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Comment by rosser | Hacker News Reader

I'm so glad the end of Net Neutrality has ushered in an era of unprecedented competition in the broadband market.

EDIT: Yes, this acquisition is of the content division of Time Warner, not the ISP, which was previously acquired — by another broadband provider, mooting my general point how, again?

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As noted in other comments this is Time Warner the entertainment assets (not cable co). But it's equally bad at the end of Net Neutrality, as it gives AT&T direct motivation to interfere with competing services trying to offer entertainment over the internet to any customers who happen to get access via AT&T.

This has nothing to do with the broadband market. Time Warner Cable was spun off from Time Warner in 2009 and subsequently bought up by Spectrum in 2016.

It has plenty to do with the broadband market, if you happen to be an AT&T subscriber, and especially if they're your only choice. This, coupled with their no longer being restrained from the kinds of shenanigans that NN barred, positions them to force preferential choices on their subscribers and wring more money out of them for the privilege of accessing competing services.

This is only good for people holding T and TWX, and probably not even most of them.

I would certainly agree with that but your original comment was specifically about competition in the broadband market, which this deal has absolutely zero effect on and your post seemed to be based on the common misunderstanding of TWC still being part of TW.

Sloppy and emotionally-driven phrasing on my part, sorry. I hope my edit and follow-up to yours have clarified my position.

That's one of my complaints when courts pretend to rule in favor of stock holders rights. In practice there is an inherent conflict of interest between management and the stockholders whose interests are diverse and barely represented.

What? The almighty market doesn't solve the Principal-Agent Problem? [0]

Like, say it ain't so, man.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principal%E2%80%93agent_proble...

Nobody wants to be "dumb pipes".

Cable companies created regional monopolies with municipalities and used that protection to lay their lines. By the time the 1992 Cable Television Consumer Protection and Competition Act rolled around, they'd established natural monopolies based on that infrastructure and they have benefitted from that ever since.

They don't want to be "dumb pipes", but they also won't give access to those dumb pipes, ensuring that no one else can compete with them upstream. Seems they shouldn't be able to have it both ways, but here we are. So, the next-best-thing would be to assign protection through edicts like Net Neutrality and rigorous anti-trust policing.

Yet, these are now being dismantled as well. Not a good place we're heading.

Another comment [1] indicated that "this isn't the internet Time Warner (...) this is the entertainment Time Warner".

Is that correct? (I'm not familiar with the US broadband market)

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17297966

Time Warner Cable (the ISP) was already bought by Charter and renamed to Spectrum.

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