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Comment by TomMckenny | Hacker News Reader

Perhaps because if it were really a tech anti-trust summit, ISPs would be the chief topic. Or at least discussed somewhere. So a better description is tech contribution shake down.

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I do remember these 600-comments threads regarding net neutrality and how it will be the end of the world once repealed because evil ISP will charge folks for each bit.

2 years ago net neutrality was repealed.

1. Has anything changed to the worse, consumer-wise?

2. Was there any postmortem acknowledging the fact that the end of net neutrality, unlike predicted, isn't the end of the world?

Many groups, including the EFF, engaged in fear-mongering claiming the most important reason for Net Neutrality was to prevent ISPs from de-platforming and censoring free speech. It turns out the ISPs never engaged in that kind of activity, and instead the organizations that increasingly engage in and rationalize such infringements are the ones that lobbied for NN.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/06/attack-net-neutrality-...

Relatedly, ever since the repeal of NN, internet speeds are up and prices are staying flat. https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/average-internet-spe...

The monopolies' _claim_ of benevolence is irrelevant. Nor does it mater what anonymous voices on HN said. I at least have the limited option of using Bing and DuckDuckGo for search. But I have no choice for ISPs.

Demanding a free market in America did not use to be controversial. But for two years now, under a sea of double think, it's just used as cover for political cronyism and contribution shakedowns.

It is the regulations themselves, not the lack of them, that have allowed for these de facto monopolies to form. These have been at the local level, where practical considerations were relevant (my local company often has a cable mess going on 30ft up these poles), but they went overboard. Should a given city allow 30 companies to string cable across their poles? I think it is up to the city, but if they make a mistake it shouldn't be the company that is punished. Local governments often disrupt free enterprise with their regulations for a reason, but when they get things wrong we should acknowledge that.

We don't need 30 duplicate lines across country for competition so we don't need them for the last mile. And quite a few municipalities do allow multiple wires. But even so ISPs don't invade each others territory. The over-regulation stories, among others, are simply untruths promulgated to provide plausible pro-monopoly sentiment.

If the US wants something that works, then just do something that works. For example [1]

At any rate, the ISP arguments are well known. And are about as moot as appeals to a free market or the public good. In the current environment, no amount of evidence concerning monopolies will change policy that is fundamentally based solely on political favoritism and retribution.

[1]https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2010/03/uk-regulators-of...

Do you believe the ends justify the means?

Ninja edit: If you do, we are not talking about anything other than straight civil war.

>Do you believe the ends justify the means?

In the colloquial sense of that phrase, certainly not. Any honest calculation about the ends includes _all_ events that cause it. That necessarily includes the costs of the means.

> If you do, we are not talking about anything other than straight civil war.

I don't believe that is possible under any circumstances. The pattern being followed in the US is not at all unique. It is essentially identical to several other nations which are going or have gone down this path. There was never more than a broken window and burning trash can or two. (which of course are always portrayed as world ending violence justifying yet more authoritarian behavior)

In the end, either the public notices the situation in time and somehow gets enough ballots counted that they return the country to sanity (enough ballots to overcome gerrymandering, the electoral college, the unbalanced senate, systematic disfranchisement and foreign interference)

Or the country follows the same path that Hungary and Poland are on now, towards a hyper nationalistic, xenophobic kleptocracy. Essentially the same choice soon to be faced by several other western countries (and India and Turkey btw).

America is based on an idea, not historical aristocracy or genealogy (i.e. blood and soil). We were founded on freedom. The US, as the first start-up country is simply not comparable to other countries. This is why an American conservative is not comparable to a European conservative. Certain degenerates are attempting to import these European ideas into the US (e.g. Bannon), but I will not condone these illiberal policies that are contrary to the founding of America.

Clearly Trump's party is crucially different than John McCain's. It's unimaginable that McCain would keep kids in cages, call the press "enemy of the people", lead chants to lock up political opponents, undermine NATO, or encourage hostile powers to assist his candidacy. I may not be a conservative, but whatever else may be said of the old McCain-Regan-Rockefeller party, they would certainly never, ever engage in any of these obscene activities.

And I entirely agree, the US does have some considerable advantages:

- the "blood and soil" ideology is very alien (though not unprecedented as seen by the first, more obvious, "America first" movement [1] and later by John Birch)

- it's had 240 years of voting and some notion of civil-personal rights

- there's nice separation of powers. (Although it's becoming apparent that a president with >33% of the Senate can exercise almost unlimited authority.)

But these advantages are not automated, people have to use and defend them. The judiciary is especially delicate, it's been the first thing targeted by the other neo-autocrats.

Also there is a possibility of over confidence in these institutions ("it can't happen here"). And there's an unfortunate dose of denial ("he did not mean that literally"). And inexperience (modern Germans know exactly what the AfD is and how dangerous it is)

But absolutely, the future is not written yet and certainly I too am never going to be shut up.

By the way, the Bannon influence is so obvious (and 1930's obsessed) that you see Trump threatening opponents with half understood ideas of a paramilitary somehow made out of "bikers and police"[2]

[1] https://vimeo.com/237489146 [2] https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/434110-trump-sug...

Yes, most of the horrible things that were claimed came to pass. Data caps, getting paid twice for the same stream. Data prioritization, deep packet inspection, DNS injection. Every way imaginable things have gotten worse for consumers save for token and widely woefully poor increases in Internet speeds that most other countries beat for a fraction of the price. Internet prices have also nearly doubled in my area.

Just incidental that an overwhelming majority of tech giants' employees pledge allegiance to the left, while having unregulated, monopoly control over information dissemination? When was the last time an ISP de-platformed someone for their politics?

So yes, the "anti-trust" talk is politically motivated? And proudly so because the employees have "pledged allegiance to the left"?

Strangely, there seems to be a very large number of people who decry google's information "monopoly" because of the blogs and youtube(!) videos they found while googling. A group that, given their power in government, is certainly not being oppressed.

And as a side note, I use no Alphabet product and obviously run an ad blocker. You'll find there are a great many technologists that do so. So, while there are certainly issues, the monopoly talk is obviously intentional hyperbole promulgated for political reasons.

As compared to, say ISPs which actually are monopolies. Or even Sinclair broadcasting which actually does control all media in some regions. But those genuine monopolies are not objectionable because they align politically with the party in power.

This pattern does correspond with some political systems but certainly not democratic, rule-of-law forms.

Who is "pledging allegiance" and where are these pledges?

It's a deeply disappointing realization that to a lot of people, basic human decency, integrity in disseminating truth, and a consistent view of facts has become a partisan issue because of the Republican party.

Please don't take HN threads further into partisan flamewar.

Also, it looks like you've been using HN primarily for political battle. Important though those issues are, we ban accounts that do that on HN, because it's not what this site is for and destroys the curiosity that it is for. If you would review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and use HN as intended, we'd be grateful.

Or the fact that what was once a cornerstone of American Conservatism has now disappeared entirely, the free market economy. "I can't compete in the marketplace of ideas, I need government intervention, subsidies, import tariffs to break up those big bad 'leftist' companies, I'm not smart/strong/good enough to do it myself."

Reagan is spinning in his grave.

They managed the amazing feat of being both anti-free market and anti-social-safety at the same time.

Perhaps a big-tent pro-democracy, pro-rule of law party will emerge as a counter weight somehow.

The amount of illiberal ideas coming out of many people scares the shit out of me. Banning anything is not liberal, it's authoritarian.

The alt right isn’t being deplatformed because of their politics, so much as because they are trolls. Triggering the libs necessarily antagonizes a significant portion of the user base, which tarnishes the brand and subtracts value.

Note that a mirror image of these types exist on the left, and they also tend to be despised. Again it’s not about the politics. It’s about being an unpleasant person.

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