, then for an artificially low price that allowed access to a Facebook internet to kill the market for cheap plans.

> This in turn, well, connects those people, gives them opportunities and access to knowledge they wouldn't otherwise have, and eventually opens them up to the rest of the Internet.

The problem here is that the last part -- the part where these minimal plans lead to a path where the full internet is available in these underserved areas -- doesn't have to happen.

All it does is (incorrectly) teach those users that the internet is just a means to access Facebook and a few other partnered sites. You're teaching them to expect the cable TV model for their internet access, which is precisely what we want to avoid.

> It's also in response to an equally-hypothetical situation

It's not hypothetical. It has actually happened.

> I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that some large internet companies would subsidize plans...

Again, you don't have to assume. This has happened.

> I think that providing a cheap plan that allows access to some subset of the Internet targeted at people who wouldn't otherwise have internet is preferable to those people just not having access at all. Is that wrong of me?

Considering they would be losing a cheap plan that allows access to all of the internet in the process, yes, it is wrong of you.

Normally I'd agree with you, but the world was recently offered "Free Basics by Facebook" and had to decide between no internet vs practically Facebook only which I think the GP is alluding to.

So, it's not an invented hypothetical.

That was made by Facebook, and likely funded in part by the fact that they're guaranteed all of the traffic (and thus add revenue) from those internet connections and that it would generate a fair amount of positive PR.

As everyone else has pointed out - we'll be paying for the full cost (and probably quite a bit more based on ISPs previous behavior) of the connection one way or another. Either we pay for it through ISPs charging service owners for the privilege on being on the limited packages (thus upping the cost of the subscription indirectly for everyone) or ISPs forcibly create monopolies by pushing users on to their own web platforms, then raise prices later (as is the end goal of any push to fabricate a monopoly). It's pretty much strictly lose lose from the customers' point of view, at least in aggregate over the long term.

There is a component of internet that enables exploitation. And there is a component of internet that enables empowerment.

People, by default, will consume stuff that enables exploitation (Ads, Facebook and its friends, porn etc). Very few ll actively seek out stuff that empowers them, even when provided access.

But when you provide only, say, facebook, in the name of giving Internet, to a population, you open a new channel to that population, that is solely meant to exploit. This is probably what facebook tried to do with India and failed.

I think we were scared of giving them the power to let it go the other way (like you mentioned). However, that’s not the only point as to why net neutrality was in place. Comcast and other ISPs are businesses, and businesses need to protect their own interests. In any case Comcast can block any website they wish to block from here on out. If a website doesn’t align with their political/businesses opinions, they now have the power to wish those opinions away. If WSJ publishes an article about how Comcast messed up, just block access to it. Easy.

It's a bad thing because it would prevent new players from entering that market.

How could anyone successfully create a new competing product once the majority of the market uses the cheap Netflix+Hulu-only package, locking them out from any potential competitors?

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